Casio QV-5000SX Test Images
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In our normal fashion, we're posting the test images for the QV-5000SX as soon as they are available. We'll post the full review as soon as possible, although travel plans mean that probably won't be until early July. (We hope to have these images patched into the Comparometer(tm) by Thursday, 6/18/98, so you can readily compare with other cameras.) Several readers have requested that we include more examples of cameras operating in their lower-resolution modes, and we have responded in this set of test images by different compression levels for key test scenes. We've also added a "live" version of the house shot, to test far-field lens performance. This goes against our philosophy a bit, in that the picture is obviously going to change drastically over time, with the weather, seasons, and growth of the landscaping. Some elements will nonetheless stay the same, and we believe the shot will give at least a reasonable indication of optical performance at infinity. Overview One of the things we like best about Casio's cameras is the ease and speed of their user interfaces. At first glance, the icons look a little blocky and low-tech, but we have to say (particularly after using some much more sophisticated and more expensive cameras) that nobody makes a user interface that navigates as fast as Casio's. They also deserve big pluses for frame-to-frame speed in playback mode - you can step between pictures about as fast as you can press the button. Look for our full writeup on the QV-5000SX about July 4 - we'll go into our usual depth on all its operating modes and features. Until then, here are all of our standard test shots, with detailed commentary on each. |
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Outdoor portrait: (276k)
Really a very good handling of this difficult shot! (Exposure was
adjusted +1 unit to compensate for the exposure effect of the bright wall
behind the model.) Colors are slightly muted, and detail is slightly soft,
but the image holds up surprisingly well even to higher-priced competition.
Detail seems to fall off a bit quickly in the shadows, but there are absolutely
no compression artifacts to be seen anywhere (at least to our eyes). While
the colors are a little muted, they clean up quite nicely with a quick "auto
levels" in Photoshop. Good color accuracy for the most part, but the
blue flowers and pants of the model are rendered as rich purples - an odd
anomaly. Overall impression is nonetheless quite good. |
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Closer portrait: (247k)
This is one of the new test shots we mentioned above. As with the
main outdoor portrait shot, good detail albeit slightly soft, good tonality
but slight loss in shadows, slightly muddy color which cleans up easily
in Photoshop. The rather short focal length lens distorts the model's face,
meaning you probably wouldn't want to use the '5000 for close portraits
like this. |
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Indoor portrait,
flash: (394k) Indoors under tungsten lighting,
the QV-5000's flash is a little unpredictable, sharing with the earlier
QV-770 the tendency to pick up a strong cast from the ambient lighting,
particularly where it is fairly bright, as here. (EV ~12.3) Under much dimmer
conditions, where the flash could dominate the exposure, color was more
natural. You can reduce the effect somewhat by decreasing the EV compensation,
which appears to only affect the ambient lighting. Here are samples shot
with the EV setting turned down 2 steps and
turned down 4 steps. We have to note though
that most "normal" flash shots we took indoors didn't produce
this extreme color shift, so it's possible the rather strong lighting was
at fault. Overall though, given the exceptional light sensitivity the QV-5000
shares with its predecessors, you're probably better off just shooting with
available light. (See the "no flash" portrait below.) |
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Indoor portrait,
no flash: (399k) The indoor, non-flash shots
are where the QV-5000SX's low-light capability really shines! (So to speak;-)
The main shot here was taken with the white balance set to "auto",
and one unit of +EV compensation (about a half of an f-stop). Nice shot!
Reasonable detail, very bright and open, excellent cast correction. But...
the *@# blue flowers still come out purple! (Actually, this may be a problem
between these specific flowers and the '5000s color filters - the flowers
are fabric, and even color film is very prone to "metameric" problems
like this with certain fabric dyes. Blue shades on the MacBeth chart, and
in the Musicians poster showed no such tendency.) We experimented with the
preset "incandescent" white balance setting to see how it performed.
Curiously, it left much more of the yellow cast from the tungsten lighting
in the image. Here are shots taken with the default exposure setting, and
with 2 units of +EV compensation (about a full f-stop). While these capture
more of the "mood" of the lighting, we really prefer the auto
white-balance version. |
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House shot: (687k)
The "House" picture is one of the strongest resolution
challenges in our test suite. The QV-5000 does reasonably well with it,
but shows odd (albeit tiny) pixel-level artifacts along contrast boundaries.
