Best lens on a compact digital?

[alef]

Specifically want a fast lens -- needing less light so it won't blur without a flash in the evenings. Not really bothered about other features.

There's an Olympus Mju 35mm with a fixed lens shooting at f2.8, whereas the zooms get about f5.6. But I'm after a digital and everything seems to have a zoom! Will keep googling, but thought I'd ask here too...

Maybe I really have to look into getting a DSLR, but I really prefer something that can always fit in my jacket pocket.

 

[salaryman]

Specifically want a fast lens -- needing less light so it won't blur without a flash in the evenings. Not really bothered about other features.

hi alef, you might want to check out this thread i started a short while ago:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=100821

i puchased a sony dsc v3 and this is pretty good for night shots. using iso400 allows you to shoot without blur without much light and the grain isn't too bad. otherwise, rest the camera against a steady surface and shoot away!

this was taken with a digital ixus v3 for example, which is appalling for blur:

 

[editor]

Specifically want a fast lens -- needing less light so it won't blur without a flash in the evenings. Not really bothered about other features.

Well, if your wallet is enormous the Leica Digilux has a beautiful fast f2 lens (or you could get the near identical Panasonic DMC-LC1).

Some of the Panasonic range have got pretty good lens and as salaryman has said, the Sony V3 is a lovely cameras with surprising low noise for a digicam.

It's probably too bulky for you, but my old Sony 717 had a really fast f2 - f2.4 lens that took superb night pics.

I still use my Sony FX77 ultra-compact (f2.8) and it's done me proud for handheld night shots

 

[socialist]

The Olympus C-5050Z has an “ultra fast” f1.8-F2.6 lens.

Possible bargain here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30018&item=7502247540&rd=1

 

[FunkyUK]

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz3/

May not be as compact as you want, but it's a cracking zoom lens 35mm - 420mm (35mm equivalent) at 2.8 across the range.

I have seen this camera for £200!.

 

[alef]

The Olympus C-5050Z has an “ultra fast” f1.8-F2.6 lens.

Possible bargain here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30018&item=7502247540&rd=1

Definitely impressed by the f1.8 lens! I bid on that particular camera, but it went up to £240 which I think is a bit high without any warranty, even with a 1Gig card.

Thinking about buying the same camera here:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7504080468&fromMakeTrack=true

Does anyone have any horror stories to share about eBay purchases or refurbished cameras before I commit?

 

[editor]

One thing to bear in mind: you could get away with a slightly less fast lens with cameras returning reasonable higher ISO results.

There's no point having a super fast lens of the processed results are noisy.

The Olymous is a nice camera though, albeit a bit bulky.

 

[alef]

I haven't actually held one in my hands, which is a bit crucial, especially as I much prefer smaller cameras. Need to get myself to a camera shop and test out a few...

In salaryman's night shot thread everyone seems to rave about the Sony DSC-V3. Maybe I am being silly to be put off by the f2.8 lens? As you say, less noise is at least as important.

 

[alef]

By the way, I should add that my main interest here isn't in night shots, it's in doing portraits indoors without a flash. Here's a few of my older shots done on film with fairly low natural light:
http://www.alef.co.uk/photos/pembroke/shaun.html
http://www.alef.co.uk/photos/pembroke/kristina.html (quite grainy)

From the camera's point-of-view maybe there isn't any difference, just need high ISO and a fast lens...

 

[editor]

I'm not sure if this is going to help, but here goes: here's a quick low light picture I took on my Sony V3 400ISO 1/100 f4.

This is a shrunk version of the 3072 x 2304 full file.

 

[editor]

And here's a 100% crop of the bottom left hand corner (230 x 245), saved as a medium jpeg.

I'm hoping you will see that there's not too much noise considering the high ISO rating. I reckon you should certainly be able to match those particular film shots you linked to.

Of course, if I ran the pic through Noise Ninja there's be a lot less noise.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I haven't actually held one in my hands, which is a bit crucial, especially as I much prefer smaller cameras. Need to get myself to a camera shop and test out a few...<snip>

For what it's worth, I've got the Olympus 5060, which I think is the subsequent model (only goes to f2.8) but with pretty much the same body and it's a bit too big for any normal pocket.

It's a very nice camera though, and now the 7070 is out, you can get a good bargain on them.

 

[alef]

Cheers for that, editor, nice little test of low light results. I'm going to hit the camera shops in the week and play around with a few. Though I get stressed out when I start hearing the hard-sell bullshit, usually then just leave. Last time I bought a camera in the US remember one salesman started bullying me because I didn't know what matrix metering was

Always loved that Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch about woofers and tweeters....

 

[blueAsbestos]

do you want a bag on your head?

 

[Solarblast]

I've got the Panasonic FZ3, and it's very good for low light photography. It's got some ups and downs, though. f 2:8 is pretty fast, but then it can't really shoot at ISO 400, so you kind of lose a stop by having to shoot at 200, but then it's got camera stabalisation that really rather works so you get a couple of stops back. Because of the way you can take so many pictures, and just delete the ones you don't want, it's better than a film camera. In fact, it feels like using my f 1:4 with 400 iso film. And the 12x zoom comes in handy as well (though in low light you'll need a mini tripod, since hand shake is exaggerated by the long zoom).

My tuppence worth. And they're very cheap these days (aroudn £200).