555 - is it faster? low light use?

Can anyone answer these questions about the Optio 555?

How does it work in low light?

How fast is it for:
Start Up Time
Shutter Laf
Focus Lag
Shot to Shot

Initially, I was very tempted by the 550, but since I need a camera for indoor shots with low light I was turned off by all of the comments about how it was not good in low light and was a bit slow.

The lens is great, and the size is as large as I will allow myslef to go... I am very very tempted by the Minolta G500 -but the 5x lens on the 555 is a really attractive option...

So any ideas on speed and low light functionality?

Thanks in advance!!

Jaq
--

I found part of the answer here:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/optio555.html

"The Pentax Optio 555 is an average performer from start-up to the first shot captured at just under 5 seconds. Shot-to-shot time in single exposure mode is about 2 seconds without the flash or about 4 seconds with the flash. In the continuous mode you can capture 5 frames in about 4 seconds."

BUT... still nothing about low light functionality and this is really an issue - ok, it has a great flash, and the hybrid system - but DOES IT WORK WELL IN LOW LIGHT?

jaqjaq said:

Can anyone answer these questions about the Optio 555?

How does it work in low light?

How fast is it for:
Start Up Time
Shutter Laf
Focus Lag
Shot to Shot

Initially, I was very tempted by the 550, but since I need a camera
for indoor shots with low light I was turned off by all of the
comments about how it was not good in low light and was a bit slow.

The lens is great, and the size is as large as I will allow myslef
to go... I am very very tempted by the Minolta G500 -but the 5x
lens on the 555 is a really attractive option...

So any ideas on speed and low light functionality?

Thanks in advance!!

Jaq
--

Click to expand...

--

I have confirmation from a new user that the startup time is faster at about 3.5 seconds instead of the Optio 550's 5 to 6 seconds. Rumour has it that pre-focus shutter lack has been improved from the O550's 130 msec., but this has not been confirmed, and wouldn't be an issue anyway in low light where the shutter speed will typically be slow anyway. More of an issue for action shots.

As to low light performance, that depends on what you mean, as covering in another thread. Read the threads to which I have contributed.

The nose problem is no longer there, if that is the low light problem to which you refer.

Flash performance with the Optio 550 wasn't bad, and the 555 should be better if anything, with a more easily adjusted flash strength and a usable ISO 200/400.

Low light focusing is a non-issue if one learns to use the tools the camera provides, including the passive IR system. This has possibly been improved in the O555, but this has not been confirmed. The improvement we are looking for is to have the camera return to the best estimate of focus distance from the passive system instead of a front focus position if the contrast is too low to achieve a contrast detection lock.

Hope this helps, GordonBGood

jaqjaq said:

"The Pentax Optio 555 is an average performer from start-up to the
first shot captured at just under 5 seconds. Shot-to-shot time in
single exposure mode is about 2 seconds without the flash or about
4 seconds with the flash. In the continuous mode you can capture 5
frames in about 4 seconds."

BUT... still nothing about low light functionality and this is
really an issue - ok, it has a great flash, and the hybrid system -
but DOES IT WORK WELL IN LOW LIGHT?

jaqjaq said:

Can anyone answer these questions about the Optio 555?

How does it work in low light?

How fast is it for:
Start Up Time
Shutter Laf
Focus Lag
Shot to Shot

Initially, I was very tempted by the 550, but since I need a camera
for indoor shots with low light I was turned off by all of the
comments about how it was not good in low light and was a bit slow.

The lens is great, and the size is as large as I will allow myslef
to go... I am very very tempted by the Minolta G500 -but the 5x
lens on the 555 is a really attractive option...

So any ideas on speed and low light functionality?

Thanks in advance!!

Jaq
--

Click to expand...

--

Click to expand...

Thanks Gordon

I have read a lot of your other postings in the threads and appreciate your comments a lot!

I guess what I am asking is - if I am indoors, in a dark room (let's say a restaurant or bar) with friends, will I be able to press the button and take a photo? Or will the camera search and search for an object to focus on?

