DSLR and Handheld Duke It Out
I did an experiment last night at the suggestion of my father-in-law, Jim. We took some tulips from the dinner table, placed them in a spot of sunshine on the floor and shot pictures with both my Nikon D70s Digital SLR (6.1 megapixels) and his Canon PowerShot A510 digital handheld camera (3.2 Megapixels). He thought it would make a good article for the blog to see the differences in the images of both cameras. I didn’t think there would be much of a difference except in resolution and what the lenses could do. But oh, how wrong I was!
The first shot above was taken with my Nikon DSLR (fitted with a +4 Diopter using my 18-70mm lens). The shot on the right was taken with his Canon point-and-shoot. There’s a huge difference in color rendition. Granted, some of that can be explained with differences in white balance, but that doesn’t explain it all. This was by no means a scientific experiment, and the light was slightly different in both shots. My objective wasn’t to skew things in one direction or the other, but I was really surprised to see how flat and reddened the color became with the PowerShot. The flower lost all its fire and the yellow in the flower all but disappeared. In looking at the flowers themselves the colors are much closer to the Nikon’s rendition.
Jim’s Canon A510 did a great job of getting close focus using the Macro setting on a 6mm lens. (For more on using the macro setting, click here).
This experiment made me anxious to try the same thing with my Canon PowerShot A70 (before my tulips croaked out). I placed the flower in the window and took shots with both my Canon PowerShot A70 (3.2 Megapixels) and my Nikon. Here are the results (Nikon D70s top Canon PowerShot bottom):
The glow and fire is lost with the Canon, but I chalk that up to resolution and lens quality. You can’t expect the same quality of image with a DSLR and a point-and-shoot. But the shots are not wildly different, so that raises the question about Jim’s Canon A510. It’s a really good camera and I’m surprised by the results (could be flaws in my experiment?). This very un-scientific experiment has definitely raised questions for me. I may have to do a broader experiment with more controllable factors and compare all three cameras side-by-side. Shayne can help me with that. He’s all about the scientific method, right, Shayne?
Responses and Conversations
You still get washed out color in the Canon shot. I personally think that most P&S cameras are calibrated to provide a very even tone with little contrast on purpose – just to make taking generic pictures easier. I sometimes wonder if there are hacks that can be done on a P&S to get the color a little more interesting. I know on our Canon P&S the B&W setting really increases the overall contrast, so there must be SOMETHING that can be done.
Comment by Christopher Frazier on April 17th, 2006 at 10:57 am
do you understand that you are comparing a p&s against a dslr right?
Comment by ruben on June 1st, 2006 at 7:17 pm