F750EXR vs F200EXR at wide angle

[CAcreeks]

The F200EXR seems sharper at wide angle than the F750, which I guess would be expected given its larger sensor and less-ambitious lens. (Note: the F750 is an F770 without RAW and GPS).

This is the original "purple fringing tunnel of doom" pioneered by Jeff Keller of DCresource, now on DPreview staff.


With each camera I bracketed four shots. These two are the ones that matched brightness (EV) most closely. As you can see the newer camera produces warmer colors and more shadow detail, but the blue sky is washed out near the horizon, and objects look fuzzy near infinity.




F200EXR at widest angle 0 EV






F750 one notch up from widest, .33 EV compensation

 

[PAUL TILL]

Ouch, those long zoom CMOS Fuji's are crap, the last good one was the F70EXR although even that was not in the same league as the F200EXR.

That F750 image is pitiful.


Paul.

 

[HZP]

So paul, where did things get out of hand? When you compare images from the old f30 and the "new"550exr on imaging resource comparometer at 800 iso............... The 200exr was the last good one. Well, the f100fd was a very good one too.

 

[Kim Letkeman]

PAUL TILL wrote:

Ouch, those long zoom CMOS Fuji's are crap, the last good one was the F70EXR although even that was not in the same league as the F200EXR.

That F750 image is pitiful.

You are talking as if the tester carefully handled each camera's meter with the expertise of long usage. He never does on these tests ...

As always, he pointed and shot. Different compensation settings, that are still totally ineffective. The F200 and F750 were shot at the same ISO (100) and close to the same aperture (3.6 vs 3.3) yet the F750 chose a much slower shutter speed, letting in more than 2/3 stops of extra light. Hence the over exposure.

This is something that your much loved X-S1 will do too. But you have learned to compensate for the newer Fujis' tendency to be twitchy based on what is under the focus point.

In other words, your condemnation is based on a total lack of critical thinking about what actually happened with those two shots and how Fuji camera metering has changed in recent years.

And, of course, the two should never be compared in the first place because the tester does not apply any control of variables when he shoots those torture tests. The exposures are wildly different, leading to much differing results. And you never blame the camera when an exposure gets screwed up.

The tests are meaningless ... and always have been.

 

[PAUL TILL]

The F100FD was a great cam at base ISO in good light, the fact that it was a true P&S with very little manual control put me off it although I did give it a try.

Paul.

 

[Kim Letkeman]

HZP wrote:

So paul, where did things get out of hand? When you compare images from the old f30 and the "new"550exr on imaging resource comparometer at 800 iso............... The 200exr was the last good one. Well, the f100fd was a very good one too.

They are all good ... if the photographer is even remotely competent. The creator of those torture tests (tunnel of doom) does not control variables, so the results are always essentially meaningless.

 

[HZP]

Kim, I value your opinion a lot. Even considering the name of your blog :-d ( Yeah I know I used that one before) Are you now suggesting that the comparometer of imaging resource is remotely incompetent?

 

[Rachotilko]

Not all of the deficiencies of the F750exr shot can be explained by the inappropriate exposure settings:

• Hazy flares around significant contrasty edges. I've seend quite a few of them around HS30 shots (F7XX is the same generation). I haven't seen them on HS20 (and F600) shots, which arises a suspition that it is a byproduct of some mistaken JPEG-engine's processing; it was probably introduced with HS30 (and F7XX) family. It also makes the CAs far worse-looking, as this flaring increases luminance precisely in the areas of CAs' occurence. It could be interesting to see the RAW version of this shot.
  
• F750's shot is much more smeared by NR (adjustable ?). Again, RAW is probably a cure for this.
• Softness of the distant fortress-tower can only be explained as F750's lens inferiority compared to F200's. It is a common wisdom even in ILC world, that extreme FL range (min-to-max) brings optical compromises. In the travelzoom domain, quite a few of fine product lines (such as Canon SX2xx, Panasonic TZxx) were recently crippled by extending the zoom range at the expense of optical quality. No surprise F7xx line suffers similarly

 

[CAcreeks]

Rachotilko wrote:

Not all of the deficiencies of the F750exr shot can be explained by the inappropriate exposure settings.

I have the -.67 EV but decided to post the -.33 EV because it looks better overall, although the -.67 has better blue sky. No real difference in the items you pointed out, Rachotilko.


An observation is that my F750 seems to auto-correct in-camera super wide angle (25mm equivalant) better than the zoom values just above. Guess I should try that setting.

The F200EXR has a larger sensor, so doesn't it gather more light at identical exposure settings? I can't otherwise explain why the new F models overexpose so much in comparison.

 

[HZP]

Don't you get the digital picture? The cam producers have to "improve" on previous models. "Selling" is business. And marketing so called new products as an improvement on previous products is an art "an sich".

And apparently they succeed in selling that so called improved product to us all.Including me :-d. So what's realy important in photography? IQ, colour,composition and "art' . And that could be done way back. In the old days so to speak.Not meaning that in the past everything was better. Well, I was :-D.