The two most positive comments I have seen on this regard were:

1. Sony DSC V1 - 'press the button and it shoots like a film camera'

and

2. Minolta G500 (from Jim of course!) "The Konica (Minolta G500) does warn you (blinking light by the viewfinder) when light is too low for a totally accurate focus. But, I've found that if ignore the light, and simply press the shutter button down and let it fire, the focus comes out fine. I've taken lots of photos in virtual darkness, that still came out in focus (despite it's lack of a focus assist lamp).

How does the Optio 555 compare? Unfortunately, I can only test in a camera shop where it is pretty well lit!

Gordon, your comment "Low light focusing is a non-issue if one learns to use the tools the camera provides, including the passive IR system" Is very interesting... and one I need to consider - If there are 'work arounds' to working in low light that will allow me to easily take these shots once I get used to the camera -

Thank you for reminding me that there are things to get around these issues...

I just took my new 555 to a Halloween party and took many photos in the entirely black-lit house and the dimly flourescent lit garage and all pictures turned out great! I didn't have a single one out of focus. Some pictures took a little longer than others to take, but I wasn't paying too much attention to the focus lights. The ones under the black light came out with perfect colors. I don't know how! The flash works great.

Thank you Kellie - that is the sort of comment I was looking for - although isn't Halloween not until tomorrow

Gordon - your comment to Marj - ' a learning cycle in learning to use its AF systems effectively in low light conditions, same for setting flash exposures,'

Is the most interesting - you imply again that there IS a learning curve and that once mastered, the low light indoor party 'snap' shots should work - and Kellie seems to prove it below.. (not artsy with a tripod shots, but simple party shots)

I am still undecided - but this has put the 555 back in the running...
Jim's G500 or the 555...

And although the V1 is just about perfect (Yes, EJN, you were correct it is great, but...), I just dont like the way it feels or using memory sticks and it is a bit big - totally personal decission otherwise it meets my needs 100%... I kept trying to keep it on the list...

Kellie said:

I just took my new 555 to a Halloween party and took many photos in
the entirely black-lit house and the dimly flourescent lit garage
and all pictures turned out great! I didn't have a single one out
of focus. Some pictures took a little longer than others to take,
but I wasn't paying too much attention to the focus lights. The
ones under the black light came out with perfect colors. I don't
know how! The flash works great.

Click to expand...

--

Likewise, I tried shooting a couple of test time shots where the exposure worked out to being about 8 secs at f/2.8 @ ISO400. The focus confirmation light was blinking (indicating focus was not locked), but the passive infrared did a pretty good job (my focus was somewhat near focused, but the image was still usable). The shutter lag was also quite long here as the contrast detection system hunts, and ultimately fails to lock. I'd suspect that your results may vary since I doubt Pentax calibrates the passive IR; I believe it's primarily to get the contrast detection "within a reasonable range".

That said the Optio 555 seems well suited for low-light. Probably my biggest issue with it so far has been it's autofocus speed. I'm not sure its that much worse than other point-and-shoot digicams, but its notably worse than my Digital SLR. It did seem comparable with the Canon and Nikon cameras that I compared it to. But for a small, lightweight, high-quality picture, I think the Optio 555 is quite good (particularly since they've addressed the Optio 550 high ISO noise issue, sped up the start-up time, and corrected the "unsharp" video out preview image issue).

James

Thanks James - your other postings of the 550/555 comparisons have been very useful too.

Since you do have both the 550 and 555 - do you notice the 555 lag time is better? Is it really faster? What are the three major improvements in your eyes? (besides the +1 mp!)

What tricks do you use to get good indoor party shots and not have the camera 'search' for the focus?

Another plus in the Pentax book is their website - full manuals for download (I have the 555 manual in PDF from it), firmware, etc... it is a very organised site and therefore inspires confidence in support from the manufacturer.

Gordon,

I just got my 555 fired up tonight and I'm trying to take pictures in my family room which is lit by a few lamps. I tried taking a few photos of my 3 year old daughter and I'm finding that the auto focus is hunting for 2-3 seconds before being able to lock on. By the time it has, she has moved and I have lost my shot. I think JAQ is worried about exactly ths type of situation.

