How does Fuji do it....

While working in the UK a couple of weeks ago, getting tired of lugging my Pelican cases around everywhere, I went into a local Jessop's and bought a Fuji F31 fd as I had heard some nice things about it. After having done all the work with the work images, I turned to my personal images done with the little Fuji. As I browsed through them I came across a batch done indoors that look particularly clean, so I decided to look at the exif. Holy Cow! They had been shot at ISO 1600..... and looked dang clean. Far better then say a 10d could produce. And it would be safe to say at sizes of 5x7 up to 8x10, it would be hard for the average person to tell the difference between those and shots done with a 20d.

So my question is, if Fuji can do this, why isn't everyone else? These were shot with a compact camera for crying out loud. This really makes me say shame on Nikon, because these were absolutely better then my d200. What is it they have done that the others, including Canon, haven't. A very impressive little camera I accidently bought.

I don't know about your Fuji, but it isn't hard to add noise reduction into the camera. But remember that NR doesn't mean that the sensor is better. It just means that the resulting image looks free from noise but that it has also lost a bit of details during the filtering process.

Fuji does have a better P&S small sensor than anyone else. My F10 that is now about 2.5 years old has this type of sensor. It records so much detail at low iso and iso800 is probably between iso200 and 400 for IQ compared to sony sensor based P&S cameras, e.g. sony, nikon, canon.

If only they would either sell their sensors for other companies to use, or make a P&S camera that does exposure well. A big hit against their P&S cameras is they over expose. Yes you can use exposure compensation, but that takes a bit of the P&S aspect away. When I used it I had to adjust the iso manually because it too often wanted to use high iso and always used iso800 with flash in auto mode. So I had to manually select flash, iso, and adjust exposure compensation too. I don't use it anymore because there is 1 big spec of dust on the sensor and a smaller one. And dust on a P&S sensor because rather large due to the small sensor size.

Here is a resized sample at 640x640. I will try to past in a 100% crop. This shot is at ISO 1600, and you will notice little or no loss in sharpness, and noise itself is all but gone. Not 5d level by any stretch... but for a point and shoot, I am shocked you can get good images at 1600.

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I had a fuji P&S (also a Fuji F31 fd) and will have another soon. I think they are the best for low light for a P&S. One of the main things they do is stay with a lower resolution so they can do better with the ISO. The one I had was 6Mb and it was great in low light.

Croasdail wrote in post #3830296
Here is a resized sample at 640x640. I will try to past in a 100% crop. This shot is at ISO 1600, and you will notice little or no loss in sharpness, and noise itself is all but gone. Not 5d level by any stretch... but for a point and shoot, I am shocked you can get good images at 1600.

Its shot at ISO 400 according to the Exif..............?

# Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) = 1/90 second = 0.01111 second
# Lens F-Number/F-Stop = 14/5 = F2.80
# Exposure Program = normal program (2)
# ISO Speed Ratings = 400


That's what I'm getting too. However, I've only heard great things about the F30 and F31. It's the only one that compels me to buy a P&S. High ISO on most P&S cameras come out looking like trash.

Posted wrong image... hold the horses.... I'll get it .. it was late. Sorry... Let's try this one.... there looks to be a little more noise in this one but some of that is coming from compression form Aperture. And I am not saying it is noiseless.. it is after all ISO 1600. But for a small sized sensor in a P/S, I was very impressed at the balance Fuji had come up with.

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That looks fine to me for 1600 on a P&S.