Odd look at 100% ( 3.1m Kodak )

[PlatinumWeaver]

Hello again,

I have a Kodak DX6340 and am almost 100% satisfied with it as an introductory camera, there is one issue that bothers me though and I was wondering if anyone could tell me what causes it.

Sample Shot Here

The picture look very nice when zoomed out, or resized smaller, but at 100% areas of similar colour have what I tend to think of as a thatched look.

Obviously i'm not expecting for the camera to find every blade of grass or leaf on a tree, but this seems to me to have a lot less detail than I would expect.

Is it just me? Is it the camera? Is it nothing?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

[JimC]

It's probably just you (or the crop is from the downsized photo you gave us a link to, and your seeing some degradation from the resizing).

Also, remember that the focus point was not the grass which was much closer to you. You can't expect the entire scene to be in focus. Depth of Field is related to the distance to subject (focus point), Aperture, and Focal Length of the lens (amount of zoom used).

Give us a link to the full size original, where we can see it without downsizing and look at the EXIF, and we can get a better idea then.

[PlatinumWeaver]

Thanks.

Actually the degration appears before any resizing, but I'll let you see for yourself. I'm aware that I wasn't focused on the grass, but I would have thought that that would cause blurring, not what appears to be a painted scene..

Anyway.. here's the original..

http://www.platinumweaver.net/images/100_1995.jpg

[JimC]

The file size looks too small. It's most likely JPEG Compression Artifacts. Was this file opened in an image editor, then resaved to a new filename?

If so, you've got the JPEG Compression set to high (in the image editor).

[PlatinumWeaver]

Unfortunately not - that is as it came off of the camera..

[PlatinumWeaver]

I see what you mean about the image size, but that is exactly how it came off the camera.. I went looking through my current messy directory of images and found that they range in sizes from 250kb ( like that one ) through to just over 1mb..

This one is approximately 1mb, same camera, obviously different conditions and target, but I believe also with the same mode..

http://www.platinumweaver.net/images/100_2049.jpg

You can see that the camera is not a $X000 DSLR, but there is a lot less noise..

[JimC]

I took a look at a review of your model, and it doesn't look like Kodak gives you any control over JPEG Compression. That may not be what it is. It's hard to say (the grass color could have actually looked this way). Is this the only photo you've got like this?

Kodak has been criticized for overly aggresive JPEG Compression in some of it's models (without giving the user any way to adjust it).

However, at normal print sizes (not magnified to 100% onscreen), you're probably not going to notice it. Also, the lighting conditions may have had something to do with it, too.

[marokero]

That is a noise reduction function built into the camera. I've seen the same effect on a few other cameras, and when I apply very strong noise reduction with Nikon Capture on my images. Jpg artifacting has a different appearance than that, noise reduction smoothes out most areas of continuous tone, leaving the edges of detail unaffected.

[PlatinumWeaver]

Thanks, the problem is not so great unless i'm looking at it at 100% so I guess i'll just have to live with it.. unless Marekero knows something else I dont know?

[ewitte]

Originally Posted by JimC

I took a look at a review of your model, and it doesn't look like Kodak gives you any control over JPEG Compression. That may not be what it is. It's hard to say (the grass color could have actually looked this way). Is this the only photo you've got like this?

Kodak has been criticized for overly aggresive JPEG Compression in some of it's models (without giving the user any way to adjust it).

However, at normal print sizes (not magnified to 100% onscreen), you're probably not going to notice it. Also, the lighting conditions may have had something to do with it, too.

You do not have a small, medium, large option? I took a look at the EXIF data. I'm guessing it did something to reduce noise. It was a cloudy day and it used a shutter speed of 1/720 of a second.

ERic