You mention that "low light focusing is a non-issue if one learns to use the tools the camera provides." Can you expand on that a little. I have not found a way on my own.

Thanks,

Chris

GordonBGood said:

I have confirmation from a new user that the startup time is faster
at about 3.5 seconds instead of the Optio 550's 5 to 6 seconds.
Rumour has it that pre-focus shutter lack has been improved from
the O550's 130 msec., but this has not been confirmed, and wouldn't
be an issue anyway in low light where the shutter speed will
typically be slow anyway. More of an issue for action shots.

As to low light performance, that depends on what you mean, as
covering in another thread. Read the threads to which I have
contributed.

The nose problem is no longer there, if that is the low light
problem to which you refer.

Flash performance with the Optio 550 wasn't bad, and the 555 should
be better if anything, with a more easily adjusted flash strength
and a usable ISO 200/400.

Low light focusing is a non-issue if one learns to use the tools
the camera provides, including the passive IR system. This has
possibly been improved in the O555, but this has not been
confirmed. The improvement we are looking for is to have the
camera return to the best estimate of focus distance from the
passive system instead of a front focus position if the contrast is
too low to achieve a contrast detection lock.

Hope this helps, GordonBGood

Click to expand...

As discussed in other threads, you can set focus to infinity and take the shot. This has always worked for me.

I set the User mode up for night shots and whenever I need to ake shots I just select that mode and I know the shots will be fast and turn out.

I change settings such as exposure (increase ev by 1) etc.

Experiment at first to get the right settings then save them under the User mode

Chris DiBianco said:

I just got my 555 fired up tonight and I'm trying to take pictures
in my family room which is lit by a few lamps. I tried taking a
few photos of my 3 year old daughter and I'm finding that the auto
focus is hunting for 2-3 seconds before being able to lock on. By
the time it has, she has moved and I have lost my shot. I think
JAQ is worried about exactly ths type of situation.

You mention that "low light focusing is a non-issue if one learns
to use the tools the camera provides." Can you expand on that a
little. I have not found a way on my own.

Thanks,

Chris

GordonBGood said:

I have confirmation from a new user that the startup time is faster
at about 3.5 seconds instead of the Optio 550's 5 to 6 seconds.
Rumour has it that pre-focus shutter lack has been improved from
the O550's 130 msec., but this has not been confirmed, and wouldn't
be an issue anyway in low light where the shutter speed will
typically be slow anyway. More of an issue for action shots.

As to low light performance, that depends on what you mean, as
covering in another thread. Read the threads to which I have
contributed.

The nose problem is no longer there, if that is the low light
problem to which you refer.

Flash performance with the Optio 550 wasn't bad, and the 555 should
be better if anything, with a more easily adjusted flash strength
and a usable ISO 200/400.

Low light focusing is a non-issue if one learns to use the tools
the camera provides, including the passive IR system. This has
possibly been improved in the O555, but this has not been
confirmed. The improvement we are looking for is to have the
camera return to the best estimate of focus distance from the
passive system instead of a front focus position if the contrast is
too low to achieve a contrast detection lock.

Hope this helps, GordonBGood

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Chris - you are spot on regarding the issue!

Wazaa wrote:

As discussed in other threads, you can set focus to infinity and take the shot. This has always worked for me.

I set the User mode up for night shots and whenever I need to ake shots I just select that mode and I know the shots will be fast and turn out.

I change settings such as exposure (increase ev by 1) etc.

Experiment at first to get the right settings then save them under the User mode

Wazaa - is this for the 555?
So for Optio 555
Use night mode
Set Focus to Infinity
Increase Exposure by 1

experiment until you get the best settings
then save them in your own personal 'party shots mode'!

Thanks Wazaa!!

No, I don't use night mode. I set all my own settings and save it in the User setting. eg EV up by 1 to 1.3, focus to infinity, contrast at low

AE metering set to spot, Saturation in middle, contrast on low, Sensitivty set to 200.

Have fun.

jaqjaq said:

Chris - you are spot on regarding the issue!

Wazaa wrote:
As discussed in other threads, you can set focus to infinity and
take the shot. This has always worked for me.

