How well does this camera do in low light without a flash? During dusk or inside on an overcast day. Is there a long delay as it tries to focus?
1264878
This takes a long time to focus, particularly on macro. While trying to get a shot of the super moon, I missed all of them, indoors using zoom is also slow. Without any zoom, much better. I think the zoom is the real culprit. Still with 16 MP per shot you can crop a photo and still have a sweet pix. I tend to do a lot of cropping in PSP. However, on a recent visit with my grandson, I missed nearly all the good shots as it wouldn't focus, some times while shooting a macro shot for example of a ring I made, it can take 20 tries to get a good shot, or twenty tries just to get it to focus, once focused it takes awesome pix. But those missed ones are a bummer. I tried several other cameras with 20x zooms, that didn't work at all in low light, this may not have a mega zoom, but 12x beats those longer zooms all over the place. In outdoor lighting on a cloudy day it does AWESOME. Hope this helps, I brought home a Canon, other Nikons, a Panasonic Lumix, Sony and Samsung they all were worse than this one. So with limited funds this is what I kept. My brother recently bought a Sony that was another $150.00 more dollars, and he got awesome pix of the super moon. If I had the money I'd shell it out for a more expensive camera, my sister just bought the next up from this with a 20x zoom, we both took pictures of the same subjects, mine were much better than hers. She uses a tripod a lot, I Don't want to use a tripod. It's supposed to be point and shoot. More zoom is bot necessarily better. Just my opinions.
1264879
You need to buy a Camera with a low f stop lens this one is f3.3-6.3 the more you zoom the worse (higher) the f stop goes and the less light will hit the sensor resulting in a dark photo. Try a low zoom 3x camera with an f2 lens or lower like f1.8 or 1.4 a high zoom lens is great for a far away bird on a sunny day. Low light photography is best done with a low zoom or no zoom lens. Pushing ISO higher to compensate for a higher F stop lower quality (slow) lens will also often give a blurry photo. This is more about physics and basic photography.
710084
It has worked fine for me indoors, even without a flash, as long as I am not too far from my subject. If in a theater, with hundreds of heads bobing and weaving in front of you, the camera is not going to be able to auto focus, if you don't have a clear unobstructed view on the subject to lock the auto focus. But in those cases I have gone to manual focus with good results.
220776
What is "less than optimal light"? Is it indoor lighting? Is it outdoor street lighting? Haven't had a chance to shoot in the night with the weather outside. Indoor, it seems be fine.
515648
Hi,I'm not a good expert in photography. Nevertheless, the pictures taken under low light situation are clear and good quality. My pictures at sunshine and sunset are very clear. I did not even need the flash systematically. The automatic function picks the automatically the adequate option for the pictures. Hopefully, this helps you to decide.
1290789
You could probably change the ISO/shutter/aperture settings to compensate for low lighting, but I usually set it to Auto mode, and I feel it's not bad. I can still see relatively well although it's rather noisy/fuzzy (it hardly bothers me, but I usually try to avoid low lighting anyways).
1099012
Sorry typo on my previous answer. I've had this camera for over 2 years it does NOT have a flash. It works at it's best in clear daylight both pictures and videos are crisp and clear under low light you lose a little quality.
111694
Yes but not moving subjects. Distant subjects are especially hard to capture without blurring the image. For casual pictures it is actually very good in low-light and rarely to I need a flash unless it is truly dark.
1759226
With good light it takes about 5 pictures per second, autofocus is not very fast but very good for such a low price camera. The iso is high enough for taking pictures at low light without using flash.
2120487
No, there should be no delay. Check if you have shutter delay in the camera menu. It is not normal to have delay only with the flash.
755317
The Sony does very well including situations with mixed light sources such as daylight and house lamps. It also works surprisingly well in low light situations, however the longer exposure times required can lead to blurred images because of the longer shutter time. I often have better results using available light than I do using the flash which is not powerful enough to reach too far. This is not to suggest that the Canon wouldn't work as well or better.
80873
It's a little dark in bright light but seeing it hasn't been a problem for me, it is better than most camera's in bright light. The camera seems to be optimized to take pictures outside and in bright light. It takes very poor indoor pictures or pictures with dark lighting.
77949
it is ever so slight, and less than some other cameras i have used.. it also depends on the f stop setting you are using.. there is a delayed flash setting that will also lengthen that time.
1326317
Its better than most cameras. Especially if you hold the button down halfway first and let the camera focus first, then the shutter lag is almost non-existent. If you're pushing the button all the way without pre-focusing, it can take a few seconds for the camera to focus and then take.
658929
Thank You so much for taking the time to post! In fact, I ended up with the Lumix ZS3 and have found it to be pretty quick. There is also a Burst mode which is quite good and works well as long as you have plenty of light, daylight is best. Now, I'll have to explore the 4/3 cameras too - just for fun.
1189654
It does work in low lighting but it depends on the distance and if its on the manual modes. anything other then the manual...you will get grainy photos.
28835
there is a lag time of about three seconds, great camera though.My favorite feature is that you can turn the flash ON, even on bright sunny days.
1051026
Great little camera, there is NO flash. There is a little tiny light you can turn on for taking "close-ups" like within 3 feet. That's it. It's "pretty good" for movies, for stills, be very study or use a tripod.