A200 - samples posted - but disappointed me

[steve]

Santos wrote:

Something odd happening here.... the A200 pics in this site and in the dcresource.com site are labelled as jpg files, but can only be downloaded as 22 Mb BMP files. The Nikon 8800 pics inboth sites download as jpeg files ?? I'm not an expert in digital imaging, but now I'm wordering if the A200 files are representative of what's coming out of the camera... ??

Any comments or help greatly appreciated...

thanks...santos

This is your browser doing this as we only post directly out of the camera JPG images, not BMPs. If you download our samples correctly you will get a .JPG file and it will contain an intact Exif header with all of the camera and exposure data. All of our sample photos are ALWAYS directly out of the camera - no funny business here! It is the same at DC Resource, Imaging-Resource and DP Review.

[Santos]

steve wrote:

Santos wrote:

This is your browser doing this as we only post directly out of the camera JPG images, not BMPs. If you download our samples correctly you will get a .JPG file and it will contain an intact Exif header with all of the camera and exposure data. All of our sample photos are ALWAYS directly out of the camera - no funny business here! It is the same at DC Resource, Imaging-Resource and DP Review.

thanks Steve...

I didn't mean to imply that you were engaging in any funny business; I knew something was wonky at my end. I was just wordering if the bmp files I was ending up with were accurately representing what you had posted.

cheers....santos

[Santos]

Hi Mark...

I agree, and I think most people would agree with your comments regarding sharpness, resolution, saturation etc...

The less processed jpegs out of a camera are more accurate but most people do prefer some sharpening and a saturation boost. I guess the secret is to find a camera that produces pleasing (to the owner) pics without overprocessing to the point of damaging the image.

I know post processing will usually give you better results, but if someone comes back from a two week vacation with 2000 digital images, and just wants to taketheir media cardsto their local photolab to have all of them printed, post processing becomes a bit of a chore.

The A200 has a terrific set of features, I'm trying to decide if I can live with the extra work that it would require to get prints that are satisfactory for me. This is a difficult decision when some cameras like the Canon G6 and Nikon 8800 produce pleasing pics without postprocessing.

season's greetings....santos

[Catbells]

I checked out the review at ImageResource which supports my findings having taken a few shots today with the A200 at my local store - very accurate color, which means it's by default a little dull-looking. Excellent ability to tweak color saturation to suit your personal preferences though. Good white balance, but the Auto mode has trouble with incandescent sources. The Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200's color was very accurate, among the best I've seen on consumer/prosumer digital cameras. That said though, "accurate" means "dull," relative to most digital cameras on the market, which pump up the color saturation to make their images look more appealing.

MarkoBwas spot on with his comments but I tend to agree with Santosthat the CP8800 does appear produce more pleasing results to the eye without post processing.

I had previously taken a similar shot as the A200 with the CP8800 (unfortunately set to Landscape) which has that 'something extra' which makes you immediately like it. However, when compared to the A200, I noticed that several items of detail had been lost in CP8800.

Looks like the A200 might take a bit of getting used to to get the best out of it whereas the CP8800 with it's multitude of scene modes gets you there without so much fuss.

I'm still undecided, so I'm going to hold fire until the sap stirs in my joints come spring.

[JimC]

Santos:

If you're using IE, and "right clicking" on an image, use the "Save Picture As" versus "Save Target As" option. If you are only getting .bmp as an option, clear your internet cache (this is a common problem with IE -- not letting you save as JPEG when the cache is corrupted). Go to Tools, Internet Options, and you'll see aDeleteFilesbutton under Temporary Internet Files. I'd also check the delete offline content button when you see the confirmation prompt come up. I do this every day or two.

[MarkoB]

Santos wrote:

I know post processing will usually give you better results, but if someone comes back from a two week vacation with 2000 digital images, and just wants to taketheir media cardsto their local photolab to have all of them printed, post processing becomes a bit of a chore.

Well, I assume you are going to check all photos first and you'll throw away the bad ones. That's #1 reason for having a digital camera, isn't it.

The next step would be resizing. You'll need full size files only if you are going to make large prints (8x10" or bigger). You'll make yours friends unhappy if you email them dozens of 8 MP photos. You'll need to resize the photos if you are going to create a web page. And, finally, it makes no sense to make 4x6" prints from 8 MP (megapixels) files. It'll just be waste of time and storage space/bandwidth. The max. resolution of photographic printersis 250-300 ppi. Therefore, you won't really need anything more than 2 MP files (about 1200*1600 pixels). BTW, don't touch the original files. Save the resized copies in a different folder.

Once you've resized the photos, you'll wan't the sharpen them a little bit, won't you? Too much work? Not really. If you've got the exposure, white balance and framing right, you can batch process the photos. All decent photo editing programs can do that. You'll only need to process manually thebad (underexposed etc.) photos you want to rescue.

The photos still look a bit dull? Well, because you are going to batch process them anyway, why not add a slight contrast / saturation boost? It will only cost you a second or two per photo. Still looking dull? Add a local contrast enhancement: sharpen the original photo (before resizing) using a very large radius (30-50) and low amount (10-15 %). Again, it'll only cost you a few minutes per a hundred photos.

That's why I don't see soft photos as a huge problem.8 MP files are simply an overkill for most purposes and I'd have to post-process them anyway in order to make the files smaller. In such a case, adding USM or a custom tone curve to the list is no problem.

[Catbells]

JimC wrote:

Santos:

If you're using IE, and "right clicking" on an image, use the "Save Picture As" versus "Save Target As" option.

Once the image has been downloaded, it's in the browser's cache. Therefore, I found it easier to close the image and re-link back to it; thisallowed me to savethe image as JPEG & it worked every time.

[Catbells]

Still undecided on whether the A200 is up to scratch compared with the CP8800, I've studied these two images from DC Review in which the reviewer commented thus:

After comparing those, I'd say that the Coolpix has slightly better color accuracy, while the A200 has slightly better sharpness (after my experiences with the A2, I can't believe I'm saying that).

He further went on to say: At high ISOs, the DiMAGE does a bit better than the Coolpix, in my opinion.

I certainly agree. Comparing shots at Digital camera Resource, the CP8800 does appear to have saturated images which look better than the A200 - probably for the same reason that most people turn up the colour on their TVs to make Westerners look more tanned.

[Catbells]

For completeness, here's the 400 ASA comparison; I think you will agree, the A200 wins on detail.

[Santos]

JimC wrote:

Santos:

If you're using IE, and "right clicking" on an image, use the "Save Picture As" versus "Save Target As" option. If you are only getting .bmp as an option, clear your internet cache (this is a common problem with IE -- not letting you save as JPEG when the cache is corrupted). Go to Tools, Internet Options, and you'll see aDeleteFilesbutton under Temporary Internet Files. I'd also check the delete offline content button when you see the confirmation prompt come up. I do this every day or two.

Thanks Jim...that seems to fix the problem.... and thanks also to Catbells for his tip on relinking to the cached image....

Santos...