A good job overall, although slightly pink color balance and high contrast.

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 DX6340 performed reasonably well.

The shot at right was taken with a +0.5 EV exposure compensation adjustment, which brightened the midtones somewhat, although the high contrast means that the strong highlights show very little detail. I chose the Auto white balance as the most accurate overall color, despite a very slight red tint. The Daylight setting resulted in a stronger red cast.

Skin tones are just a little warm and reddish, but not bad overall. The camera had a little trouble with the blue flowers in the bouquet (as do many digicams), and reproduced them much darker and with more purple in them than in real life. (It still did better than most cameras with this difficult color though.) The strong red flowers look pretty good, though quite hot in places. The DX6340's 3.1-megapixel CCD captures good detail throughout the frame, although detail is limited in the darker shadow areas. Details are sharp, however, and image noise the deeper shadows is moderate.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see files D63OUTAP0.HTM through D63OUTAP2.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Closer Portrait:

Great resolution and detail, although slightly underexposed.

Overall results are similar to the wider shot above, and the DX6340's 4x zoom lens helps prevent distortion of Marti's features. Detail is much stronger in this closer shot, with sharp, well-defined details in Marti's face and hair. The shot at right was taken with a +0.5 EV exposure compensation adjustment, leaving the image just slightly dark. However, increasing the exposure to +1.0 EV lost too much detail in the highlights, and resulted in too bright of an image overall. (An example of why I prefer 1/3 EV adjustments for exposure compensation.) Shadow detail is slightly stronger in this shot than in the wider shot above, still with moderately low noise.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see files D63FACAP0.HTM through D63FACAP2.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Indoor Portrait, Flash:

Normal Flash +1.5 EV

Slight underexposure, even with a hefty exposure boost.

The DX6340's built-in flash produced a very dark image here with the default exposure, and required a +1.5 EV exposure compensation boost to get the brightest exposure. Even with this much of an exposure boost, Marti's features are still a little dark. The flash produces a bluish cast on Marti's face and on the white shirt. While this shot is a little dim, I felt that attempting to brighten the image a bit more by boosting the exposure compensation to +2.0 EV blew the highlights on the shirt too much. (The exposure compensation seems to mainly affect the shutter speed, and therefore the room lighting, more than the flash exposure.) The background incandescent lighting results in an orange cast on the back wall, which spills onto Marti's features as well.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +2.0 EV, see files D63INFP0.HTM through D63INFP4.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Indoor Portrait, No Flash:

Auto White Balance

Incandescent White Balance

Surprisingly accurate color with both the Auto and Incandescent white balance settings, good exposure as well.

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. Both the DX6340's Auto and Incandescent white balance settings produced good results here, with only slight warm casts, actually matching the "mood" of the original room lighting very well. Marti's skin tone looks pretty good here, although the blue flowers came out quite dark and purplish. (Probably to be expected, considering the light source.) The shot at right was taken with a +1.0 EV exposure compensation adjustment, which resulted in a slight overexposure, although going with a +0.5 EV boost left things looking too dark. Still, good results overall.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.5 EV, see files D63INTP0.HTM through D63INTP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

House Shot:

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Good resolution, detail, and color, though with a slight red cast.

The DX6340's Auto white balance setting produced good results here, with the most accurate white value on the house trim. The Daylight white balance also produced good results. Both white balances produced slight reddish casts, with the Daylight setting the least accurate of the two (although still pretty good). Resolution is high, as the tree limbs and shrubbery show a lot of fine detail. The softer details of the fine foliage are less sharply rendered, with less definition, but overall detail is still quite good. Details are also reasonably sharp throughout the frame, with only a little softness in the corners. A great job.

Far-Field Test

Very good detail for a 3 megapixel camera, good dynamic range.

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 DX6340 did a very good job with it. While the fine details of the tree branches are lost against the bright sky at top center, the detail elsewhere is excellent. The corners of the frame are also sharper than average, although a little coma and chromatic aberration are visible in the upper left. Dynamic range is also better than I expected, after the excessive contrast on the outdoor portrait test above. The 6540 holds onto detail in the brightest highlights, and shows good detail in the shadows as well. An excellent job.

Resolution Series:

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG
2,032 x 1,524	D63FARL
1,656 x 1,242	D63FARM
1,200 x 900	D63FARS

Lens Zoom Range

Better than average 4x zoom range.

