F80EXR in the real world … part 2

In this part, I wander about the garden extremely late in the evening with the F80EXR and the F70EXR. So late that both cameras were shooting out bright blue images straight from the camera. I fixed the white balance in ACR5.

First, I tried shooting my Forsythia, which is still blooming nicely. Very tough to get anything at 300mm, but I managed to get almost-sharp images from both cams. The F80EXR won this battle for sharpness, but that was mainly a statistical victory … it’s ahrp image came first and I did not have the patience to shoot enough images with the F70EXR to get one perfectly sharp.

Remember to click through to see the 800px versions … assuming you want to actually see what I am talking about :-)

F80EXR  1600iso, f/5.6, 1/4s, 50mm

F70EXR  1600iso, f/5.6, 1/4s, 50mm

I walked next to the barbecue and shot a macro image of the rusted out temperature gauge on the front of the stainless steel lid. I did a fairly strong WB adjustment because the steel reflected the deep blue sky so late in the evening. The F80EXR seems here to have more trouble with the rust below the gauge and with the CA around the top of the rim of the gauge, where it meets the rusted mounting ring.

F80EXR  1600iso, f3.3, 1/6s, 5mm

F70EXR  1600iso, f3.3, 1/7s, 5mm

While at the barbecue, I shot it’s name plate. Both cams did fine.

F80EXR  1600iso, f/3.3, 1/7s, 5mm

F70EXR  1600iso, f/3.3, 1/7s, 5mm

And finally, an extremely difficult test. The grill cleaner, made of stratified nylon I think … all black scene. Shot with cam resting on edge of BBQ and released by self timer. Should be crystal clear.

F70 kicks the F80’s butt here, which makes sense since it was almost dark by this point. Tons of chroma noise on the BBQ body in the F80 shot and very little detail in the actual scrubber. No contest. Note: Many people will never shoot something like this … but I like to know what my cam does in deep shadows, and this is it.

F80EXR  1600iso, f/3.3, 1/4s, 5mm

F70EXR  1600iso, f/3.3, 1/4s, 5mm

And there you have it … F80EXR mostly holds its own … but when the going gets tough, its the F70EXR that walks away with the prize.