Rockwell on DSLR vs. P&S

"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote:

Although I agree 100% with your point about P&SO vs. DSLR, depending on
Rockwell for honesty and objectivity is like seeking Bill Clinton for
advice on staying faithful to your wife.

Better Clinton than Gingrich (divorced his wife while she was hospitalized
for cancer*) or Giuliani (what's he on: his fourth or is it his fifth
wife**)?

*: http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcol...mns/081799.htm

**: Oops, only three:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Gi...#Personal_life

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Oct 4, 6:50 pm, "David Ruether" wrote:

I should have this up in an hour or so, but I will put up comparison
photos atwww.doughicksphotography.com/comparison.htm.
of a D1x with an 18-70mm at 18mm and f4 and a Sony 707 at
10mm and f4.5 (about the same angle of view).

Oh boy, dueling Mavicas!

On Oct 4, 8:05 pm, Walter Hancock wrote:

Yet again the P&S camera clearly wins, over a Nikon dSLR no less.

Not even a contest

I couldn't look much past the grotesque skyline on the Sony shot.
That P&S sure does have lotsa colors .... even when there is no color
there.

"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" wrote:
Walter Hancock wrote:
On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 19:20:51 -0400, "David Ruether"
wrote:


"David Ruether" wrote in message ...
"Bob Williams" wrote in message ...
What I'd like to see.....Maybe Roger can do this
for us.....Is to shoot two identical subjects under
BRIGHT conditions where both cameras capture an
image at about f=4.0 - 5.6, ISO = 80-100, speed
1/250-1/400 sec.
These conditions are fairly typical of outdoor
lighting on a partly cloudy day and utilize a
camera parameters where BOTH cameras are operating
near their optimum conditions.
Bob
I should have this up in an hour or so, but I will put up comparison
photos at www.doughicksphotography.com/comparison.htm.
of a D1x with an 18-70mm at 18mm and f4 and a Sony 707 at
10mm and f4.5 (about the same angle of view). The files will be
very large...
--
David Ruether
The photos are now up (dull, and it would have been nice to have
had the sharpening at normal on the Sony, and/or to have used the
Fuji S700, but anyway...). I will remove this page soon...
Ouch! (saying that on behalf of all dSLR owners out
there)
Yet again the P&S camera clearly wins, over a Nikon
dSLR no less.
Not even a contest.

What I see are halos around all edges in the Sony image, which to the
untrained eye gives the impression of sharpness. To others it looks like
horrible artifacts. The advantage of the Nikon image is not shown.
It should be processed through a raw converter, where it would show
sharper edges and even less noise.

In addition to that, the D1x image is overexposed.
E.g., the lack of detail in the yellow lines compared to
the Sony image is because either the R or G channel is
blown out in almost every pixel. (I'd also expect the
RAW file from the D1x was a Compressed NEF, which does
indeed lose some detail in the highlights.) And that is
not to mention that the "detail" seen in the Sony image
appears to be more artifact than scene detail.

The above is made worse because apparently there was a
bit of cloudy haze in front of the sun for the Sony
image that was not there for the D1x image. It shows up
in the shadows and contrast on the wooden rail in the
lower left corner of the image. (I'm assuming that is a
difference in lighting as opposed to the possibility
that the D1x images simply have that much more contrast
than the Sony.)

I don't understand the idea that there is more detail in
the Sony image. That "detail" appears to mostly be the
artifacts, as you point out. It isn't just at the edges
of the image either. The parked cars aren't in the
center, but they have horrible fringing on them. The
far sidewalk, which is relatively close to center also
has fringing.

It's hard to make comparisons on those images though,
because as the EXIF data shows, neither is directly from
the camera. I'm not sure what the program that produced
them is, but RAW files, or at least JPEG's with the
original EXIF data would be more interesting.

