Photos at a party

[robmc12]

Hi all,

Just a quick question for you: I'm an amateur photographer, and mainly shoot for personal use. I find most occassions I use a camera are in low-light conditions, at a party or inside a club, where the moment exists only momentarily and requires a quick response to capture the frame.

I've been through a few digital compacts (my camera needs to be light and easily transportable), but unfortunately all I have tried take far too long to shoot. Both the Casio Exilim and Nikon Coolpix ranges I have tried seem to take 5+ seconds to focus, with 2-3 intermittent flashes, and often I miss the moment I'm trying to capture.

Can anyone recommend a small compact that has a quick low-light focus and will help me capture those fleeting memories? Quality is not as important and response and convenience to me.

Thanks,
Rob

 

[ANDS!]

Dunno how those camera work, but if you can increase the ISO setting do so - which would require you to shoot in manual or A/S mode.

 

[Garbz]

Unless you switch to manual focus you are out of luck sorry. Small compact cameras find the focus by looking at the image they see, checking the contrast, and then adjusting to see if it can be improved. After the local maximum contrast is found it thinks the image is in focus. This is very computationally intensive and thus slow.

DSLRs use a separate system that splits the light beam and compares the distance between the result if I recall correctly. This is simple quick, but requires an extra sensor, a penta-prism, and an additional lens to split the picture, something that is not available in compact cameras because of size and cost.

I'm sorry to say that P&S can't do that.