 

[Kim Letkeman]

HZP wrote:

Kim, I value your opinion a lot. Even considering the name of your blog :-d ( Yeah I know I used that one before) Are you now suggesting that the comparometer of imaging resource is remotely incompetent?

The tunnel of doom shots are from dcresource, not imaging-resource. I don't like the consistency of the images from dcresource, especially the tunnel of doom. The consistency on imaging resource is pretty good, though, so I am pretty happy with their comparator.

 

[Kim Letkeman]

Rachotilko wrote:

Not all of the deficiencies of the F750exr shot can be explained by the inappropriate exposure settings:

The tunnel of doom image is specifically shot to provoke CA on the edge of the arch. When the exposures are different, the test completely fails for comparison purposes.

The rest of the issues might be true ... but I would never shoot the 750, because for a few dollars more I can shoot RAW with the F770. And then I have serious control over everything.

And let's try to keep our eye on the ball. These cameras occupy different classes. The F750 has a smaller sensor and vastly more range on the lens. So IQ is not intended to be directly compared.

 

[DS21]

CAcreeks wrote:

Rachotilko wrote:

Not all of the deficiencies of the F750exr shot can be explained by the inappropriate exposure settings.

I have the -.67 EV but decided to post the -.33 EV because it looks better overall, although the -.67 has better blue sky. No real difference in the items you pointed out, Rachotilko.

An observation is that my F750 seems to auto-correct in-camera super wide angle (25mm equivalant) better than the zoom values just above. Guess I should try that setting.

The F200EXR has a larger sensor, so doesn't it gather more light at identical exposure settings? I can't otherwise explain why the new F models overexpose so much in comparison.

Fuji changed the metering over time to expose more for the shadows. The F200 (same as F100 before) has a conservative metering, meaning it is very hard to overexpose. This test just proves to me (viewed full size) that F200 is a classic never to be repeated again by Fuji.

 

[HZP]

Ca, shading, distortion can all be corrected ïn camera or PP. So what caused the dicline in IQ? Zoom factors? Cmos vs ccd? Was the zoom of the s100fs the limit for super ccd? Who knows?

Imagine a s100fs exr ccd











24-600?

Well, here is one from the " old days". Buick electra death valley 1980n nikon EM.

 

[photofan1986]

I'm not really surprised by this. I'd really like to see a comparison between the F200 and the XF-1 to see how the latter compares to the old warrior.

 

[Rachotilko]

HZP wrote:

Ca, shading, distortion can all be corrected ïn camera or PP. So what caused the dicline in IQ? Zoom factors? Cmos vs ccd? Was the zoom of the s100fs the limit for super ccd? Who knows?

Mostly zoom factors. But cost cutting is also to blame: the products come out of R&D half-baked mostly, and manufacturing QC is pretty bad.

Imagine a s100fs exr ccd

You're describing S200exr. The same sensor as F200exr, the same optics as s100fs. Nice device.

24-600?

No ! These zoom ranges kill the whole concept. It's a sad state of affairs that manufacturers resort to promising the impossible and unsuspecting customers are paying for highly-speced junk.

Well, here is one from the " old days". Buick electra death valley 1980n nikon EM.

The 80's dream materialized

 

[HZP]

Sensor s100fs is around 30% larger then the one used in the s/f200exr.

Comparing the old fuji's to the new ones on IR comparometer makes one wonder what happened to IQ in the past years.

 

[Midwest]

Rachotilko wrote:

HZP wrote:

Ca, shading, distortion can all be corrected ïn camera or PP. So what caused the dicline in IQ? Zoom factors? Cmos vs ccd? Was the zoom of the s100fs the limit for super ccd? Who knows?

Mostly zoom factors. But cost cutting is also to blame: the products come out of R&D half-baked mostly, and manufacturing QC is pretty bad.

Imagine a s100fs exr ccd

You're describing S200exr. The same sensor as F200exr, the same optics as s100fs. Nice device.

24-600?

No ! These zoom ranges kill the whole concept. It's a sad state of affairs that manufacturers resort to promising the impossible and unsuspecting customers are paying for highly-speced junk.

Well, here is one from the " old days". Buick electra death valley 1980n nikon EM.

The 80's dream materialized

Nope. It's hard to say for sure but I'd guess that Buick at a 1973 or 1974.

 

[HZP]

1973 Buick Electra Custom 4Dr. Hardtop. 455 cu in (7.5 L) V8

Bought it in 1980 in Albany NY for 350 USD.

 

[nycandre]

Kim Letkeman wrote:

Rachotilko wrote:

Not all of the deficiencies of the F750exr shot can be explained by the inappropriate exposure settings:

The tunnel of doom image is specifically shot to provoke CA on the edge of the arch. When the exposures are different, the test completely fails for comparison purposes.

The rest of the issues might be true ... but I would never shoot the 750, because for a few dollars more I can shoot RAW with the F770. And then I have serious control over everything.

And let's try to keep our eye on the ball. These cameras occupy different classes. The F750 has a smaller sensor and vastly more range on the lens. So IQ is not intended to be directly compared.