Digital Cameras - Casio QV-7000SX Test Images
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Outdoor portrait: (419k)
The main image (419k) here
was shot with two steps of exposure compensation, while this
one (435k) was shot with only one. (These steps
are supposedly 1/4 stop increments, but the effect they have seems to be
greater than that.) Even the brighter of the two images holds detail well
in the strong highlights of the model's shirt. Resolution and detail appear
typical of a 1280x960 camera, and color rendition is generally good, particularly
the natural skin tones. One oddity: The model's bright blue pants and the
blue fabric in the artificial flowers are rendered with a distinct purplish
cast. This is odd, in that this hue error seems to occur either only for
a very narrow range of shades of blue: It can be seen in just a portion
of the Oriental model's robe in the "musicians" image, but is
nowhere to be found in the entire range of colors found in the "Davebox"
target. We call attention to it here because it is so evident, but note
that the effect seems very limited in its impact. |
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Closer portrait: (427k)
Excellent color, tone and detail in this shot! Not a whole
lot else to say about it, this is a very good performance on a difficult
subject with strong highlights and subtle pastel flesh tones. One minor
defect: There's a slight vertical "striping" evident in darker
areas, particularly in the deep shadows around the model's eyes. We're a
bit puzzled by this artifact though, as we couldn't find it in any of our
other shots. As such, it may be related to the extremely strong illumination
this photo was taken under, and the resulting short exposure time... |
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Indoor portrait, flash:
(423k) This is a tricky shot for digital cameras to
get right, as the relatively strong room lighting has a very warm tint,
while the light from electronic flash units is generally daylight-balanced.
The result usually is either a strong color cast, or odd color shifts between
the areas illuminated primarily by the flash, and those lit mainly by the
ambient light. The QV-7000SX performed exceptionally well here though, with
the flash providing just the right amount of fill light to lighten the shadows,
while showing only a slight warmish tint from the room lighting, and no
odd coloration due to flash/incandescent interaction. |
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Indoor portrait, no
flash: (395k) This picture is a pretty severe
test of a camera's white balance capability, shot as it is under standard
household incandescent lighting. (Which has a very pronounced yellowish
cast.) We were surprised here both by how exceptionally well the QV-7000's
automatic white balance worked, and by how poorly the manual "incandescent"
setting did. The main picture (395k) here was shot
with automatic white balance, and the exposure compensation set up by 2
steps, while this one (379k) used
the same settings, but with the exposure compensation boosted upward one
more notch. This shot (395k) was
taken with the white balance set to the "incandescent" option,
which strangely resulted in a very heavy yellowish cast, looking more like
the white balance was actually set to "daylight." (We'll repeat
this one in our next shooting session, in case we actually had the white
balance set to "daylight" by mistake.) |
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House shot: (446k)
Our main shot here (446k)
was taken with the white balance set to "auto". Color is
quite good, but detail is a bit soft, relative to the camera's 1280 x 960
resolution. On this shot, we ran a full series of shots at each resolution
setting, so you could evaluate the camera's performance in each resolution
mode. These shots are arranged in the table below. We also shot one image
in "economy" mode, with the white balance set to "daylight",
rather than auto. (Strangely, the "Fine" mode image turned out
larger than the "Super" one.) This image
(139K) shows a bit cooler color cast, although both
daylight and auto settings produced images well within the range of variation
we've seen among competing devices.
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Far-Field shot: (570k) 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. The late-fall lighting in this shot produced a rather dark image overall,
as the lower sun angle created a stronger highlight on the white areas
than the higher, summer sun did in other cameras you may compare this
one to. Again, color is quite rich and saturated, but the image is slightly
"soft." We did observe that the QV-7000SX apparently avoids
some of the minor sensor artifacts we saw in the earlier QV-5000's output,
notably the small "zipper teeth" along strongly-contrasting
vertical and horizontal edges. |
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"Musicians" poster:
(518k) Good color and tonal range here, with a slightly
warm cast undoubtedly caused by our choice of "auto" white balance:
Based on our other experience, the explicit "daylight" setting
would probably have produced a more neutral balance overall. Contrast is
a little high, with the highlights in the Caucasian girl's face a little
washed out. Overall, a very workmanlike performance though. Here again,
we've shot images at each resolution/quality setting, with the results arranged
in the table below.
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Macro shot: (583k)
The QV-7000SX performed very well in the macro test, capturing a minimum
area of only 1.7 x 2.25 inches (4.3 x 5.8 cm) at closest approach. Although
not rated for such close work (and we don't have a shot to demonstrate it),
the QV-7000's flash works quite well down to the minimum focusing distance
as well. For very close work, albeit at a lower resolution, you can combine
the unit's digital zoom with the macro mode to take pictures like this (189k). The active area here is only
0.85 x 1.125 inches (22 x29 mm)! |
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"Davebox" test target: (387k) Excellent color and tonal range, although some noise is apparent in the shadow areas. The camera generally appears to do a good job of preserving highlight detail, at some expense to detail in the shadows. (We'll note without explanation, that this is the direction you'd prefer digital cameras to err in...) We were especially interested to see how the camera handled the wide range of colors in this subject, particularly in light of the somewhat purplish rendering of the model's pants and the blue flowers in the outdoor shot. We were surprised to see that all colors in the MacBeth and Q60 targets rendered just fine (great, in fact). Whatever the problem revealed by the purplish blues in the portrait shots does not appear to be a general one for the camera.
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ISO 12233 ("WG-18") resolution target: (412k) (Technoids only) The QV-7000SX' visual resolution is about 600 line pairs/picture height in the highest resolution mode, with roughly equivalent performance at the wide and telephoto ends of its focal-length range. Virtually no color artifacts are visible, at any target frequency. We shot a full range of resolution/quality settings, at both telephoto and wide-angle settings, with the results tabulated below. We also shot with the digital zoom in the 2X (xxxK) and 4X (xxxK) settings. As noted in the main review, the 2X digital zoom could be quite useful for web publishers, but the 4x zoom is so soft we're hard-pressed to see a use for it. Telephoto
Wide-Angle
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Viewfinder accuracy/flash uniformity target: Given
that so much of our shooting requires fairly precise framing, we're always
overjoyed when we find a camera with an accurate viewfinder. The QV-7000's
LCD viewfinder is about as accurate as they come, showing exactly 100% of
the final image area. Flash uniformity is quite good also, showing only
slight falloff at the edges in wide-angle mode,
and almost perfect uniformity at the telephoto end
of the range. |
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