^^ Wow that was quick!

So the only way out for me to bump the ISO level. I hate high ISO levels and click everything ISO64 only.

The other way out for me is to either get my self a dSLR (which is definitely not an option) or a ultra zoom that also saves in RAW.

My future in night photography of moving objects seems blurry now!

Hehehe. What cam are we talking about here?

A couple of months ago a friend of mine purchased a Nikon P80, he's not clicking around much. So i've borrowed it from him for a few days as i'm bored with my ultra spartan p&s cybershot w-35!

The P80 looks good on paper, but some how it is not translating those cool specs into real world performance, or maybe the person behind the cam is yet competent enough to extract more out of it!

@Praful: Although I have almost next to no technical knowledge of the internal working mechanisms of these wonder-glasses we know as 'camera lens', here is what I can contribute.

First off, you are right about the aperture. An aperture of f2.8 would provide an awesome OOF (Out Of Focus) background as compared to an aperture of say f5.6 or f11 or so. Secondly, I doubt if there is any digital camera whose aperture remains open to the same value even when you zoom in.

Even in the D-SLR world, there are only the "high-quality" lenses which have constant apertures during the whole operational range. For example the 70-200 f2.8L that PS has used to shoot the sport pictures.. This means that the aperture would be a constant f2.8 even when you zoom in all the way to 200mm which ultimately means awesome quality shots, even in low light conditions! That is the primary reason we all say save up for a good piece of glass than splurging madly on a camera body.

As for clicking subjects in low light conditions, you could try and panning the camera with the subject if it is moving like an automobile or something. But, ultimately, it would all depend on the lens's capabilities. Consequently, you could also try and increase the ISO sensitivity in your camera, but then be ready to get some awful noise in the pictures if you take it too high.

If you are using a D-SLR however, you could easily open up the aperture to something like f2.8 or even f1.4 (in case of 50mm f1.4 L lens.. ) and increase the ISO to something like ISO 800 (or even ISO 1600) and get away with it. But with a digital camera, because of the limited size of the sensor, this becomes a problem.

^^ Wow! Thats a wealth of information out there!

So for my future ultra zoom cam apart from having RAW capability, I have to look out for one with the biggest sensor. Only thing coming up is the awesome FujiFilm S100FS!

Edit: Just noticed that u can take pics at ISO10000, and it weighs almost a kilo!

Any ISO speed over 3200 is waste in most of the consumer or even some entry level DSLRs Over that limit the megapixels are reduced, so consequently image detail is reduced. Add to that noise and you get a pretty pathetic pic.

Got this from the Fujifilm site

@Praful: Don't just go by these marketing gimmicks that the manufacturers use. I am pretty sure that at those high ISO levels, you wouldn't be able to differentiate anything in a picture.

I use a Canon EOS 400D, and the highest ISO level it allows is ISO-1600, but at that high an ISO, some amount of noise do creep in. And in the case of Fujifilm camera, I am pretty sure at ISO-10,000, all you'll get are noisy pixels and nothing else!

Well I just mentioned ISO10000, coz its like "10000" ....I never intend on going over ISO400 unless forced to do so!!!

Okay. So let me put it this way - you have a fetish for everything "big"! I guess all of us do!

Anyhow, what are your other options apart from the one that you have mentioned?

No...No...I don't fetish for "big" stuff. I admire stuff in all "sizes" and "shapes"

I just listed the S100 FS as it has the largest sensor size, everyone else around had sensor of sizes 1/2.5"-1/2.3", so din't list them. Anyways, before I do all that I need to save up some serious moolah to get one!

Hey Aryan, could you explain what the 70-200mm means in a lens? I know about the aperture part of it but how are the two related?

Simply put, 70-200mm (for example) is the focal length of a lens. Zoom lenses are described by the ratio of their focal lengths. For example, a zoom lens with focal lengths ranging from 70 to 200mm means it would zoom all the way upto 200mm, starting from 70mm.

Coming to your second query, focal length of a lens means how much of a scene you can view or in other words, the angle of view whereas aperture tells the lens how much light can get through. As you might know aperture is mainly used to change the DoF (Depth of Field) of an image where as changing the focal length (zooming in/ out) would change the perspective.

The first part is clear.

By DoF do you mean that i can tweak the camera into focusing on either the subject/object or the background? You get the 'bokeh' effect by manipulating it?

Absolutely! Depth of field is the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in sharp focus in a photograph. With the help of aperture, we control the bokeh. For example, a same image if shot at two different aperture settings like, say, f2.8 and f8 would have different "feel".

When shot wide open, at f2.8, the image will have a narrower depth of field. Hence, very precise focusing will be required in this kind of situation because when you use a large aperture, the DoF is really narrow.

On the other hand,if we use narrow apertures like f8, f11, f16, f22, etc., everything will be in focus.

Its kinda hard to understand in theory but a bit of playing around with the cam will sorten things out.

If the aperture is narrower then everything in the picture will be sharp. So the more the aperture increases, sharper the whole pic becomes right? And the further you move away from the object/subject DoF increases because there is a wider view of things?