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Nikon Coolpix 8400 By: Shawn Barnett & Dave Etchells (none) Select a topic Reference: Datasheet 8400 Sample Images 8400 Imatest Results --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. User Report 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on 8400 Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<8400 Sample Images :(Previous) | (Next): Print-Friendly Review Version>> 8400 Imatest Results Review First Posted: 09/16/2004, Updated: 12/13/2004

Detailed analysis of the Nikon Coolpix 8400 images, from Imatest(tm)

 

I've recently begun using Norman Koren's excellent "Imatest" analysis program for quantitative, thoroughly objective analysis of digicam test images. I highly commend it to our technically-oriented readers, as it's far and away the best, most comprehensive analysis program I've found to date. (And with an introductory price of only $59, it's hard to beat.)

My comments below are just brief observations of what I see in the Imatest results. A full discussion of all the data Imatest produces is really beyond the scope of this review: Visit the Imatest web site for a full discussion of what the program measures, how it performs its computations, and how to interpret its output.

Here's some of the results produced by Imatest for the Nikon Coolpix 8400:

These images show the color behavior of the Nikon Coolpix 8400 directly. In each color swatch, the outer perimeter shows the color as actually captured by the camera, the inner square shows the color after correcting for the luminance of the photographed chart (as determined by a 2nd-order curve fit to the values of the gray swatches), and the small rectangle inside the inner square shows what the color should actually be, based on perfect rendering to the sRGB color spacer. From this plot, we can see that the Nikon 8400 not only boosts saturation somewhat, but renders highly-saturated colors somewhat brighter than they are in real life. As noted above, the net result in its photos isn't unappealing (depending of course on your tastes), but there's no question that its colors are a fair bit brighter than average. (It's interesting to note though, that less-saturated colors are rendered much more accurately. This helps the camera do a good job on skin tones, not over-emphasizing reds or yellows as do some cameras with "hot" color rendering.)

There's a lot in this particular graph, a lot more than I have room to go into here. Bottom line, the Coolpix 8400's noise levels are quite low at ISO 50, with significant high-frequency content, which gives the noise a very fine-grained characteristic that minimizes its visual impact. (You can see the high-frequency nature of its noise by the gentle slope on the Noise Spectrum plot above.)

I don't usually bother showing a second noise graph for the cameras I test, but in the case of the Nikon 8400, I thought it would be instructive. At higher ISOs, its noise develops a much coarser "grain" pattern, making it much more objectionable. What's interesting here is that the Imatest Noise Spectrum plot above shows this quite directly, with more of a bulge on the left (low frequency) side of the graph, and a more rapid falloff on the right (high frequency) side.

This chart compares the Nikon Coolpix 8400's noise performance over a range of ISOs against that of competing cameras. As you can see, the Nion 8400 and Sony DSC-F828 have very similar performance. (The 8400's big brother, the Coopix 8800 is also shown on this plot. As you can see, the 8400's noise levels are slightly lower than those of the 8800 at low ISOs, slightly higher at ISO 400.) The Olympus C-8080 and Konica Minolta DiMAGE A2 both show lower noise magnitudes. What this plot doesn't show though, is how the cameras are achieving their noise levels. In the case of the 8080 and A2, both cameras use more aggressive noise-suppression processing than do the Nikon 8400 or Sony F828. The result is that their noise levels are lower, but they lose more detail in image areas with subtle contrast.

The chart above shows consolidated results from spatial frequency response measurements in both the horizontal and vertical axes. The "MTF 50" numbers tend to correlate best with visual perceptions of sharpness, so those are what I focus on here. The uncorrected resolution figures are 1380 line widths per picture height in the horizontal direction (corresponding to the vertically-oriented edge), and 1391 along the vertical axis (corresponding to the horizontally-oriented edge), for a combined average of 1386 LW/PH. Correcting to a "standardized" sharpening with a one-pixel radius increases this number slightly, to an average of 1519 LW/PH, a very good number. (Very slightly lower resolution than I found with the Coolpix 8800, which came in at a corrected average of 1559 LW/PH.)

For the real techno-geeks, the two plots below show the actual edge response of the 8400, for horizontal and vertical edge. What's interesting in these plots is how restrained the 8400's default sharpening is, and how little it disturbs the underlying image detail.