HS10 Review Part 8 – Saturation and Resolution

Was was wandering along my street again when I noticed this rather brightly colored chair glowing in the bright sunlight. And the lamp in front of it seemed like an interesting target for a shot. I wanted to see if the brick texture would remain unsmeared as well.

HS10

F70EXR

More than any other, this image drove home to me the difference in saturation and color between these two cameras. I think the HS10 simply does a better job. Even though I used “soft” color settings, in ACR and CS4 I was able to get rich color that is really pleasing.

For this specific image, the F70EXR image had nowhere near the same potential. No matter how I cranked vibrance and saturation, the chair never got that rich depth of the HS10 shot.

The brick looks weaker too. So big win for the HS10 there. And no idea why.

I also shot a 720mm image of the lamp, which is dull enough to not bother putting in here. But I took a tiny crop from that image and superimposed it on this images to show you just how much resolution and reach the HS10 has at its disposal …

At 270mm, you cannot even see that there is some text there. At 720mm you can read it. Wow. That’s win #2 for the HS10.

But it is not finished. I checked the detail in the paint on the chair … and the F70EXR showed none. No idea why. Maybe I blurred the image ever so slightly, although it is not obvious at 100%.

But the HS10 shows excellent details …

And that’s the trifecta. I must admit, I was not pleased to see the F70EXR stomped in this specific set of circumstances. But there is nothing for it. The HS10 is very, very good at this focal length (right in the middle of its range.)

HS10 Review Part 7 – Wide Angle Field of View and Long Distance Details

After shooting the wheels and mutt, I walked back to my yard and decided to shoot down the street. It was a lovely morning with the sun over my left shoulder, and that gave a nice glow to the greenery and some depth to the sky.

HS10

F70EXR

Now, you might be wondering how the field of view compares between the 24mm of the HS10 and the 27mm of the F70EXR. Well, I should have shot these from tripod to get a perfect comparison, but I did not. Still, the magic of the free transform in CS4 allowed me to create a decent overlap to show you.

To get the real difference, you must mentally subtract the right hand difference from the left hand difference. Not all that much left, is there? For someone bent on getting the HS10 just for the 24mm, I’d consider the rest of the package against the massive size advantage of the F70EXR / F80EXR.

The next series is a group of isolation shots at maximum zoom of the fire hydrant in the distance.

What … you can’t see the fire hydrant? Well, it’s obvious … right there! :-)

The HS10 at full zoom should make short work of that …

I don’t think I’ll be writing home about that wonderful detail or the micro contrast (seems rather blurred in fact, with a glow around everything) … but you can read a few letters on the hydrant and that’s pretty incredible from where I was standing.

So how does the F70EXR do at full zoom?

 

 

I think many people are buying the HS10 just for the shock value of its telescope … so this certainly won’t rock their boats much. And yet it is very nice looking … clean details, good contrast … a nice image.

What if we try to crop the F70EXR image to match the field of view (FOV) of the HS10 image? Considering the F70EXR gives up a 50% resolution advantage and about 60% zoom advantage, It’s gonna get smoked, right?

Wrong. That’s not as detailed on the hydrant as the HS10 image, but some of the details actually look better to my eyes. All in all, it’s definitely playing in the same league.

This brings to mind all those who question whether a dSLR with a consumer lens like, say, the 70-300VR (a pretty cheap combo these days) can compete against the massive zoom of the HS10. Well, if the F70EXR with all its disadvantages can compete (and I consider this competing), then a dSLR is going to lay a decent beating on the HS10. But I already proved that.

So there you have it … both cams do decent wide angle and both cams have decent reach. The HS10 can perform some amazing feats of magnification with that lens, but the F70EXR is sharp enough at full zoom to make cropping an option. So don’t make your buying decisions solely on field of view. There are many factors …

F70EXR – Snow in April?

Ah … gimme a break. Yesterday I had a wonderful day in the warm sun on a golf course … my arms are testament to the strength of the sun at this time of year.

And today it is cold and there was snow on the ground this morning.

WTF?

Neighbor’s back yard.

A couple of house nearby …

A pair of European Starlings poking around for some food. This is a *severe* crop that is actually made larger (so more than 100% pixel for pixel) and it is shot through a dirty window.

The Hydrangeas in my back yard … I posted images from the HS10 on a beautiful sunny morning … things don’t look so nice today …

And finally, my neighbor’s patio furniture covered in snow. Yuck.

The weather is supposed to be the same tomorrow, then back to lovely warm sun on Thursday.

F70EXR – A Beautiful Warm Golf Day

How strange … I took a warm, pleasant day off yesterday to spend playing golf with Nick. And woke up this morning to snow on the ground. Luckily, I caught both on digital film …

I did not shoot the whole day long yesterday … just starting around the 14th or so … and just a few images to capture the quality of the day.

This next one is probably on the 15th green. I believe that I picked up my ball because I lost two in the water on successive shots … one in front of the green and one behind. On this hole … you *hit* the green.

Anyway … I shot Nick three times … one at 0EV and one each at +1 and +2 because he was backlit. The 0EV shot turned out best, because lifting the face with the dodge tool is easy, and the rest looks right. The +2EV shot is shown here too, after severely dropping the exposure in ACR. The image is not horrid … which means that the EXR sensor again has a surprising amount of latitude for over exposure. Interesting …

0EV

+2EV

I then  amused myself by shooting through my rose colored sunglasses, which are polarized. This is my best shot at color correcting to resulting image. Gotta say that it almost worked … the sky sure came out rich.

