Canon S400 indoor shots -- are they better than this?

[Adam Lasnik]

I just took my first set of indoor 5mp/fine-setting photos with my Minolta DiMage F300 camera, and I'm extremely discouraged.

Unless I'm convinced by other F300 owners (in the Minolta Forum) that my camera appears defective, I'm returning it this week and selecting a different camera.

I had been deciding between this Minolta and the Canon S400, and I'd be very grateful if you'd take a look at this gallery and let me know if you think I can expect considerably better pics from the S400:

http://smilezone.fotki.com/minoltaf300/catscorner/ (uploading as of 4am PST, likely to be finished by 6am PST):

The 'scaled down' versions look passable, but check out the originals! The noise levels are hideously high, even on the people directly covered (within 7 feet) of the flash.

Some facts about the photos:

• All photos were taken at the 5mp / Fine setting.
• Most of the photos were taken on the 'auto' setting, with no EV compensation.
• The only post-processing I did was to do lossless jpeg rotations as applicable.

I'm very eager to hear from you whether this sort of noise level is typical in ultra-compacts, or whether I could expect better performance from the S400 -- and if so, by how much. I'm willing to give up the neato manual controls of the F300 if it means that I'm bound to enjoy a majority of crisp and clear indoor shots via 'point-and-shoot.'

I'm really distraught about this situation. I had done so much research on this camera (and other ultra-compacts) before purchasing, and I'm very sad to send it back, but as I noted above, I simply cannot be proud of shots like this. Oddly, the F300 did seem to take some beautiful macro shots (see http://smilezone.fotki.com/minoltaf300/macro ). But that's not my main interest in having a camera!

 

[h3535]

what ISO did you shot with? can you adjust F300's ISO setting?

with a s400, you can set up ISO manually. try a lower ISo seting, like ISO50, ISO100, the photos should be much cleaner.

I just took my first set of indoor 5mp/fine-setting photos with my
Minolta DiMage F300 camera, and I'm extremely discouraged.

Unless I'm convinced by other F300 owners (in the Minolta Forum)
that my camera appears defective, I'm returning it this week and
selecting a different camera.

I had been deciding between this Minolta and the Canon S400, and
I'd be very grateful if you'd take a look at this gallery and let
me know if you think I can expect considerably better pics from the
S400:
http://smilezone.fotki.com/minoltaf300/catscorner/ (uploading as of
4am PST, likely to be finished by 6am PST):

The 'scaled down' versions look passable, but check out the
originals! The noise levels are hideously high, even on the people
directly covered (within 7 feet) of the flash.

Some facts about the photos:

• All photos were taken at the 5mp / Fine setting.
• Most of the photos were taken on the 'auto' setting, with no EV

compensation.

• The only post-processing I did was to do lossless jpeg rotations

as applicable.

I'm very eager to hear from you whether this sort of noise level is
typical in ultra-compacts, or whether I could expect better
performance from the S400 -- and if so, by how much. I'm willing
to give up the neato manual controls of the F300 if it means that
I'm bound to enjoy a majority of crisp and clear indoor shots via
'point-and-shoot.'

I'm really distraught about this situation. I had done so much
research on this camera (and other ultra-compacts) before
purchasing, and I'm very sad to send it back, but as I noted above,
I simply cannot be proud of shots like this. Oddly, the F300 did
seem to take some beautiful macro shots (see
http://smilezone.fotki.com/minoltaf300/macro ). But that's not my
main interest in having a camera!

 

[Bob the Printer88467]

Can't tell you if the S400 would do any better, but I believe it would.

As for your 'macro' shots, they're not really 'macro' shots! Here's a MACRO shot, taken with my lowly $350 Canon A70 set to aperture priority (f8) of Andrew Jackson on a 20 dollar bill. (I can't afford a 100 dollar bill and that's one reason why I got the A70!
..
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bdolson/a70/jacksonlg.jpg



Sincerely, Bob the Printer

 

[Jens O. Nygaard]

Can't tell you if the S400 would do any better, but I believe it
would.

So do I. I can't back it up with photos
I can safely publish, I've
had the S400 for too short a time yet, but
it looks as if your pictures are iso 400 or
something, which should not be necessary
when using a flash, I think.
Also, you have a lot of red eyes there.
With my s400, I simply cannot manage
to get red eyes at all... Think it must be the
glaring anti-red-eye-light they have added...

J.O.

--
http://bombadil.ods.org:8080/digicam/

 

[Adam Lasnik]

what ISO did you shot with? can you adjust F300's ISO setting?
with a s400, you can set up ISO manually. try a lower ISo seting,
like ISO50, ISO100, the photos should be much cleaner.

I shot in full-auto mode for most of the photos.
The camera selected ISO 200.
I used no flash or ev compensation.

I worry that if I set ISO 100, the flash coverage would have been even worse than it already was!

One thing that'd be interesting to note here is that when I took the camera to another indoor dance a couple of nights prior and shot at the 2.0mp setting, the photos turned out much crisper and with better illumination! See here:
http://smilezone.fotki.com/minoltaf300/indoor_dance/

Strange, huh?

I'm thinking that the F300 5mp CCD is perhaps just not very robust.

It is also possible, in fairness, that I just got a bum unit, but that's hard to believe when I see how nice the macro shots came out:
http://smilezone.fotki.com/minoltaf300/macro/

 

[Adam Lasnik]

Can't tell you if the S400 would do any better, but I believe it
would.

As for your 'macro' shots, they're not really 'macro' shots! Here's
a MACRO shot, taken with my lowly $350 Canon A70 set to aperture
priority (f8) of Andrew Jackson on a 20 dollar bill. (I can't
afford a 100 dollar bill and that's one reason why I got the A70!

Wow, what a great shot!

Oh, and for the record, I can't afford a $100 bill, either, which is why I used a fake one

 

[Adam Lasnik]

Can't tell you if the S400 would do any better, but I believe it
would.

So do I. I can't back it up with photos
I can safely publish, I've
had the S400 for too short a time yet,

Well, if you'd be comfortable e-mailing them to me, that'd be super, but if they're indeed truly private, I'll understand.

but
it looks as if your pictures are iso 400 or
something, which should not be necessary
when using a flash, I think.

Yes, that's what shocked me! Some folks have suggested, well, put it into manual mode and set an ISO 100.

I have two issues with that:

1) The dang $500 camera should be smart enough to figure this out. "Gee, he's focusing on an unmoving object 6 feet away, he has the flash set to auto, so I think ISO 100 should do it!". But heck, that aside, I feel the amount of noise present in ISO 200 is simply awful.

2) Given the poor flash coverage of this unit (and, from my understanding, of ultra-compacts in general, including the S400!), I think ISO 100 in a dark room would require me to have my subjects practically sitting in my lap to be covered by the light of the flash ;-)

Also, you have a lot of red eyes there.
With my s400, I simply cannot manage
to get red eyes at all... Think it must be the
glaring anti-red-eye-light they have added...

In fairness to my F300, I only used the red-eye reduction mode on a few shots, and I'm betting I would have had much better luck had I kept it in this mode in general. With that said, though, I really like the idea of the S400's AF beam / anti-red-eye gizmo thingy, which I've heard works quite well overall in practice.