A good job all around, with nice color, though highlight detail is sacrificed for brighter midtones.

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 S5 performed pretty well.

The shot at right was taken with a +0.3 EV exposure compensation adjustment (less than is normally required on this shot), which brightened the midtones nicely, though at the expense of the strongest highlight detail. I chose the Daylight white balance as the most accurate overall, as the Auto setting was just a bit warm overall (though results were still quite acceptable).

Skin tones are pretty good overall. The blue flowers in the bouquet also look very good, almost exactly matching the original subject. (These flowers are often difficult for many digicams to get right, so the S5 performs well here.) The strong reds and greens also look about right, with only a couple of hot patches in the center of the red flowers. Resolution is high, and the S5's 5.0-megapixel CCD picks up a lot of fine detail throughout the frame, even in the shadows. Details are also reasonably sharp, and image noise in the shadows is moderate. Overall, a very good performance.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see files S5OUTDP0.HTM through S5OUTDP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Closer Portrait:

Increased detail and resolution, similar exposure to the wider shot above.

Results in this closeup shot appear similar to the wider shot above, in terms of color and exposure. The S5's 3x zoom lens does a good job preventing distortion of Marti's features, and captures fairly sharp details as well. Resolution is higher in this shot, with excellent detail in Marti's face and hair and good definition. The shot at right was taken at the default exposure setting, which resulted in very bright highlights, but good midtones. (I felt that the shot at -0.3EV was really too dark, something in between would have been about right.) Shadow detail is again strong, with only moderate noise.

To view the entire exposure series from -0.3 to +0.3 EV, see files S5FACDM1.HTM through S5FACDP1.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Indoor Portrait, Flash:

Normal Flash +0.7 EV

Low intensity without any exposure compensation, but good overall color.

The S5's built-in flash has slightly weak intensity, and produces dim exposures without any exposure compensation. I obtained the best overall exposure with a +0.7 EV adjustment, though intensity is still just a hint dim. However, increasing the exposure compensation to +1.0 EV resulted in a large jump in the exposure, producing an extremely bright image. Overall color is pretty good, despite a slight orange cast from the background incandescent lighting.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see files S5INFP0.HTM through S5INFP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Indoor Portrait, No Flash:

Auto White Balance

Incandescent White Balance

Manual White Balance

Good color with the Manual white balance, though slightly cool. Slightly more exposure compensation than average, but good results overall.

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 S5's Manual white balance setting produced the best color here, though just slightly cool. Both the Auto and Incandescent settings produced similar, very warm images. Marti's skin tone is slightly pale under the Manual white balance, and quite pink. The blue flowers are nearly right, with only slight purple tints. The shot at right has a +1.3 EV exposure compensation adjustment, which is just a little higher than average. Overall, a good job, but I'd like to see a bit less exposure compensation called for.

ISO Series:
The S5 shows moderately low noise at the default ISO setting, but noise increases to a rather high level at ISO 400, as you might expect.

ISO Series
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400

House Shot:

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Manual White Balance

Good resolution and overall color, though quite a bit of softness in the corners.

On this shot, the S5's Auto white balance setting produced the best overall results, though just a little warm. The Daylight setting was just a hint cool, and the Manual white balance resulted in a greenish-yellow cast. Resolution is high, with good detail in the tree limbs and shrubbery, though details are slightly soft on the whole. The corners are quite soft on the right side of the frame though, and to a lesser extent present on the left side as well.

Far-Field Test

Great resolution and detail, though exposure is bright and dynamic range slightly limited.

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 S5 performs nicely. Fine detail is strong in the tree limbs over the roof, and fine foliage in front of the house shows good definition as well. In-camera sharpening does a pretty good job here, with reasonably crisp details throughout the frame. Corners of the image are much sharper than in the House poster above, leading me to conclude that the softness there was due to curvature of field at close shooting distances. The camera picks up a moderate amount of detail in the bright white paint surrounding the bay window, a trouble spot for many digicams. Detail is also only moderate in the shadow area above the front door, evidence that the S5 has a slightly limited dynamic range. Overall color is a hint cool, and exposure is a bit bright, but results are still good. The table below shows a standard resolution and quality series, followed by ISO, sharpness, "Chroma," and color series.

Resolution Series:

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG	"Normal" JPEG
2,560 x 1,920	S5FAR2560F	S5FAR2560N
1,600 x 1,200	S5FAR1600F
1,280 x 960	S5FAR1280F
640 x 480	S5FAR640F

ISO Series:

ISO Series
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400

Sharpness Series:

Sharpness Series
-1	Normal	+1	+2	+3

Chroma Series:

Chroma Series
Low	Normal	High

Color Series:

Color Series
Full Color	Black / White	Sepia

Lens Zoom Range

A typical 3x zoom range.

I routinely shoot this series of images to show the field of view for each camera, with the lens at full wide angle, at maximum telephoto (3x, in this case), and at full telephoto with the digital zoom enabled. The S5's lens is equivalent to a 35-105mm zoom on a 35mm camera. That corresponds to an average wide angle to a moderate telephoto. Following are the results at each zoom setting.

Musicians Poster

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Manual White Balance

Though slightly cool, overall color is good with the Daylight setting. Resolution is high, with great detail.

