still not happy with S602..

Ok, I did a test in all sharpness modes on various subjects. Still got that diffused look in all sharpness settings. I cleaned the lens and removed all the filters for my test. Bright subjects have a wide halo around them. They are a lot wider then a jpg halo. I’m convenced it’s because the camera is slightly out of focus. Another point of curiosity is the auto focus sensor. I took two of every shot. One using the normal auto focus on the subject, refocusing on a different distance and then focusing again on the original subject with my finger covering the auto focus sensors. All the shots came out looking identical. Would that be normal? I figured covering the sensor would give me different results. By the way I tried this with the AF and AF AREA settings. Manual focus seems about the same. Anyhow, could some one give this a try and tell me the results? Occasionally I’ll get a good shot, but I’m thinking it might be around the default focus for the camera.

Here are some crops. All were taken with shutter speeds over 500 around noon today.

Halo in the paper and letter on the door.



Halo around the wall by the stairs. Nothing in this picture was in focus at any depth.

Decided to do a test today comparing the quality of the fine and normal 3mp settings of the camera since a few people have suggested that my taking them at normal quality might be to blame for the softness of shots.

Although it was conducted with not exactly the most scientific or comprehensive methods.. I just took two shots of two scenes on each setting, with the aperture set to the sharpest (apparently) 5.6 and ISO 160. I didn't change the sharpening which maybe I should have, but still.. I do not find that the fine quality has at all helped the images. See what you think though.. They are also, I might, add, badly exposed, but not too indicative of the softness problem when its at its worst. Still not very sharp though. Note although the camera has given a blur warning there was no camera shake.

http://www.pbase.com/graid/bad_examples_2/

Tims,

Did a quick test. The blur warning logic is reversed. As you suspect it says "yes" when it should say "no".

Regards,

Bishop

Pieter Gordebeke said:

Cameron, you're definitely right about not using auto settings on
the 602. With the 6900 you can get away with auto more often. It's
more suitable as a point and shoot camera than the 602.

David, I too own a 6900, but I've used a 602. If you're the kind
that prefers to use auto (and I don't mean that in a negative way)
you should consider yourself lucky you didn't buy the 602, because
you would have been frustrated with it.

Pieter

Click to expand...

Pieter,Cameron,

My point is that auto settings gave me a base to work from,to lead me into a manual learning curve.I think there must be thousands of people who are very dissapointed with the 602,because they don't know any different,or where to get help from,(this and other sites).Maybe they think oh well thats digital!
Cheers
--
Dave

K Mcgregor said:

Decided to do a test today comparing the quality of the fine and
normal 3mp settings of the camera since a few people have suggested
that my taking them at normal quality might be to blame for the
softness of shots.

Although it was conducted with not exactly the most scientific or
comprehensive methods.. I just took two shots of two scenes on
each setting, with the aperture set to the sharpest (apparently)
5.6 and ISO 160. I didn't change the sharpening which maybe I
should have, but still.. I do not find that the fine quality has at
all helped the images. See what you think though.. They are also, I
might, add, badly exposed, but not too indicative of the softness
problem when its at its worst. Still not very sharp though. Note
although the camera has given a blur warning there was no camera
shake.

http://www.pbase.com/graid/bad_examples_2/

Click to expand...

Which are the new ones??

--
Regards,
Tom
(FinePix S602z)
http://www.pbase.com/tomcee

You are not going crazy. Those pictures are pathetic. Something is wrong with your, and evidently, many peoples cameras.

I'll bet some astute folks here can deduce just what the problem is - mechanical prob, design flaw, processing flaw, bad lens focus, etc.

I hope you can get a happy outcome with Fuji. Best of luck!

So what do you see wrong with those exactly??

They are still way too sharp and the normal clearly has less detail and more noise than the fine, but there isn't any fault there that I can see. The second picture without the car,has sharp leaves, and the gravestones are sharp. It's all in focus.

The shutter speed is still low though. I don't think there is shake in these pictures but why don't you open up the aperture to get it higher? You'll get shake even on a tripod at low speed unless you are incredibly gentle pushing the button. That's why most people use the 2 second timer or a shutter release cord where available. The camera moves when you push the button and doesn't have time to settle down before the camera takes the shot.