Also, while it makes the content more interesting,
from an evaluation point of view it would have been
better not use each zoom lense so close to the limit of
its range. Closer to the center would be less a measure
of lenses and more a measure of the camera.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"Annika1980" wrote:
On Oct 4, 6:50 pm, "David Ruether" wrote:

I should have this up in an hour or so, but I will put up comparison
photos atwww.doughicksphotography.com/comparison.htm.
of a D1x with an 18-70mm at 18mm and f4 and a Sony 707 at
10mm and f4.5 (about the same angle of view).

Oh boy, dueling Mavicas!

Shooting the F707 stopped down more than two stops vs. the Nikon at 1/3 stop
from wide open tells you that the photographer was trying to make the Nikon
look bad. Shooting the Sony at f/5.6 and the Nikon at f/11 would be a more
interesting test.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Fri, 5 Oct 2007 11:43:47 +0900, "David J. Littleboy" wrote:


"Annika1980" wrote:
On Oct 4, 6:50 pm, "David Ruether" wrote:

I should have this up in an hour or so, but I will put up comparison
photos atwww.doughicksphotography.com/comparison.htm.
of a D1x with an 18-70mm at 18mm and f4 and a Sony 707 at
10mm and f4.5 (about the same angle of view).

Oh boy, dueling Mavicas!

Shooting the F707 stopped down more than two stops vs. the Nikon at 1/3 stop
from wide open tells you that the photographer was trying to make the Nikon
look bad. Shooting the Sony at f/5.6 and the Nikon at f/11 would be a more
interesting test.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


Even if the dSLR could get nearer to the image quality of the P&S camera, don't
you think that it's a bit silly to even consider wanting one when the dSLR costs
$5000+ more than the P&S's price? That gap has widened even more today if you
want to get a dSLR that can compete with most P&S cameras.

Think about it.

Whoosh, right over their heads. They refuse to believe that many many many P&S
cameras can beat the performance of dSLRs even if the obvious results were
tattooed to their retinas. The P&S beating the dSLR has been going on a long
time now, even from 6 years ago too as evidenced by these two photos.

They've been stuck in and hypnotized by their "dSLRs are BETTER!" mantra for so
long that all sense of reality has left them. Literally. Proof of that happening
is right here in this thread.

I would like to know, what are the better downsamplers?

At whole-fraction scaling factors (25%, 33%, 50%, 67%, 75%)
most downsampling algorithms give identical results.

Otherwise Lanczos is far better than Bicubic for most images.
Lanczos leaves smooth areas smooth and keeps edges sharp.

It's possible Bicubic is good if you're changing aspect ratio
(different scale for x / y). I have not investigated.


OK thanks for the reply! I guess the closest I've got to Lanczos is Irfanview
and xnview. But I've read that Irfanview's version is not the whole version
that is installed in a software program, PhotoLine32 has it full versioned,
written in Germany. I am not gonna buy it.

--
Giant_Alex
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

Annika1980 wrote:
My buddy, Ken Rockwell, did a recent comparison of high-ISO
performance between DSLRs that can be found he
http://kenrockwell.com/tech/iso-comp...7-10/index.htm

Note what he says about the Point & Shoots near the end of the
article:

"I was too lazy to include a compact camera, which as I showed last
year, is abysmal compared to any DSLR. A typical compact camera, like
the Canon SD700 I use all the time, is ten times worse than any DSLR.
My SD700 at its lowest ISO 80 looks about the same as any of these
DSLRs at ISO 800! "

LOL! Even Ken Rockwell says, "Sucks to be you, Point and ****ters !!!"

I put Ken Rockwell right up there with ASAAR in terms of providing
accurate information, but even Rockwell gets it right occasionally.

Don't you love how he writes "Personally I get my goodies at Ritz,
Amazon and Adorama," without disclosing that the hyperlink to each of
those uses his affiliate code. There are many of use on
rec.photo.digital that have web sites with links to affiliate accounts,
but at least we clearly disclose that fact on the web sites.

Then he "apologizes" for the third party ads, that he allows to be
displayed on his site from the dealtime.com/shopping.com affiliate program.

wallace_thornton wrote:
David J. Littleboy wrote:
Annika1980 wrote:
David Ruether wrote:

I should have this up in an hour or so, but I will put up comparison
photos atwww.doughicksphotography.com/comparison.htm.
of a D1x with an 18-70mm at 18mm and f4 and a Sony 707 at
10mm and f4.5 (about the same angle of view).

