[this is actually monty sitting in front of Camilla's computer 'Poopervising']
Low light performance is all about sensor size and optics. Sensor size is the part the specific camera body contributes. All the fancy software processing in the world is not going to fundamentally improve the performance, just do a better or worse job momentarily hiding flaws. A small sensor camera running with too high an ISO is grainy and streaked. The big sensors hit the wall eventually too. No way around it. (although I've written a Gimp plugin designed to do DSLR-specific noise reduction, and it works better than anything that will be built into the camera. yay, infinite CPU. If you have a good noise filter like that, just turn the camera's noise reduction off entirely. It will do a poorer job, and the job is not reversible.)
Aside from finding the biggest sensor in the smallest body (I think the Panasonic microFourThirds Lumix G1 might still be at the top of that ratio right now), the only other thing you can do is stack the biggest possible 'light spigot' on the front. Big optics are *definitely* heavy.
no subject
Low light performance is all about sensor size and optics. Sensor size is the part the specific camera body contributes. All the fancy software processing in the world is not going to fundamentally improve the performance, just do a better or worse job momentarily hiding flaws. A small sensor camera running with too high an ISO is grainy and streaked. The big sensors hit the wall eventually too. No way around it. (although I've written a Gimp plugin designed to do DSLR-specific noise reduction, and it works better than anything that will be built into the camera. yay, infinite CPU. If you have a good noise filter like that, just turn the camera's noise reduction off entirely. It will do a poorer job, and the job is not reversible.)
Aside from finding the biggest sensor in the smallest body (I think the Panasonic microFourThirds Lumix G1 might still be at the top of that ratio right now), the only other thing you can do is stack the biggest possible 'light spigot' on the front. Big optics are *definitely* heavy.