I'm amazed you're still taking pics at 1/50th of a second on hard sharpening after everything you've been told here!

If you're looking at full sized images then they don't look good on the monitor: they are too big. This is a problem you don't get with a 1.3mp camera. What program do you resize them with and how ?
regards
Ian

K Mcgregor said:

Decided to do a test today comparing the quality of the fine and
normal 3mp settings of the camera since a few people have suggested
that my taking them at normal quality might be to blame for the
softness of shots.

Although it was conducted with not exactly the most scientific or
comprehensive methods.. I just took two shots of two scenes on
each setting, with the aperture set to the sharpest (apparently)
5.6 and ISO 160. I didn't change the sharpening which maybe I
should have, but still.. I do not find that the fine quality has at
all helped the images. See what you think though.. They are also, I
might, add, badly exposed, but not too indicative of the softness
problem when its at its worst. Still not very sharp though. Note
although the camera has given a blur warning there was no camera
shake.

http://www.pbase.com/graid/bad_examples_2/

Click to expand...

--
6900

He's right. It's a bad camera. No doubt about it.
Sorry
Ian

Roger Lambert said:

You are not going crazy. Those pictures are pathetic. Something
is wrong with your, and evidently, many peoples cameras.

I'll bet some astute folks here can deduce just what the problem is

• mechanical prob, design flaw, processing flaw, bad lens focus,

etc.

I hope you can get a happy outcome with Fuji. Best of luck!

Click to expand...

--
6900

Ian,

Amen brother.

This is exactly the same response I was going to write. I just didn't have the heart to.

Regards,

Bishop

Jared Hunter said:

In terms of actual image information, we know that 3Mp SuperCCDs
resolve approx. 4Mp's of information. That's why it makes sense to
resample down to 3Mp or 4Mp knowing that you aren't "losing" real
information. The process of downsampling also helps to eliminate
SuperCCD and jpg artifacts as well as in-camera sharpening halos.

Click to expand...

Now Wait a minute.

I posted a thread called "602 as a 4MP camera" in which I desribed the advatnages of downsampling to 4MP and you were bashing me on that idea but seems you're doing it yourself... here's what you wrote:
"

With CDRs costing 30 cents these days who cares? Keep the original 6Mps for maximum versatility...

...Perhaps, on antiquated hardware. But why would you want to archive your images based on the limitations of today's hardware. Tomorrow you will upgrade and regret not saving the original full size image.
"

Why would I regret? What versatility? If I am not losing real detail and just eliminating SuperCCD jpeg/in-camera sharpening artifacts as you said than I am as good...

--
Ido.
http://www.pbase.com/idok

I simply do not see that normal looks any worse at all than fine. In fact when viewed at 800 x 600 it seems to me like the normal version is better. I asked someone else, them not knowing which is which, and they picked the normal quality one too. I wasn't aware that being too sharp was the problem, the opposite of that is the problem. And the hard sharpening to me still makes pictures soft. The first pics I took with this camera were on normal sharpening and they were horribly muddy. I changed to hard sharpening in order to try and redmedy it. These pictures are not however examples of the problem but I do not think they show good overall quality. Had I been trying to take good examples, I might have raised the shutter speed, but I was only trying to take a comparison shot at normal type settings. Not, therefore, a shutter speed less than 1/30.

To re-iterate.. these are meant only to show my camera performs little different at fine quality. Or.. to see if you there is any change.

btw

the grave scenes suffixed f and f2 are the ones at fine quality

the ones suffixed n and n2 are normal quality

ianR said:

K Mcgregor said:

Decided to do a test today comparing the quality of the fine and
normal 3mp settings of the camera since a few people have suggested
that my taking them at normal quality might be to blame for the
softness of shots.

Although it was conducted with not exactly the most scientific or
comprehensive methods.. I just took two shots of two scenes on
each setting, with the aperture set to the sharpest (apparently)
5.6 and ISO 160. I didn't change the sharpening which maybe I
should have, but still.. I do not find that the fine quality has at
all helped the images. See what you think though.. They are also, I
might, add, badly exposed, but not too indicative of the softness
problem when its at its worst. Still not very sharp though. Note
although the camera has given a blur warning there was no camera
shake.

http://www.pbase.com/graid/bad_examples_2/

Click to expand...

