I am getting into image compositing at a commercial level and would like to purchase a compact camera to carry with me at all times to capture backgrounds. I honestly want to spend as little as possible, yet have a nice image low in noise. FYI: In post it'll probably be thrown slightly OOF or processed a bit.
What do you shoot with currently? I understand the idea of wanting a compact camera for your purposes, but remember the trade off. Small camera = small sensor = more noise. I don't know much about compact cameras, but if you want one with lower noise, it probably won't be cheap. Panasonic lx3 (not sure if they've upgraded this yet) or canon g11 are probably going to be your best bets. Unfortunately, they're both fairly expensive ($300+ for the lx3, and $450+ for the g11) and pretty large, as far as P&S's go. When it comes to compacts, you can have small size, low noise and low price, but you can only choose one, lol. EDIT: I forgot to say, chances are, whatever you're shooting is likely going to give you way better noise handling and IQ than any P&S out there. I have my DSLR with me almost all the time, and if you're willing to do that, it's going to be your best bet. Just put a smaller lens on there, like a 35mm or 50mm prime.
Does your phone have a camera? That might suffice, pending on the amount of processing you're planning on doing.
How about a used P&S with a pocket tripod for longer exposures? Backgrounds don't move and P&S probably don't do well at high iso settings. So keep the ISO reasonable and take longer exposures.
