DPReview has posted a typically excellent article explaining the various High-ISO/low-light modes found on compact digital cameras these days. It’s a must-read for anybody who’s looking for a digital point & shoot or who may be in the future.

The executive summary is that camera manufacturer marketing departments are dirty, dirty liars, and that these high-ISO modes either have so much image noise that you wouldn’t want to use them or (more likely) use such aggressive noise reduction that it will destroy any fine detail in your pictures. (Fuji seems to be something of an exception to this, and their cameras seem to be the ones to buy if you want to take pictures without a flash in low light.)

It’s frustrating because there’s a very simple, direct technical solution to the problem, and it’s to stop forcing more and more megapixels into cameras than the sensor technology will support, and focus on providing better pixels rather than just more. But as long as camera buyers keep focusing on that single number when comparing competing models the situation is unlikely to change. Given that the next two posts on DPReview are announcements of 12(!) megapixel compacts from Casio and Panasonic, I’m not optimistic.