--
6900

Click to expand...

K Mcgregor said:

I simply do not see that normal looks any worse at all than fine.
In fact when viewed at 800 x 600 it seems to me like the normal
version is better.

Click to expand...

What program and algorithm did you use to downsample the picture. This is very important because there are different algorithms in use here and the quick ones definately aren't the best. The compression artefacts that are visible in the basic compression are contributing a lot here because they make the scaled result look a bit better if using the quick and dirty version of the scaling algorithm...

K Mcgregor said:

I asked someone else, them not knowing which is
which, and they picked the normal quality one too. I wasn't aware
that being too sharp was the problem, the opposite of that is the
problem.

Click to expand...

Hard sharpening is loosing a lot of information. Sharpening should be applied last because if the sharpening is too hard you are generating edge artefacts. Please read up on sharpening in general and "unsharp mask" sharpening in special.

K Mcgregor said:

And the hard sharpening to me still makes pictures soft.

Click to expand...

I can't follow you here. Hard sharpening will create visible shadows on high contrast edges and also be prone to generate moiree artefacts around diagonal lines.

K Mcgregor said:

The first pics I took with this camera were on normal sharpening
and they were horribly muddy. I changed to hard sharpening in order
to try and redmedy it. These pictures are not however examples of
the problem but I do not think they show good overall quality.

Click to expand...

With the chosen settings they can't.

K Mcgregor said:

Had I been trying to take good examples, I might have raised the
shutter speed, but I was only trying to take a comparison shot at
normal type settings. Not, therefore, a shutter speed less than
1/30.

Click to expand...

Are you saying that you are able to hand hold shutter speeds of 1/30 sec? I'm not and I haven't met anyone with a sane mind that would claim to do so. You are trying to show that the camera is generating bad pictures by hand holding exposure times in the 1/30 sec range. You must be joking here. Honestly. For tests that prove anything go for exposure times of 1/320 sec or faster because then the camera shake can't even foul up pictures at full zoom. Unless you do so, I will not bother answering anymore.

K Mcgregor said:

To re-iterate.. these are meant only to show my camera performs
little different at fine quality. Or.. to see if you there is any
change.

Click to expand...

Your pictures prove nothing besides your insistance on using bad settings and impossible odds to prove it bad. If you insist on doing so further please return the camera to the store and go for a 1Mp point and shoot. You will be much happier.

regards
Karl Günter

Hi again,

See this post: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1012&message=3526981 . I don't know if you read it before but it addresses many of the issues with your photos.

Hey. You don't have to listen to me or anyone else though. Maybe we're idiots. But, after all, you did ask.

Regards,

Bishop

Ahh hu?

I just tried what you wrote, covered the AF-Sensor with my finger. But AF worked anyway ??

It's too dark, so I tried it with some macro focussing, but it seamed to work. How dos this focus work and when does it make use of it's AF-Sensor ? Something wrong with our cams, how can this work, ? Should I be fascinated or worried ?
Has anyone an idea ?

greets.jochen

Hell Dog said:

Ok, I did a test in all sharpness modes on various subjects. Still
got that diffused look in all sharpness settings. I cleaned the
lens and removed all the filters for my test. Bright subjects have
a wide halo around them. They are a lot wider then a jpg halo.
I’m convenced it’s because the camera is slightly out
of focus. Another point of curiosity is the auto focus sensor. I
took two of every shot. One using the normal auto focus on the
subject, refocusing on a different distance and then focusing again
on the original subject with my finger covering the auto focus
sensors. All the shots came out looking identical. Would that be
normal? I figured covering the sensor would give me different
results. By the way I tried this with the AF and AF AREA settings.
Manual focus seems about the same. Anyhow, could some one give
this a try and tell me the results? Occasionally I’ll get a
good shot, but I’m thinking it might be around the default
focus for the camera.

Here are some crops. All were taken with shutter speeds over 500
around noon today.

Halo in the paper and letter on the door.



Halo around the wall by the stairs. Nothing in this picture was in
focus at any depth.

Click to expand...

The AF sensor above the lens is for gross focus only. Fine focus is performed TTL using the contrast detection method.

By the way, I do think that there is something wrong with Hell Dog's camera however many other shots posted in this thread seem to be due to photographer error. Especially those of the original poster.