I routinely shoot these images to show the field of view for each camera, with the lens at full wide angle, at maximum telephoto (4x, in this case). The DX6340's lens is equivalent to a 36-144mm zoom on a 35mm camera. That corresponds to a moderate wide angle to a decent telephoto. Following are the results at each zoom setting.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Very good color, just slightly reddish, and good detail. (Required minor exposure compensation though.)

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. The DX6340's Auto white balance setting did the best job here, although it still produced a slight reddish color balance overall. The Daylight setting produced a stronger red cast. I shot these images with a +0.5 EV exposure compensation adjustment, as the default exposure looked quite dark. Skin tones are slightly warm from the red cast, and the blue robe has purplish tints in the deep shadows. Resolution is high, with good detail in the embroidery of the blue robe (though details are slightly soft).

Macro Shot

Standard Macro Shot

Macro with Flash

An average size macro area, but good detail and color.

The DX6340 turned in about an average performance in the macro category, capturing a minimum area of 3.47 x 2.61 inches (88 x 66 millimeters). Resolution is high, with strong detail in the dollar bill, coins, and brooch. Corner softness is stronger in this shot, and extends down the entire left and right sides of the frame. The camera's flash almost throttled down too much for the macro area, creating a dark shadow in the lower left corner of the frame.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

A slight overexposure, but good overall color. (Slightly "hot" additive primaries though, particularly the bright red.)

The Auto white balance produced the best color here, although with a slight yellow cast, with the most accurate white value in the mini-resolution target and large, white color block. Daylight white balance resulted in a warm, reddish image. The image is very bright, and the DX6340 distinguishes the subtle tonal variations of the Q60 target only up to the "C" range. Colors are bright and vibrant in the large color blocks, although I found the additive primary colors (red, green, and blue) a bit oversaturated. The shadow area of the charcoal briquettes shows limited detail, with moderate noise.

Low-Light Tests

Good low-light performance in Shutter Priority mode, although the autofocus system has some trouble.

The DX6340 offers a Shutter Priority exposure mode, with exposure times as long as four seconds. However, the adjustable ISO is not available in this mode. In Program AE mode, which lets you adjust the ISO, the longest exposure time available is 1/8 second. Thus, I found the best results in Shutter Priority mode, which automatically adjusts the ISO depending on the conditions.

The DX6340 produced clear, bright, usable images down to the 1/8 foot-candle (1.3 lux) limit of my test, with good color in Shutter Priority mode. In Program AE, with each of the adjustable ISO settings, exposures weren't even bright at two foot-candles (22 lux), which is a stop brighter than average city street lighting at night. Thus, you'll get the best results in Shutter Priority mode, or in the camera's Night Scene mode. The only other trouble you'll run into is with the autofocus system, as the DX6340 has trouble getting sharp focus in low light. Noise was moderately high, indicated that the camera likely chose the 400 ISO setting for this series.

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.

Flash Range Test

Good intensity to 12 feet, with slight decreases in brightness from there on out.

In my testing, the DX6340's flash illuminated the test target all the way out to 14 feet, with only a little decrease in intensity at the greatest distances. Flash exposure remained bright to about 12 feet, then decreased from there. The noise level in the images suggests that the 6340 is "cheating" a little in the flash range, by automatically boosting its ISO rating. (Many digicams do this these days. The tradeoff is greater flash range, at the expense of increased image noise.) Below is the flash range series, with distances from eight to 14 feet from the target.

8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft	12 ft	13 ft	14 ft
1/125 secs F4.3	1/125 secs F4.9	1/125 secs F4.9	1/90 secs F4	1/125 secs F4.9	1/125 secs F4.9	1/125 secs F4.9

ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test

Good resolution, 950 lines of "strong detail." Low barrel distortion.

The DX6340 performed pretty well on the "laboratory" resolution test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 600 lines per picture height, in both horizontal and vertical directions. I found "strong detail" out to at about 950 lines. (This is a bit under the level reached by the best three-megapixel cameras I've tested.) "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,100 lines.

Optical distortion on the DX6340 is less than average at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.4 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared even better, as I found only one pixel of barrel distortion there. The edges of the image are only slightly softer than the center, and there's relatively little chromatic aberration present, although the image shows higher than average flare overall.

Resolution Series, Wide Angle

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG
2,032 x 1,524	D63RESWLF
1,656 x 1,242	D63RESWMF
1,200 x 900	D63RESWSF

Resolution Test, Telephoto

2,032 x 1,524 (Fine, Tele)

D63RESTLF