The checkerboard "zipper" pattern is barely visible on-screen
at 100%, in the louver vanes in the central gable, and where the downspouts
pass in front of darker areas. This is a pretty subtle defect though: You
have to look hard to see it at 100% size on-screen. It is likely to be invisible
at less than full-page size with all but the highest-resolution printers.
Color is good, with a slight yellowish cast, and slight under-saturation
in the greens and blues. Bottom line: If your application requires full-page
printing, the QV-5000SX should hold up well. (Go ahead and download this
image & try printing it on your own printer, to see for yourself!) We
shot this image at the largest image size of the camera, in all compression
modes, so you can see how the different compression settings affect final
image quality.
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Far-Field shot: (609k)
This is the second of the new shots we mentioned above. It 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.
Color in this sunlit outdoor shot was excellent, detail good to very good.
Shadow detail is surprisingly good also. Tough to tell, given the differences
in the subject matter, but looking at the detail of fine branches against
the sky, far-field performance of the lens looks very slightly weaker than
close-field. (We're probably splitting hairs here though, especially given
the inherent differences in the subjects.) |
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"Musicians" poster:
(529k) On the "Musicians" test image, the QV-5000 produced
good tonal range and detail, but colors were somewhat muted, with a cool
cast overall. This image is one for which we ran the full range of compression
settings. The "Super" resolution image has essentially no compression
artifacts, while those in the "Normal" version are only evident
in some areas (around the decorations on the blond model's vest). Given
the large 8 MB internal memory, most users will probably gravitate toward
the "Super" setting.
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Macro shot: (416k)
The QV-5000's built-in macro capability produces very respectable results,
focusing down to capture a minimum area of 3.2 x 4.2 inches (8.0 x 10.7
cm). While the digital tele really does no more than pre-crop the image
area for you (down to 640x480), we felt it could be particularly useful
for web publishers with macro needs. This shot
(98k) shows the results of a 2x zoom, which brings
the minimum area down to 1.7 x 2.2 inches (4.2 x 5.6 cm). While we liked
the 2x zoom, we felt the 4x left a picture
(75k) too blurry to use except at the smallest reproduction
sizes. |
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"Davebox" test target: (398k) Very strong, almost electric color saturation in the strong primaries in the MacBeth target, but stilll fairly delicate handling of pastels in the Q60, preserving Column "B" of the Q60, albeit just barely. The QV-5000SX is a fairly "contrasty" camera, producing bright images with somewhat limited tonal ranges. Shadow detail extends to about swatch "B" (16) on the long, vertical Kodak grayscale bar, and deep shadow detail in the charcoal is lost. The white-on-white gauze is close to being blown out, but playing with "levels" in Photoshop or other image editors proves there's actually a fair bit of detail there. Overall, lots of contrast will make big, bright images, but at some cost to detail at either extreme of the tonal range.
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"WG-18" resolution target: (433k) (Technoids Only!) Overall resolution is roughly 657 line pairs/picture height in both horizontal and vertical directions, with slight color aliasing for parallel lines at high frequencies. Close examination (200% on the monitor) reveals the jagged "zipper" artifacts along vertical and horizontal edges that we mentioned in earlier shots. Doesn't show on the screen at 100%, but highest-quality inkjet printers will see it on full-page blowups. (Download these images, print on your own printer at typical sizes you'll be working, and see how they look: Unless you routinely need to run 8x10 glossy prints, we suspect the results will be satisfactory.
We also shot the resolution target with the "Digital Zoom"
enabled at both 2x (189k)
and 4x (105k) settings.
While the 2x zoom produces a usable, if artifact-laden 640x480 image,
the 4x version is so blurred as to be practically useless, even for web
work. Bottom line: 2x works reasonably well (particularly useful for macro
shots to be used on the web), but 4x isn't realy useful. |
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Viewfinder accuracy/flash uniformity target: The optical
viewfinder (270k) on the QV-5000SX is about in
the middle of the pack in terms of accuracy. It shows about 13% less area
top/bottom and left/right than the CCD actually captures, and produces shots
offset a few percent to the top and right relative to what you saw through
the viewfinder. Not bad, but not the very best either. The LCD
viewfinder (250k) on the other hand, is deadly
accurate - as good as any we've found on any camera. It essentially shows
you exactly 100% of what the CCD will eventually save to memory. This also
held up fairly well in the case of the digital
telephoto mode (251k), although there we actually
observed a very slight cropping of the final image relative to what we saw
on the LCD. Flash uniformity is only good, with moderate light falloff at
the edges and corners. |
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