Regards,

Bishop

Pieter Gordebeke said:

sg10 said:

On the flip side, combine that with Sony's outstanding AF system,
and you've got some crystal clear images coming your way--I find
the Fuji AF system fights with me too often. Here's a Sony CD400
macro shot that I thought at the time was positioned and snapped
too fast to hope for really solid focus, I almost hit the delete
button before I even looked closer...

http://www.pbase.com/image/5129901

Have a look at it in original size, the detail captured still
amazes me. You can easily tell my little girl had been crying a
few minutes ago by the salt residue around here eyes. You can also
see a wisp of a spder web as she had just ran behind the bushes.
I've got some very nice S602 macro shots of her too, but nothing
where I can count individual peach fuzz.

Click to expand...

Having used Sonys myself, I understand your frustration with the
Fuji AF. Your image also proves that the detail from your Sony was
excellent, but it IS a 4MP. So why did you switch to Fuji? You
could have got yourself a 717.

Click to expand...

I switched from the CD400 because I missed way to many shots due to shutter lag and CD-write time. Due to a quirk(?) in the camera's programming, the CD400 didn't allow you to shoot while writing an image to CD. Strangely, if you didn't preview the shot before writing it to disk, you could shoot continuously. Unfortunately, if you wanted to view your last shot to see if you needed to retake (the Sony had a great last-picture-review mode where if you hit the left arrow, the last pic you shot would display, while staying in the current shooting mode) then you had to wait for the write to finsh, then wait for the read back too--so double penalty.

While the Sony only took about 5 secs to write (4 secs if you measure the speed at a more fair 3MP, for comparison to the Fuji) this was too much for me to deal with for each and every image taken. One might say, then just keep em all without reviewing, CDs are so cheaps who cares? To which I'd reply, then why not go 35mm SLR?

Anyway, the reaction speed and burst modes of the Fuji sold me, especially when I was dumping the CD400 for exactly the opposite reasons. I was also disappointed at the Sony's movies, they were a novelty at best. Ironically, I didn't even want movies when I entered the market, but the CD400 got me hooked, even though they were rather poor. When I saw the S602, it was like a dream come true. It still would be if every other shot wasn't a throw away for slight focus errors, while the good half requires some post processing.

The 717 is still very much on the table as an option. Problems: the movie modes are no better than the CD400, memory stick. Benefits: still image quality is in a different league, as is the AF system.

Its a very tough choice, even fully knowing all the factors. Why can't anyone build a decent high end digital camera? Its amazing to me that there is essentially no choice available at any price from any company that has great movies (S602), great operation (S602), microdrive/CF (S602), and great pic quality (717). I'd plunk down $1500 tonight, if it existed.

Pieter Gordebeke said:

BTW your daughter is absolutely gorgeous !

Click to expand...

Thanks so much.

Hi Bishop

Yes that is a very good set of rules to follow. That would solve most problems wouldn't it.
You've come to digital from SLRs so you've been through the school of course.
all the best
Ian

BishopVC said:

Hi again,

See this post:
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1012&message=3526981 .
I don't know if you read it before but it addresses many of the
issues with your photos.

Hey. You don't have to listen to me or anyone else though. Maybe
we're idiots. But, after all, you did ask.

Regards,

Bishop

Click to expand...

--
6900

Karl Günter Wünsch said:

K Mcgregor said:

Had I been trying to take good examples, I might have raised the
shutter speed, but I was only trying to take a comparison shot at
normal type settings. Not, therefore, a shutter speed less than
1/30.

Click to expand...

Are you saying that you are able to hand hold shutter speeds of
1/30 sec? I'm not and I haven't met anyone with a sane mind that
would claim to do so. You are trying to show that the camera is
generating bad pictures by hand holding exposure times in the 1/30
sec range. You must be joking here. Honestly. For tests that prove
anything go for exposure times of 1/320 sec or faster because then
the camera shake can't even foul up pictures at full zoom. Unless
you do so, I will not bother answering anymore.

Click to expand...

Although I agree with what you are saying, especially for test purposes, I am one with a (reasonably) sane mind who claims he can hand-hold a 1/30s shot. I won't say I get all of them without camera shake, but at full wide angle, with some concentration and while supporting my arms against my body (maybe leaning against a wall), I get about 8 out of 10 right.

