HS10 Review Part 2 - Difficult light ISO Ladder against F70EXR

Difficult light as defined by my standards … basically low incandescent light, fairly orange in color and requiring exposures around 1600 ISO at 1/20” or so …

Most cameras just pack up and go home when shooting in a house. The Fujis are different. It is quite possible to shoot images of people at a party with an old F10 or F11 … I have done it many times. The F70EXR makes it even easier.

So how does the HS10 fare? Let’s find out …

But first, why compare against the F70EXR? Simple … the F70EXR is the best pocketable camera made for all round and low light shooting. I have no qualms about saying that, as I’ve tested it to death. It is a natural alternative to the HS10 for those who need the cam to fit in a purse or pocket. In fact, these two are the one-two punch that make Fuji the best choice for most users who like to shoot indoors at parties etc.

When shooting at a party, it is not always the case that ambient light is the best choice. I prefer it if I can get away with it, but flash is perfectly acceptable with Fuji cams as they shoot flash at higher ISO (e.g. 800), which allows ambient light into the camera, thus rendering nice backgrounds as well. This makes a huge difference to the images, as the “shot in a cave” look is avoided.

So without further ado, the ISO ladder … you *must* click through to the large version, and make sure you click it twice to open it all the way. This is a huge image, sorry about that.

Now, this was a borrowed camera, and I only had it for about 10 hours. I shot this bleary eyed in the morning and the differences in exposure were fairly high, with the F70 being almost underexposed. No idea why the difference, but it is too late to do anything about it now.

But I must admit to some shock … the HS10 waxed the F70EXR … which itself looks ok up toi 800 ISO (would be 1600 with perfect exposures.) I did give the HS10 the advantage by forcing the upsize on the F70EXR instead of downsizing the HS10.

So I want to rerun this test … but my preliminary results say that this is one fine camera in low light.