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. I chose the S5's Daylight white balance as the most accurate here, though the Auto and Manual settings produced good results as well. (The Auto setting was a hint cool, and the Manual setting a hint warm.) Even though the Daylight setting is slightly cool, I felt that the overall color looked best there. The blue robe looks nearly right, though with faint purplish tints in the shadow areas. Resolution is very high, with great detail in the embroidery of the blue robe.

Macro Shot

Standard Macro Shot

Macro with Flash

A larger than average macro area, but good detail.

The S5 captured a slightly large macro area, measuring 5.1 x 3.8 inches (128 x 96 millimeters). Resolution is high, however, with good detail in the dollar bill, coins, and brooch. Details are just a hint soft, but still well defined. Corner softness is present, and stronger on the right side of the frame. The camera's flash throttles down a little too well for the macro area, with falloff at the corners of the frame. There's also a small shadow from the camera's lens in the lower right-hand corner.

"Davebox" Test Target

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Manual White Balance

A slight warm cast with the Auto white balance, but good results overall.

Though just slightly warm-toned, the S5's Auto white balance produced the best color here, with the most accurate white value in the mini-resolution target and large, white color block. The Manual white balance produced a strong warm cast, and the Daylight also resulted in a warm color balance. Exposure looks about right though, and the S5 has no trouble distinguishing the subtle tonal variations of the Q60 target. The large color blocks are warm from the color cast, with slightly low saturation (except for the large blue block, which quite highly saturated). The shadow area of the charcoal briquettes shows a moderate amount of detail, with pretty low noise, and the last steps of both gray scales are barely distinguishable. Following are ISO and Chroma series.

ISO Series:

ISO Series
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400

Chroma Series:

Chroma Series
Low	Normal	High

Low-Light Tests

Good low-light performance, though noise is a little high, and there are many "hot pixels."

The S5 offers a Long Exposure mode, which allows exposure times as long as eight seconds. Combined with the adjustable ISO setting, this mode gives the camera good low-light shooting capabilities, although image noise is an issue. Because 1, 2, 4, and 8 second exposures are the only settings available, some shots are just a little dark or just a little bright. Still, results are good overall. The S5 produced bright, usable images down to the 1/16 foot-candle (0.67 lux) limit of my test, with good color at the 400 ISO settings. (Though you could arguably use the ISO 200 shot at this light level, which was just a little dim.) At ISO 100, shots were bright as low as 1/4 foot-candles, (2.7 lux), though the target was only slightly dim at 1/8 foot-candles (1.3 lux). Color balance was slightly warm from the Auto setting, but not too bad. Noise was moderate at ISO 100, with a number of "hot pixels," and increasing to a fairly high level at ISO 400. The main limitation of the S5 for low light shooting is that there's no noise-reduction system at work on long exposures. (This is definitely a camera that would benefit from Mike Chaney's excellent Qimage Pro program, with its sophisticated noise-reduction processing.) 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

A dim flash, with low intensity even at the closest test distance.

In my testing, the S5's flash just barely illuminated the test target all the way out to 14 feet, showing incrementally decreases in intensity with each foot of distance from the target. Even at the shortest test distance of 8 feet, the light level was unacceptably low. Kyocera rates the S5's flash range at 8 feet, but that's with the lens set to its full wide-angle position. In my tests here, the lens was close to its maximum telephoto setting, even at the 8 foot test distance, so the effective aperture was close to f/4.8. (The aperture information recorded in the EXIF file headers, which is what's reported in the table below) apparently doesn't take into consideration the reduction in effective aperture as the lens is zoomed toward the telephoto end of its range.) 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 F2.8 ISO: 100	1/ 125 secs F2.8 ISO: 100	1/ 125 secs F2.8 ISO: 100	1/ 125 secs F2.8 ISO: 100	1/ 90 secs F2.8 ISO: 100	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 100	1/ 60 secs F2.8 ISO: 125

ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test

High resolution, 1,150 lines of "strong detail." High barrel distortion, and slightly higher than average pincushion.

The S5 performed fairly well on the "laboratory" resolution test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 900 lines per picture height, in both horizontal and vertical directions. I found "strong detail" out to at least 1,150 lines. "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,350 lines.

Optical distortion on the S5 is high at the wide-angle end, where I measured an approximate 1.0 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared somewhat better, as I measured a 0.5 percent pincushion distortion. Both numbers are higher than average among competing cameras. (Typical numbers are 0.8% barrel and 0.1-0.3% pincushion, still too much barrel distortion IMHO.) As I observed in other tests I shot, there's quite a bit of softness in the corners of the image, particularly along the left-hand edge. The good news is that there's almost no chromatic aberration though, with almost no coloration along the edges of the res target elements. (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

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG	"Normal" JPEG
2,560 x 1,920	S5RESWLF	S5RESWLN
1,600 x 1,200	S5RESWMF	S5RESWMN
1,280 x 960	S5RESWSF	S5RESWSN
640 x 480	S5RESWTF	S5RESWTN

Resolution Test, Telephoto

2,560 x 1,920 (Fine, Tele)

S5RESTLF

Sharpness Series

Sharpness Series
-1	Normal	+1	+2	+3