[Recovered Thread: 117907]

[Serafin]

Has anyone gone to Images Resource and compared pictures from different cameras he has so you can look at them side by side. I was very surprised by the results comparing pictures. I found that comparing the Canons 350 and 400 with the D40 that they would really be much sharper pictures than the D40. But I found the D40 to have much sharper and clear pictures when zoomed in close and maybe a little crisper at normal viewing.Also looking at the dollar bill and the shingles on top of the roof of a house the D40 was sharper. Then I compared the Sony alpha pictures close up with the D40 and it almost seemed like the Sony was out of focus next to Nikon D40 pictures. The Pentax was a draw with my eyes maybe giving a little sharpness to the D40 and maybe a little better richer color to the K100D. It seems from the pictures higher megapixels doesnt mean better picture? Or are these picture comparisons flawed somehow on his site. Or dosome of yousee it a little different when looking at the pictures.

[BillDrew]

Contrary to what would seem true, comparing pictures is not a good way to compare cameras - at least not without a good understanding of what the default settings are. Reviewers can really only compare cameras with the default settings for contrast, sharpening, saturation, ... In general, digicams have those values pushed up a bit because that is the way most folks like their pictures to look. Unfortunatly, those changes are not always reversable. For that reason, dSLRs tend to have their defaults set to neutral and leave the user to add any "pop" in post processing.

So when you compare pictures, you may be comparing nothing more than the default sharpening settings. Or contrast settings. Or saturation settings. Not useful information.

[JDar]

Read the information on Imaging Resources about his testing methods, and buried in it is the fact that you would have to download the full size camera file and print it even to have a chance at comparing camera performance.