Oh boy, dueling Mavicas!

Shooting the F707 stopped down more than two stops vs. the Nikon at 1/3 stop
from wide open tells you that the photographer was trying to make the Nikon
look bad. Shooting the Sony at f/5.6 and the Nikon at f/11 would be a more
interesting test.

Even if the dSLR could get nearer to the image quality of the P&S camera, don't
you think that it's a bit silly to even consider wanting one when the dSLR costs
$5000+ more than the P&S's price? That gap has widened even more today if you
want to get a dSLR that can compete with most P&S cameras.

Think about it.

Whoosh, right over their heads. They refuse to believe that many many many P&S
cameras can beat the performance of dSLRs even if the obvious results were
tattooed to their retinas. The P&S beating the dSLR has been going on a long
time now, even from 6 years ago too as evidenced by these two photos.

They've been stuck in and hypnotized by their "dSLRs are BETTER!" mantra for so
long that all sense of reality has left them. Literally. Proof of that happening
is right here in this thread.

David wouldn't intentionally decieve.

Both from the ancient age of 2001 :-)

$1,000 P&S Sony DSC-F707 2001 4.9MP CCD ISO 100-400 a big P&S comparable
in size to today's entry level DSLRs.

$6,300 incl kit lens DSLR Nikon D1x 5.3MP double horizontal resolution
CCD ISO 125-800 (3200 boost) a huge industrial pro body with every
imaginable feature which is certainly part of the price, not that that
excuses the higher price but explains part of it.

The DSLR must have been enlarged (1.5x? or is that due to the odd
sensor?) then cropped the ends off from 4028x1324 to 3008x1960 and the
P&S is at the original 2560x1920.

I took a look at them with some heavy equal sharpening for easier
comparison, 0.5 pixel at max amount 489% sharpening to both which shows
the P&S is already sharpened, I suspect at a few different levels given
the halos. This accounts for the vast majority of the apparently sharper
P&S (as usual).

The yellow stripes are indeed missing detail for the DSLR but that's
about the only failing. The apparent leaf detail is all due to
sharpening, noise reduction and contrast boost. The P&S has more coarse
detail, a lot less shadow detail and chromatic aberration causing
colored halos around bright areas center to edge, like for example the
orange halos above the cars. There are sharpening halos on the power
lines too. And shadow detail is completely smeared from noise reduction
in places like the shadows of the foreground shrubs and where the right
car's tire meets the black trim. This doesn't matter much for bright
even lighting but if you want to capture shadow detail and high contrast
scenes in larger prints it *does* matter, and if you try pushing things
in post-processing, it shows.

The benefits of that much more cost are not proportional. For small
prints not needing adjustments, the P&S is a much better value but for
large prints and challenging conditions the DSLR is clearly a better
performer.

--
Paul Furman Photography
http://edgehill.net
Bay Natives Nursery
http://www.baynatives.com

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

Roger N. Clark wrote:

What I see are halos around all edges in the Sony image, which to the
untrained eye gives the impression of sharpness. To others it looks like
horrible artifacts. The advantage of the Nikon image is not shown.
It should be processed through a raw converter, where it would show
sharper edges and even less noise.


In addition to that, the D1x image is overexposed.
E.g., the lack of detail in the yellow lines compared to
the Sony image is because either the R or G channel is
blown out in almost every pixel. (I'd also expect the
RAW file from the D1x was a Compressed NEF, which does
indeed lose some detail in the highlights.) And that is
not to mention that the "detail" seen in the Sony image
appears to be more artifact than scene detail.

Yep.

I don't understand the idea that there is more detail in
the Sony image. That "detail" appears to mostly be the
artifacts, as you point out. It isn't just at the edges
of the image either. The parked cars aren't in the
center, but they have horrible fringing on them.

Yep.