Good color throughout the frame, with good resolution and detail. High contrast loses highlight detail though.

The extreme tonal range of this image makes it a tough shot for many digicams, which is precisely why I set it up this way, and why I shoot it with no fill flash or reflector to open the shadows. The object is to hold both highlight and shadow detail without producing a "flat" picture with muddy colors, and the A210 did a good job, but lost a more highlight detail than I'd like, while leaving the midtones a little dark.

The shot at right was taken with a +0.3 EV exposure compensation adjustment, which produced bright enough midtones, though with limited highlight detail. I chose the Auto white balance for the main series, though the Daylight setting produced similar results.

Skin tones are pretty good, though slightly magenta, and the blue flowers in the bouquet are almost perfect. (Many digicams have trouble accurately reproducing this blue, and the A210 does produce faint purplish tints. In reality, the flowers are a light navy blue with just hints of purple in them.) Color looks good throughout the rest of the frame as well, though the red flowers are slightly "hot." Resolution is high, with a lot of fine detail visible throughout the frame. Shadow detail is good, though noise is moderately high.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see files A21OUTAP0.HTM through A21OUTAP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Higher resolution and detail, but exposure is similar to the shot above.

Overall results are similar to the wider shot above, and the A210's 3x lens helps prevent any distortion of Marti's features. The shot at right was taken with no exposure compensation to hang onto a little more highlight detail, but midtone and shadow detail suffers as a result. Detail is much stronger in this shot, with better definition in Marti's face and hair.

To view the entire exposure series from -0.3 to +0.7 EV, see files A21FACAM1.HTM through A21FACAP2.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Normal Flash Default Exposure

Slow-Sync Mode +0.3 EV

Good intensity and coverage with the built-in flash, even at its default exposure setting, with good color as well.

The A210's flash illuminated the subject well, with good coverage at the default exposure setting. (Even at +1.7 EV, the exposure looked nearly the same, with similar brightness and intensity -- The A210's exposure compensation adjustment doesn't appear to affect normal flash exposures.) Overall color is pretty good, though saturation is slightly low, and the background incandescent lighting creates a slight orange cast on the back wall. The A210's Slow-Sync flash mode combines the flash with a longer exposure, resulting in a brighter overall image. At the default exposure setting in slow sync mode, the image is reasonably bright, but I chose an exposure compensation adjustment of +0.3 EV for the example image. The longer exposure of slow-sync mode increases the orange cast, affecting not only the back wall, but Marti's features as well.

Auto White Balance

Incandescent White Balance

Slight color casts with both white balances, but good exposure.

This shot is always a very tough test of a camera's white balance capability, given the strong, yellowish color cast of the household incandescent bulbs used for the lighting. The A210's Auto white balance had a little trouble here, producing a pinkish color cast. Alternatively, the Incandescent setting produced a warmer color balance, which I thought appeared more natural than the pink cast, but was still more tinted than I'd like to see. The Auto white balance example at right was taken with a +1.0 EV exposure compensation adjustment, while the Incandescent white balance shot was captured with +0.7 EV of adjustment. Detail is strong throughout the frame, and image noise is moderate.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Great resolution, and detail, though color balance is warm.

The A210's Daylight and Auto white balance settings produced very similar results. I chose the Daylight setting over the Auto, because the white value in the house trim appeared slightly more accurate (though still a hint warm). Resolution is fairly good for a three-megapixel camera, with good detail in the tree limbs and front shrubbery, although the A210's somewhat heavy-handed in-camera sharpening makes coarsens the finest details a fair bit. Details are reasonably sharp throughout the frame, with little of the softening in the corners that I'm accustomed to seeing in this shot from other digicams.

Very good resolution and detail, but dynamic range is very limited.

This image is shot at infinity to test far-field lens performance. NOTE that this image cannot be directly compared to the other "house" shot, which is a poster, shot in the studio. The rendering of detail in the poster will be very different than in this shot, and color values (and even the presence or absence of leaves on the trees!) will vary in this subject as the seasons progress. In general though, you can evaluate detail in the bricks, shingles and window detail, and in the tree branches against the sky. Compression artifacts are most likely to show in the trim along the edge of the roof, in the bricks, or in the relatively "flat" areas in the windows.

This is my ultimate "resolution shot," given the infinite range of detail in a natural scene like this, and the A210 performs well. The tree limbs over the roof and fine foliage in front of the house show a lot of detail, with pretty good definition in the leaf patterns. The in-camera sharpening is a little less obviously heavy-handed in this shot, although the finest details still look a little coarse to my eye. The camera loses all of the detail in the bright white paint surrounding the bay window, a trouble spot for many digicams, and detail in the shadows is only average. The overall color looks very nice, but the camera did overexpose the scene just slightly. The table below shows a standard resolution and quality series.

