Best low-light digicam?
 

What's the best (cheap-ish) digicam for taking pictures when there's very little light (without flash)? A cursory web-search leads me to believe that it may be the Fuji Finepix F30. How would this compare with a Nikon D50 with 50mm 1:1.8D (which just isn't cutting it)?

Yes, according to Phil's review on DPreview here the F30 is the lowlight champ among the P&S digicams.
In fact, there's some interesting analysis between high ISO of the F30 and the D50, which is a DSLR with a much larger sensor, and the results really do drop some jaws.
Fuji picked up some kind of amazing new noise supression algorithm and they're putting it to good use in the digicams.
Can't wait to see if they apply it to a DSLR. It could potentially dethrone Canon.

Thanks, that review is quite informative.

Looking at the D50 comparison, the F30 seems to give reasonably similar results to the D50/50mm 1:1.8, so it probably won't help. Back to film, I guess...

How much is the F30?

About $350 US sans memory card.

I didn't mean to suggest that the F30 is an all-round replacement for the D50, though, just that the low-light image acquisition performance appears to be comparable.

if you examine the data it is about 3.5 stops more for the Fuji, probably because they use a video 2/3" sensor >>> *corrected below*


if your problem is weddings in dark churches where flash is not permitted during ceremony, sometimes it is better to pull them back after the ceremony for some posed shots with flash before they get wisked away in the Silver Ghost

Actually, the sensor is smaller than that. It's 1.7".
Sensor size diagram
The Fuji's would be just slightly smaller than the one listed on the bottom right.

2/3" is 1/1.5" so its pretty close :@)

Can you elaborate on what you mean?

I don't really know how to compare the data, exactly (what significance, if any, does the +0.33 EV compensation have?), but unless I'm totally misunderstanding the way this stuff works:

A quick mental calculation suggests that 1/160 at F9 would give an equivalent exposure of 1/500 at F5 on the Nikon. I took a shot at each setting and compared the histograms and the calculation seems to be correct.

So at ISO 800, the Nikon is doing slightly better than the Fuji - 1/500 vs 1/461 and F5 vs F4.9 for a fairly equivalent exposure.

If the light level really drops, we can reduce the shutter speed, open the iris and increase the ISO. The Fuji's maximum iris at its widest angle (equivalent to 36mm) is 2.8, so at an equivalent zoom level to 50mm, it's a fairly safe bet that a fully open 50mm 1:1.8 Nikkor has at least a good stop and a half advantage over the Fuji. The Fuji can gain back a stop by going to ISO 3200, but unless the noise-reduction software is worlds beyond what can be done to a .NEF file, the Nikon is still ahead by a little at least.

OOps my bad

Fuji is about 1.5 stops up on speed, but 2 stops WORSE on Aperture ; Duh I added them instead of subtracting

so overall the Nikon wins by about 0.5 stop