HP PhotoSmart 912HP and Pentax team up to make a true SLR digicam with Pentax lens, HP color wizardry, and ample features.<<Video, Power, Software :(Previous) | (Next): Reference: Datasheet>> Page 12:Test Results & ConclusionReview First Posted: 3/26/2001 |
Test Results
In keeping with our standard policy, our comments here are rather condensed, summarizing our key findings: For a full commentary on each of the test images, see the PhotoSmart 912's "pictures" page.
As with all Imaging Resource camera tests, we encourage you to let your own eyes be the judge of how well the devices performed. Explore the images on the pictures page, to see how well the 912 performed, and how its images compare to other cameras you may be considering buying.
Overall, the 912's white balance system did a pretty good job, though it had some trouble with our household incandescent lighting as well as the bright sunlight of the outdoor pictures. During the majority of our testing, the color balance was always either slightly warm or slightly cool, never dead on what we'd consider neutral. Still, overall color looked pretty good in most shots, with good accuracy. Saturation was a little weak, particularly in the Indoor portraits, never to the point we'd consider detrimental in typical shooting conditions. We noticed that bright red values, such as the red flower in the Outdoor Portrait and the large, red color block of the Davebox, often had a pixelated appearance along the edges, and a slight loss of detail. (A fairly common digicam limitation.) The other large color blocks of our Davebox test target showed good hue accuracy, although with slightly reduced saturation. The 912 did a good job of distinguishing between the red and magenta color blocks on the middle, horizontal color chart (another common problem area for many digicams), and picks up the variations of the Q60 chart all the way to the "B" range (albeit with very dim color variations). We also noticed a hazy cast in many of our test shots, that subdued the color. Still, the 912 does a pretty good job.
In our laboratory resolution test, the PhotoSmart 912 produced clean detail out to about 650 lines per picture height in both horizontal and vertical directions. The image is fairly "clean", in that noticeable aliasing doesn't begin until 700 to 750 lines. The image is once again soft, as we observed in our other tests, but takes sharpening well in Photoshop or other imaging program.
Optical distortion on the 912 is fairly high at the wide angle end, where we measured approximately 0.91 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto setting produced much better results, as we only measured one pixel of pincushion distortion. Chromatic aberration is fairly low, showing about a three pixels of faint coloration on each side of the black 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.)
We found the 912's TTL optical viewfinder to be only a little tight, though still reasonably accurate, showing approximately 90.4 percent of the image area at wide angle. Frame accuracy was approximately 93.2 percent at the telephoto end. (Frame accuracy was the same for both resolution sizes). The LCD monitor was also a little tight at the wide angle end, showing approximately 96.3 percent of the image area, at both resolution sizes. (These shots of the viewfinder accuracy target look a little different than normal, because the 912's 4:5 image aspect ratio means that the bold vertical lines at the right and left hand edges of the frame are cut off. This is normal for cameras with this aspect ratio.) The LCD's frame accuracy was slightly higher at the telephoto end of the zoom range, where it showed 98.3 percent of the final image area. Since we like to see LCD viewfinders as close to 100% frame coverage as possible, the 912's LCD does quite well in this respect.
The 912 performed very well in the macro category, capturing a very tiny minimum area of just 0.62 x 0.50 inches (15.78 x 12.62mm). Definitely one of the smallest macro areas we've seen in a while. Detail and resolution both look great, with a lot of the fibrous detail of the dollar bill visible. Printing details on the bill are slightly soft, but still well defined. Color looks reasonably accurate as well, though slightly greenish. Noise is low, and scarcely visible. The 912's built-in flash does a surprisingly good job of throttling down for the macro shot, though with slightly uneven distribution at such a close range. An orangish hot spot dominates the top right corner of the image, with the greenish tint increasing in rest of the image. Still, a very nice job overall.
In our testing, we found the 912's flash power brightest from eight to 10 feet from the target, with a slight decrease in intensity at each additional foot of distance. The largest decrease in intensity occurred between the 14 and 15 foot distances. The flash was still effective at the 15 foot distance, though the intensity was quite dim. HP doesn't state an official range for the flash in their documentation for the camera, but we'd rate it at about 10 feet.
The 912 had a little trouble in the low-light category, producing the brightest, clearest image at the eight foot-candle light level (88 lux), which is the brightest light level in the series. We found similar results for the 100, 200, and 400 ISO settings, the only major difference being the noise level. At all three ISO settings, the eight foot-candle (88 lux) image shows very hot white values which seem to glow slightly. This odd highlight trait disappears with the lower light levels, however. We also noticed a strange blue cast to a couple of the images, namely the four foot-candle light level (44 lux) at 200 ISO, and the two foot-candle light level (22 lux) at 400 ISO. Images were still usable at the two and four foot-candle light levels, though somewhat dim. The target remained visible as low as 1/16 of a foot-candle (0.67 lux), however, noise levels increased dramatically. Noise was surprisingly high with the 100 ISO setting, and only increased with the 200 and 400 ISO settings. However, at all three ISO settings, the highest noise occurred with the darker light levels, from about two foot-candles on down. (We direct readers to Mike Chaney's excellent Qimage Pro program, for a tool with an amazing ability to remove image noise without significantly affecting detail.) To put the 912's low-light performance into perspective, an average city night scene under modern street lighting corresponds to a light level of about one foot-candle, so most average nighttime city shots will require use of a flash.
The 912 performed pretty well throughout our testing. Despite slightly flat color and a milky haze in some images, the 912 does a good job of reproducing color and interpreting most light sources. (The slight milkiness could be easily dealt with using QBeo's PhotoGenetics program, which we highly recommend for applications such as this.) The camera does better than average in the macro category, and has a nice complement of manual exposure controls (including a wide array of ISO settings). Most low-light situations will require the use of a flash, but the 912's built-in flash should be up to the challenge. We think the 912 does a pretty good job for its 2.24 megapixel class.
Conclusion
With the addition of a fully manual exposure mode, TTL optical viewfinder, more extensive exposure controls, and more external camera controls, the 912 provides a much more sophisticated user interface than other HP PhotoSmart models. Its varying levels of exposure control make the PS 912 suitable to both beginning and advanced digital photographers, with an easy-to-use fully automatic mode and a manual mode that allows the user to make all of the exposure decisions. The 912 produces exceptional color and image quality, with a high-precision 3x zoom lens, and a 2.24-megapixel CCD that is capable of producing prints as large as 8 x 10-inches (and larger. Based on HP's popularity in the digicam marketplace, and the relatively low price point, we feel that the PhotoSmart 912 should do well in the advanced digital SLR market.
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