Resolution Series:

Lens Zoom Range

A good 3x zoom range.

I routinely shoot this series of images to show the field of view for each camera, with the lens at full wide angle, at maximum telephoto (3x, in this case), and at full telephoto with the digital zoom enabled. The A210's lens is equivalent to a 36-108mm zoom on a 35mm camera. That corresponds to a moderate wide angle to a moderate telephoto. Following are the results at each zoom setting.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Slightly warm color, but good resolution and detail.

This shot is often a tough test for digicams, as the abundance of blue in the composition frequently tricks white balance systems into producing a warm color balance. Both the A210's Auto and Daylight settings produced slightly warm color balances, though the Daylight setting had the least warm cast. The warm cast results in a greenish tint in the blue background as well as in the blue robe. Resolution is high, with very good detail in the embroidery of the blue robe, as well as in the beaded necklaces and instrument details.

Macro Shot

Macro w/Flash

About average macro area, but great detail and resolution.

The A210 performed pretty well in the macro category, capturing an average-sized minimum area of 3.6 x 2.7 inches (91 x 69 millimeters). Color balance was a little warm, but resolution was very high. The dollar bill, coins, and brooch all showed strong detail with good definition. The lower left corner of the frame was a little soft, but everything else is pretty sharp. The flash throttled down quite well for this shot, perhaps even a bit more so than I'd have wished. Overall, a decent macro performer with average coverage.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Good exposure, good overall color, but a bit of a warm cast.

The A210's Auto and Daylight settings produced similar color balances here, so I chose the Auto setting for main shot. Exposure is about right (perhaps just slightly bright), and the A210 distinguishes the subtle tonal variations of the Q60 target well. Although slightly warm, the large color blocks look pretty accurate. The large red color block is slightly oversaturated, but saturation otherwise seems about right. Detail is moderate in the shadow area of the charcoal briquettes, with a moderate level of noise as well.

Low-Light Tests

Very limited low-light capabilities, plan on using the flash for night exposures.

The A210 operates under automatic exposure control at all times, and has a very limited shutter speed range. Thus, the camera has limited low-light shooting capabilities. In my testing, the A210 produced a barely usable image at the one foot-candle (11 lux) light level. Color was good, but the image was really too dark to be acceptable. The table below shows the best exposure I was able to obtain for each of a range of illumination levels. Images in this table (like all sample photos) are untouched, exactly as they came from the camera.

(Note: If you'd like to use a light meter to check light levels for subjects you might be interested in shooting, a light level of 1 foot-candle corresponds to a normal exposure of 2 seconds at F/2.8 and ISO 100.)

	1fc 11lux	1/2fc 5.5lux	1/4fc 2.7lux	1/8fc 1.3lux	1/16fc 0.67lx
ISO 100	1/ 2 secs F3	1/ 2 secs F3	1/ 2 secs F3	1/ 2 secs F3.2	1/ 2 secs F3.2

Flash Range Test

Good intensity at the eight foot distance, but significant falloff thereafter.

In my testing, the A210's flash illuminated the target well at eight feet, dropped off dramatically at nine feet, then decreased gradually from there. Below is the flash range series, showing the results obtained at distances from eight to 14 feet from the target.

8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft	12 ft	13 ft	14 ft
1/ 60 secs F4.8	1/ 110 secs F4.8	1/ 90 secs F4.8	1/ 85 secs F4.8	1/ 80 secs F4.8	1/ 80 secs F4.8	1/ 75 secs F4.8

ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test

Decent resolution for an entry-level camera, 1,000 lines of "strong detail." Less than average barrel distortion.

The A210 turned in a good performance on the "laboratory" resolution test chart for an entry-level 3 megapixel camera. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 600-650 lines per picture height, in both horizontal and vertical directions. I found "strong detail" out to at about 1,000 lines, and "extinction" of the target patterns occurred at about 1,100 lines.

Optical distortion on the A210 is a little less than average at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.6 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared much better, as I found only half a pixel of barrel distortion there (about 0.03 percent). Chromatic aberration is also low, showing only very faint coloration on either side of the target lines. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)

Resolution Series, Wide Angle

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG
2,048 x 1,536	A21RESW3M
1,600 x 1,200	A21RESW2M
1,280 x 960	A21RESW1M
640 x 480	A21RESW03M

Resolution Test, Telephoto

2,048 x 1,536 (Fine, Tele)

A21REST3M