dark goob
Leading Member
For people like us, who think image quality is of paramount importance, uncompromizable, actually makes up only 5% of the market.
One of my girl friend asked me for a recommendation for a good DC. After taking about 2 hours explaining to her, even recommended models like Canon SD550, Stylus800, S80, Fuji F10, all the highly rated models, she went to a store and finally bought a Sony T7. I asked her angrily, "WHY Sony T7 ? It takes crappy pictures!" She said she liked the sleek design and body color. Now go figure!
LOL! Yep, I hate those damn T7's. I mean it's such a slick engineering feat, and it says CARL ZEISS on it!! They have almost no shutter lag and a nice screen. And hey, if Mick Jagger walks by, boom! Crappy, grainy, poorly white-balanced picture of Mick Jagger!
The thing is, I highly doubt Sony will give up, and someday they will actually make a decent camera that size, which would be pretty cool. But not yet, hehe.
In any case, the thing you are saying about "absolute image quality" -- I still think that just because a camera has the cleanest detail representation at 100% doesn't mean it has the best over-all absolute image quality. Because what if the colors aren't as crisp or there is a slight haze to the image?
There have been quite a few FujiFilm SuperCCD-based cameras that produced a 12 MP image that looked pretty awful at 100% but made awesome-looking prints (S7000, F810, E550, etc.). If how good a print your camera can produce is not a factor for you, then uh, what universe do you live in?
I used to scan film and make prints from those custom scans for my job. I often had to remove dust from the scans using the rubber stamp in Photoshop. I typically printed the image at 400 DPI on a FujiFilm Pictrography 4000 printer (awesome printers, BTW). One thing I discovered in doing this, was that it was pointless to work at 100% in Photoshop with a 400 DPI image, or even 300 DPI, because the minor pixel-level flaws would not be visible in a print, even from a few inches away. It was best to work at 50% in Photoshop, and just retouch dust and scratches that were visible at this magnification, because that would be all that was visible in the print. (For reference, National Geographic magazine's resolution is less than 150 DPI).
Anyway, I was curious, so I took some pictures at work today with both cameras. See if you can tell which came from the Stylus 800 and which from the Canon S80:
I wonder if you can tell which is which. The left is at 25%, the right at 50%. Both are at 400 ISO with no flash, auto WB, default sharpness etc., and I tried to get similar zoom settings and such. See if you can notice what the differences are.
-=DG=-
One of my girl friend asked me for a recommendation for a good DC. After taking about 2 hours explaining to her, even recommended models like Canon SD550, Stylus800, S80, Fuji F10, all the highly rated models, she went to a store and finally bought a Sony T7. I asked her angrily, "WHY Sony T7 ? It takes crappy pictures!" She said she liked the sleek design and body color. Now go figure!
LOL! Yep, I hate those damn T7's. I mean it's such a slick engineering feat, and it says CARL ZEISS on it!! They have almost no shutter lag and a nice screen. And hey, if Mick Jagger walks by, boom! Crappy, grainy, poorly white-balanced picture of Mick Jagger!
The thing is, I highly doubt Sony will give up, and someday they will actually make a decent camera that size, which would be pretty cool. But not yet, hehe.
In any case, the thing you are saying about "absolute image quality" -- I still think that just because a camera has the cleanest detail representation at 100% doesn't mean it has the best over-all absolute image quality. Because what if the colors aren't as crisp or there is a slight haze to the image?
There have been quite a few FujiFilm SuperCCD-based cameras that produced a 12 MP image that looked pretty awful at 100% but made awesome-looking prints (S7000, F810, E550, etc.). If how good a print your camera can produce is not a factor for you, then uh, what universe do you live in?
I used to scan film and make prints from those custom scans for my job. I often had to remove dust from the scans using the rubber stamp in Photoshop. I typically printed the image at 400 DPI on a FujiFilm Pictrography 4000 printer (awesome printers, BTW). One thing I discovered in doing this, was that it was pointless to work at 100% in Photoshop with a 400 DPI image, or even 300 DPI, because the minor pixel-level flaws would not be visible in a print, even from a few inches away. It was best to work at 50% in Photoshop, and just retouch dust and scratches that were visible at this magnification, because that would be all that was visible in the print. (For reference, National Geographic magazine's resolution is less than 150 DPI).
Anyway, I was curious, so I took some pictures at work today with both cameras. See if you can tell which came from the Stylus 800 and which from the Canon S80:
I wonder if you can tell which is which. The left is at 25%, the right at 50%. Both are at 400 ISO with no flash, auto WB, default sharpness etc., and I tried to get similar zoom settings and such. See if you can notice what the differences are.
-=DG=-
