Sharpshootin' 8-megapixel pieces-is one right for you?
GALLOP POLL
There's more to image quality than color accuracy and pixel counts. Camera AF and metering accuracy, plus noise levels, all play a part. For our field test, we set all cameras to ISO 100 and 1/100 sec in shutter-priority. Most did well in automatically selecting the right aperture. Detail images below are from a 1-inch-square area of a 12x16-inch image at 200 ppi.
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Image-Quality Field Tests |
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Canon PowerShot Pro 1 This camera captured the smoothest skin tones, and also showed great detail and color in shadow areas. There's also an Adobe RGB color-space setting and extensive image-quality controls. But noise levels, which are low at ISO 50 and moderate at ISO 100, hit unacceptable levels at ISO 200. |
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Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2 Image shows great skin tones and overall color accuracy, but the blue jacket was off-color. We applaud the wide variety of image-quality settings and color-space options, but the A2 has only moderately low noise at ISO 64-100, and unacceptable noise at ISO 400. |
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Nikon Coolpix 8700 Our test camera had a tendency to underexpose by about 1¼3-stop outdoors, and proper exposures showed some noise in shadow areas at ISO 100. But overall noise levels didn't tank out until ISO 400, besting the Canon. Color accuracy was excellent at ISO 50, but there's no Adobe RGB setting. |
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Olympus Camedia C-8080 In the lab, the C-8080 topped our color-accuracy scale. But in the field, skin tones were slightly less saturated and shadow areas less detailed than Pro 1 or 8700. There's no Adobe RGB setting. Noise levels were low from ISO 50 to 100, moderate at ISO 200, just barely unacceptable at ISO 400. |
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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828 The four-color CCD helps deliver pleasing skin tones, extremely accurate color, and details in shadows. However, very slight color fringing showed up (see neckline), and there's no Adobe RGB setting. Noise was very low at ISO 64 and low at ISO 100, but unacceptable by ISO 400. |
The race for more color space
Most compact digital cameras record color information using the sRGB color space (common to PC monitors). But this color space clips certain colors that may be captured by the camera's sensor. To improve color accuracy and saturation-especially for printing and reproduction, most digital SLRs and several EVFs offer an Adobe RGB color space option. Note the wider color gamut captured by the Minolta DiMAGE A2 in this mode.
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