Nx300- how to improve low light performance?

Nxfan23 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have an nx300 with 20-50 kit lens. The outdoor/ lighted shots have been great but the indoor shots have been very poor. for indoor portraits the pictures have been blurry and the subjects are not properly focused on. (terrible when subject slightly moves) Also upon examining the photos on a computer they are overly grainy and show heavy noise reduction at iso1600 and 3200. I have not been using the flash due to many of the portraits being of a small infant. I have tried several shooting modes auto, program, aperture but nothing looks good. Because of the low light performance I am thinking of movimg away from samsung cameras.

Any advice? will a 30mm f2 or 18-50 ois lens be better?

Thank you in advance!

Most of the pictures I shoot are indoors in artificial light, no flash (my family, especially kids, in the evening after work). I'm happy with the results. Proper focus is the key. 20-50mm is both dark and acquire focus very slowly so it's very likely that person moved a bit after camera confirmed focus and before it captured the picture. 18-50 OIS would be better because of OIS but only for static subjects. The best results I get from 45mm - it's both fast focusing and bright. You cannot make proper picture of running kid in dark room but for reasonable scene with limited movement it's fine. The same for 30mm - bright but focuses slower. Still good.

The other possibility is that camera sets long exposure time and picture is shaken. I find it very likely because 20-50 is very dark on long end (5.6) so for ISO 1600 I would not expect exposre 1/125.

First I recommend switching to S mode (on top dial - not auto, P or A, they're not good here) and setting time for 125ms. Take a few pictures of static objects. Make sure that there is no underexposure (red indicator at the bottom should be in the middle). This will give you sharp picture. If you find it blurry then upload the picture and check your noise reduction settings in camera, can be too aggressive.

If you get a sharp picture then consider 30mm or 45mm.  You will be able to shot in much darker conditions with times like 1/125ms. which I consider reasonable minimum for not completely static scene.