Our playing companions were a couple of older gentlemen who were pulling their carts along the way. They were far better than I was … even a bit better than Nick. I chose a driving cart in order to speed things up and protect my damaged Achilles tendon. It worked … no pain.

The 16th tee shot through the rose glasses again. Nice …

This was a beautiful scene that film just could not quite capture. Bright sun looks great to the eye, but creates harsh glare that is tough to capture in a lush, almost pastoral scene.

And finally … we reach the 18th. a 535 yard par 5. I am in agony by now, as my back is tired of the twisting … I have had some marvelous shots, including a drive we calculated at about 300 yards. Nick has been playing very consistently, and is looking at a very good score.

I stiffen my back and concentrate like crazy for one good hit. And I smash a decent drive of about 250 yards. Nick pounds it out there about 275. Wow. Youth.

I then hit a perfect 3 hybrid and am only 60 yards off the front of the green. Perfect lob wedge distance. We drive over and look at Nick’s lie. It is perfect, causing him to take out the 5 metal. He smashes it with within about 10 or 15 feet. Amazing … 250 yards.

We get to the green and I play on. I won’t tell you how many bad swings I had with the lob wedge … earlier in the game I could have come within 10 feet of the flag for a birdie putt … this hole I was putting for a double bogey by the time I traversed the last 60 yards :-) … the short game is where you really lose it when your back is done.

Everyone finishes and it is time for Nick’s *eagle* putt …

Ahhhhh …

Well, the good news is that he shot a 91. His best score ever by 3 strokes. I shot a 114 … average for me. Only 5 years ago Nick struggled to beat me … times have sure changed.

Post Removed

I no longer care about such petty issues. And I am removing it to avoid feeding the nuts.

HS10 Review Part 6 – Wheels and a Mutt

I walked up the street after shooting the flowers I showed in part 5. One of my other neighbor’s sons has a very pretty Hyundai Tiburon with nice wheels on it.

I like shooting tires because they are hard to pull details from, since they are always trying to absorb all the light they get. In this case, the wheels are also black, but shiny (painted aluminum I’m guessing.)

There are also nice details on wheels on cars like nuts, screw heads, and what have you. So the question is how well these render with each camera, shot at approximately 270mm (the F70’s max focal length.)

HS10

F70EXR

Turns out that the HS10 shot its version at 43.1, and to get the equivalent focal length in 135 film (i.e. full frame), the formula is max 135 equivalence / max actual * actual = actual 135 equivalence.

720mm / 126mm * 43.1mm = 246mm

That’s less than the F70, so magnification should be smaller. Yet we see the tire filling more of the frame with the HS10. Either the HS10 does not report focal length accurately, or I moved.

This is something to be tested later … there are markings on the lens. How close are they to what you get. And how similar are they to other Fujis at the same setting? All very interesting, but I don;t have access to one of these things at this point.

So, what do we see in these images?

Tone-wise, we can see that the F70EXR is more subdued. This is expected with its EXR sensor. The tone curve is softer on the EXR sensor, which makes the colors come out a bit muted as well. But this is also my processing. Each image must be processed separately, since the captures are often quite different. So there is little to conclude here.

What we certainly can say, though, is that at these sizes (800px being the perfect web display size in my opinion – as always, click through to get those images) the details are perfectly legible, whether they came from the 10mp HS10 ot the 5mp F70EXR. What matters more is the exposure and tone, and the magnification.

And that segues to a shot at the full 720mm from the HS10 … I mean, who can resist?

Here, we can now see (at least once you click through) the rain spots on the middle disk, and it is obvious now that the nut at the top is a locking wheel nut, requiring a special wrench. I hate those, by the way, as I cannot be bothered to find the special wrench each time I change from summer tires to ice tires or back.

The detail here is terrific, and so is what I call the 3-dimensionality. It feels real when you look at it.

Now, let me dampen your spirits just a bit. The neighbor happened to walk up while I was shooting and his dog lay down on the road while we chatted. I asked permission to shoot him and here is the shot. Cute dog.

HS10  202mm  f/5.6 1/125” 100ISO

That’s not too bad at all. Nice detail around the nose and on his side. But strange mushiness on the ear. I don’t really get that. SHould be in perfect focus, could the NR really be that aggressive? This is sees this somewhat random pattern of fine detail that is darker than the surroundings? That seems a bit much to me.

Here’s what I have for crops:

You can see here that the nose detail is alright, although a little mushy in the tan parts. The ear is a total mess. It’s dark, so we see only the coarsest hairs. The collar is ok, except in the dark blure. That seems to simply clump. And the side looks the best, because there is quite a bit of high contrast detail.

My point here is that you have to watch out for this behavior in your images. People with dark hair, foliage a long distance off in shadow, or even just dark foliage. That kind of thing. Is there any texture preserved?

The HS10 likes contrast. So does any modern Fuji with really small photosites. That’s what makes the EXR technology so exciting … that the photosites double in size and detail retention is very good. Still, that ISO ladder showed that the Sony sensor can retain good details. So why did it retain such nice details in the white fur there, and wipe out the dark fur here? Is that it’s thing? To be very tone sensitive?

I have no answer as I cannot run such a test right now. Something to ponder though.

Oops … almost forgot one final image. Tiburon is Korean for Shark I believe. (Correction: Spanish for shark according to wikipedia. Thanks for the tip Dave.) So this little detail on the rear edge of the top of the car is rather cute …