REVIEWS GROUP TEST

When it’s cold and dark outside, some cameras come to the fore with features and specifications to suit the challenging conditions. Here, we test four such examples

It’s that time of year again. Along with the end of daylight saving, many of us in the northern hemisphere find ourselves setting off for work before sunrise and returning home after sunset, as well as wrapping up warm for the commute. Sunny day photography is consigned to the weekend but photo opportunities still abound at dusk and dawn – and in the blue hour of twilight.

Any good camera is capable of delivering excellent results in wintry conditions, however, some excel when it’s cold and dark. For starters, mirrorless cameras with their live exposure preview in the viewfinder can make it much easier to see what you’re doing. The boost in brightness is a bonus for composing shots, as well as giving live feedback on how exposure settings will affect the recorded image.

Meanwhile, some of the latest cameras can autofocus in almost total darkness, assuring sharp shots even under a fingernail moon or from the light of a single candle.

For handheld photography, clean image quality with minimal noise, even at high ISO settings is the order of the day – and of the night too, when it comes to that. It’s therefore best to be modest when it comes to megapixel count, as the photosites on the image sensor that correspond with actual pixels in the resulting image are physically larger. The same applies to favouring a full-frame camera over a crop-sensor body.