Sample Pictures for the Kodak DX3600 digital camera
| We've begun including links in our reviews to a Thumber-generated index page for our test shots. The Thumber data includes a host of information on the images, including shutter speed, ISO setting, compression setting, etc. Rather than clutter the page below with *all* that detail, we're posting the Thumber index so only those interested in the information need wade through it! |
| Outdoor Portrait: (485 k)
The extreme tonal range of this image makes it a tough shot for many digicams, which is precisely why we set it up this way. The object is to hold highlight and shadow detail without producing a "flat" picture with muddy colors, and the DX3600 performed very well considering its lack of exposure adjustments. The camera's automatic white balance system produced a slightly warm cast, but overall color is excellent. The blue flowers have hints of purple in them, but overall are superb (these blues are often difficult for digicams to reproduce correctly). Midtones are bright enough to see good detail, and the shadow areas show strong detail as well. Resolution is moderate, with a fair amount of fine detail visible throughout the frame. Overall, a great job, especially considering the DX3600's fully automatic exposure system. |
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Closer Portrait: (468 k)
Results are similar to the shot above, though the camera's somewhat short 2x zoom lens distorts the model's features a little. (Longer focal lengths are key in close up shots like this.) Resolution appears higher, with more defined detail in the face and hair. Overall color balance is again slightly warm, but less so than the wider Outdoor Portrait above. Skin tones look good, though with stronger orange and magenta tints. Detail is also strong in the shadow areas, with low noise. |
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Indoor Portrait, Flash: (392 k)
Excellent color and lighting, good balance between the flash and the room lighting. The DX3600's built-in flash illuminated the subject well, with the best results achieved in the Fill (392 k) flash mode. Though the intensity is a little bright, the model is more evenly lit. Shooting with the flash in the Auto (403 k) mode produced a much dimmer exposure, with a strong orange-magenta color cast on the background wall from the household incandescent lighting. Color looks about right in both shots, with better saturation in the Fill shot.. |
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Indoor Portrait, No Flash: (484 k)
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 DX3600's white balance system surprisingly good results, given this difficult light source and the camera's automatic-only white balance control. The overall image is just slightly warm, but still looks nearly accurate. Exposure looks good as well, with good highlights and midtone values. Skin tones are slightly magenta, and the blue flowers have a deep purple tint. Otherwise, color is about right. Noise is moderately high, but we're still impressed with the results given the camera's lack of exposure control. |
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House Shot: (947 k)
Slightly bright exposure, detail is a bit soft. Overall color balance in this shot is a little warm, but the DX3600 captured nearly accurate color. Exposure is a touch too bright, given the almost washed-out highlights. Resolution is moderate, though details are slightly soft. The foliage in front of the house shows high contrast, which helps define the fine details somewhat. There's some slight corner softness from the wide-angle lens, but overall, the DX3600 performs reasonably well here. |
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Far-Field Test (779 k)
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 our ultimate "resolution shot," given the infinite range of detail in a natural scene like this. The DX3600 picks up a moderate amount of fine detail throughout the frame, though details are fairly soft overall. The fine foliage details are even softer than the linear house details, but some definition in the leaves and limbs is visible. The DX3600 picks up some of the stronger details in the sunny bay window area (though most trim detail is lost to the bright glare), giving it a fairly limited dynamic range. The shadow area under the porch shows stronger detail, with a clear brick pattern. We shot this at the 1,800 x 1,200 (779 k) and 900 x 600 (282 k) resolution sizes. |
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Lens Zoom Range 2x optical zoom is a little limited, compared to 3x cameras. LOTS better than no zoom at all though. We've received a number of requests from readers to take shots showing the lens focal length range of those cameras with zoom lenses. Thus, we're happy to present you here with the following series of shots, showing the field of view with the lens at full wide angle, the lens at full 2x telephoto, and the lens at full telephoto with 2x and 4x digital zoom enabled. The DX3600's lens covers a range equivalent to a 35-70mm zoom on a 35mm film camera. Following are the results at each zoom setting.
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Musicians Poster (653 k)
The DX3600's automatic white balance system was tricked by the overwhelming blue in this image and produced a warm color balance, evidenced by warmer skin tones and a reddish tint in the blue background. The Oriental model's blue robe is a little darker than we'd like, with slight purplish tints in the shadows, but still looks close to accurate. (This is a tough blue for many digicams to reproduce correctly.) Resolution is moderate, though details are slightly soft. We again shot at the 1,800 x 1,200 (653 k) and 900 x 600 (231 k) resolution sizes. |
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Macro Shot (674 k)
Ho-hum macro performance. The DX3600 performed less than average in the macro category, capturing a slightly large minimum area of 5.46 x 3.64 inches (138.75 x 92.50 millimeters). Color and resolution both look good, though details are just slightly soft. We noticed a moire pattern in areas of the dollar bill, as well as some corner softness from the lens. The DX3600's flash (664 k) throttled down well for the macro area, though intensity was a little weak.
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"Davebox" Test Target (357 k)
Color is bright and vibrant in this shot, with good accuracy as well. The large color blocks appear slightly oversaturated, but still look good. Exposure is little bright, as the tonal distribution of the Q60 target is weak at the upper end. The shadow area of the briquettes shows strong detail, with moderately low noise, though the highlight areas are blown out. |
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Low-Light Tests Not great at low light shooting... The DX3600's full automatic exposure control limits the camera's capabilities for low-light shooting, as we expected it would. The DX3600 produced clear, bright, usable images only as low as eight foot-candles (or 88 lux), which is a fair bit brighter than common city street lighting at night. You could arguably capture images as low as four foot-candles (44 lux), though the exposure is dim. The target becomes invisible to the camera at 1/2 foot-candle (5.5 lux). Color looks good and accurate, and the camera's white balance system handles the dim lighting well (though with a slightly warm cast). Image noise is a little high, but isn't too distracting. The table below shows the best exposure we were able to obtain for each of a range of illumination levels. Images in this table (like all of our sample photos) are untouched, exactly as they came from the camera.
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Flash Range Test Good flash range. Kodak estimates the DX3600's flash as effective as far as 10.5 feet from the subject, which falls in line with our test results. The DX3600's flash illuminated our test target all the way out to 14 feet, though it was brightest from eight to 11 feet. Intensity decreased incrementally with each foot of distance from 12 to 14 feet, but still maintained a useful level. Below is our flash range series, with distances from eight to 14 feet from the target.
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ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test (445 k)
The DX3600 performed about average on our "laboratory" resolution test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 500 lines per picture height, in both horizontal and vertical directions. We found "strong detail" out to at least 800 lines. "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,000 lines. Optical distortion on the DX3600 is moderately high at the wide-angle end, where we measured an approximate 0.52 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared slightly better, though we measured a 0.26 percent barrel distortion. Chromatic aberration is very low, showing only about two or three very faint pixels of 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
Resolution Series, Telephoto
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Viewfinder Accuracy/Flash Uniformity Optical viewfinder is about average (which is too tight, in our opinion), LCD is pretty accurate. The DX3600's optical viewfinder was a little tight, showing approximately 86 percent frame accuracy at wide angle, and approximately 83 percent accuracy at telephoto. The LCD monitor performed much better, showing about 98 percent of the frame at wide angle, and about 95 percent at telephoto. Given that we generally prefer LCD monitors to be as close to 100 percent accuracy as possible, the DX3600's LCD monitor does a commendable job here (though we'd like to see more accurate telephoto framing). Flash distribution is uneven at wide-angle, with a bright spot in the center of the frame and a lot of falloff around the edges and corners. The flash distribution is much more even at telephoto, with only faint falloff at the corners.
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