I set the User mode up for night shots and whenever I need to ake
shots I just select that mode and I know the shots will be fast and
turn out.

I change settings such as exposure (increase ev by 1) etc.

Experiment at first to get the right settings then save them under
the User mode

Wazaa - is this for the 555?
So for Optio 555
Use night mode
Set Focus to Infinity
Increase Exposure by 1

experiment until you get the best settings
then save them in your own personal 'party shots mode'!

Thanks Wazaa!!

Click to expand...

Waza, thanks that was informative. Were you using the built in flash? I think I understood most of what you said, but there were a couple I didn't understand. I'd be interested in any more comments on this subject.

Here are the ones I think I understand:

EV up by 1 - 1.3: You are in essense telling the camera to increase shutter speed (assuming apperature will be wide open), and this makes sense because there are a lot more truely dark areas in the picture.

Focus to infinitiy: Auto-focus won't work and infinity will be correct a lot of the time, you could also set focus to manual and guess based on distance.

AE to spot: Meter based on the target, not all the black space around it.

Sensitivty set to 200: The higher the sensitivity, the less light the sensor needs, so selecting a higher ISO will make the exposures quicker. You could set it to 400 for even greater sensitivity, but might not because of the added noise images have at that level.

Here are the ones I didn't:

Saturation in middle: I don't know about this, where's an explanation of saturation?

Contrast on low: I understand what contrast is, and I suppose you might expect less contrast at night since there is less light, but I'm not really sure.

tenbsmith

These settings are the ones I use but you will have to experiment to get the settings that turn out photos you like.

As for the two points I didn't explain well

1. I have saturation on low for all normal shots as I prefer it that way - I post process. I set saturation to middle for low light shots as it just seems to work. I guess because the camera's firmware seems to do a better job under these conditions than Photoshop ??? It justworks

2. The same is true for the contrast setting - it is what I have found works for me.

Cheers

tenbsmith said:

Waza, thanks that was informative. Were you using the built in
flash? I think I understood most of what you said, but there were
a couple I didn't understand. I'd be interested in any more
comments on this subject.

Here are the ones I think I understand:

EV up by 1 - 1.3: You are in essense telling the camera to increase
shutter speed (assuming apperature will be wide open), and this
makes sense because there are a lot more truely dark areas in the
picture.

Focus to infinitiy: Auto-focus won't work and infinity will be
correct a lot of the time, you could also set focus to manual and
guess based on distance.

AE to spot: Meter based on the target, not all the black space
around it.

Sensitivty set to 200: The higher the sensitivity, the less light
the sensor needs, so selecting a higher ISO will make the exposures
quicker. You could set it to 400 for even greater sensitivity, but
might not because of the added noise images have at that level.

Here are the ones I didn't:

Saturation in middle: I don't know about this, where's an
explanation of saturation?

Contrast on low: I understand what contrast is, and I suppose you
might expect less contrast at night since there is less light, but
I'm not really sure.

Click to expand...

Actually, since I "upgraded" from the 550 to the 555, there was no increase in resolution. Probably the things I've noticed most (sort of in order) are:

1. Improved high ISO noise. Now the ISO 400 is usable without additional noise reduction. With the 550, ISO 200 was usable but required a noise reduction software such as NeatImage.

2. Improved start-up time. The start-up time is around 3.5 seconds; on the 550 it was just over 5 seconds.

3. Images previewed on a TV aren't blurry. On the 550, the image would be blurry unless you hit the zoom to magnify the image to 1.1x.

4. Optical zoom is usable (by presetting) in movie mode, for those who use movie mode. I don't really use this mode very much, but having a way to use the optical zoom is handy if you do.

5. The now have a flash exposure compensation. In the Optio 550, the exposure compensation doubled as the flash exposure compensation.

did you notice anything better in low light shadows? i've noticed a lot of noise in shadows. like, indoors, when there aren't really bright lights, at night. the shadows are really bad. and i also noticed noise, like green dots, in another indoor shot

n/t

n/t

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=6521822

Gordon really explains low light photo taking tips in the afore mentioned post!

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=6521822

Gordon really explains low light photo taking tips in the afore mentioned post!