Maybe when you zoom in at 100%, you find that 5 of those 8 supposedly good ones are, in fact, slightly blurred. However, you probably won't even notice on a 20x30cm print.

At least, if my 1/30s shots turn out bad, I know where I went wrong and I wouldn't even dream of blaming Fuji.

Just thought I'd add my opinion...

Karl Gnter Wnsch said:

Karl Gnter Wnsch said:

To re-iterate.. these are meant only to show my camera performs
little different at fine quality. Or.. to see if you there is any
change.

Click to expand...

Your pictures prove nothing besides your insistance on using bad
settings and impossible odds to prove it bad. If you insist on
doing so further please return the camera to the store and go for a
1Mp point and shoot. You will be much happier.

Click to expand...

I wrote something similar earlier. It seems too many people buy a digicam with all the manual options you could wish for, expecting to use it just like their compact, automatic 99$ film camera. We all know it can only work that way in ideal light conditions, and even then the creative ones will find a way to mess it up.

Karl Gnter Wnsch said:

regards
Karl Günter

Click to expand...

Likewise.
Pieter

Perhaps this has already been suggested, I'm not sure (this thread has gotten so huge, it's difficult to know what's already been said!). My apologies if you've already tried this ...

Anyway, I recall you mentioning that you had a 1.3 megapixel camera (an Olympus, I believe) that gave you no problems. Here's my suggestion: instead of setting your camera to 6mp or 3mp, set your 602 to the 1mp fine mode and take some pictures. See if the results are more in tune with what you were expecting of the 602. For comparison, here's a 1mp fine shot from my camera:

http://www.pbase.com/image/5655498/original

It's been mentioned before, but I'll repeat that a 6mp (or even a 3mp image is not really designed to be viewed full size on a monitor, especially one with an 800x600 screen resolution like you have. They're really meant to be printed. If you are accustomed to the crispness of a 1mp image, the relative softness of a 3mp or 6mp image on screen can be disappointing.

K Mcgregor said:

To re-iterate.. these are meant only to show my camera performs
little different at fine quality. Or.. to see if you there is any
change.

btw

the grave scenes suffixed f and f2 are the ones at fine quality

the ones suffixed n and n2 are normal quality

ianR said:

K Mcgregor said:

Decided to do a test today comparing the quality of the fine and
normal 3mp settings of the camera since a few people have suggested
that my taking them at normal quality might be to blame for the
softness of shots.

Although it was conducted with not exactly the most scientific or
comprehensive methods.. I just took two shots of two scenes on
each setting, with the aperture set to the sharpest (apparently)
5.6 and ISO 160. I didn't change the sharpening which maybe I
should have, but still.. I do not find that the fine quality has at
all helped the images. See what you think though.. They are also, I
might, add, badly exposed, but not too indicative of the softness
problem when its at its worst. Still not very sharp though. Note
although the camera has given a blur warning there was no camera
shake.

http://www.pbase.com/graid/bad_examples_2/

Click to expand...

--
6900

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Exactly. I see it the same.

If this pictures would be printed, you won't see a bad quality, but a good quality picture unless you print it on a paper as huge you can view it on the screen.

I also downsize my pictures to 800x600, to present them on my homepage and they look fantastic then.
I'm really looking forward to get some pictures from my S602 printed.

tblue01 said:

Perhaps this has already been suggested, I'm not sure (this thread
has gotten so huge, it's difficult to know what's already been
said!). My apologies if you've already tried this ...

Anyway, I recall you mentioning that you had a 1.3 megapixel camera
(an Olympus, I believe) that gave you no problems. Here's my
suggestion: instead of setting your camera to 6mp or 3mp, set your
602 to the 1mp fine mode and take some pictures. See if the
results are more in tune with what you were expecting of the 602.
For comparison, here's a 1mp fine shot from my camera:

http://www.pbase.com/image/5655498/original

It's been mentioned before, but I'll repeat that a 6mp (or even a
3mp image is not really designed to be viewed full size on a
monitor, especially one with an 800x600 screen resolution like you
have. They're really meant to be printed. If you are accustomed
to the crispness of a 1mp image, the relative softness of a 3mp or
6mp image on screen can be disappointing.

Click to expand...