When darkness falls
"We conducted a spectacularly unscientific comparison of four DSLRs - a Nikon D80 with no IS; a Canon 40D and a Panasonic L10 with in-lens IS and an Olympus E-3 with in-body IS. Each was fitted with its kit lens. We were looking at image sharpness, colour and noise. We set up an object under a single incandescent lamp and set all cameras to ISO1600 and set the same manual exposure on all.
We hand-held each camera at 115 second at f8 with the zoom at 70 mm focal length (film equivalent) and framed all shots the same.
What we discovered, for the little that it's worth, is that the Panasonic is the sharpest but also the noisiest - the penalty of the smaller sensor. The Olympus, with similar sensor but different image processor, is sharp and exhibits well controlled noise. The Canon is astonishingly free of noise and just about as sharp. The Nikon has the most accurate colour and is almost as noise-free as the Canon but it falls short on sharpness, suggesting image stabilisation matters. With a Nikkor VR lens, the Nikon and Canon would be equal.
In real life, all of these cameras have excellent high ISO performance but in low light the camera to have is the Canon 40D with an IS lens."
Terry Lane
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