My Camera Comparison: Early Conclusion

I've decided to forgo any further testing of my cameras at this time. While it still shocks me that an 11 year old camera is taking better pictures than the more modern ones, it simply is. The Olympus isn't great with color, but that can be corrected, if necessary, in Photoshop easily enough.

I'll be taking the Olympus AND the HTC EVO (for various reasons) on our trip to San Diego Comic Con. I'll use the Olympus for those shots that I may want to print or are a bit more artsy. The EVO will be my general purpose camera for those more candid shots and times when I don't want to be hauling around a larger camera. I'll have the EVO with me anyway, so why not use it. Plus it's image capacity is MUCH greater than the Olympus.

Additionally the EVO has a Blogger app and Twitter, making the sharing of images much quicker and easier. With the Olympus I'll have to either take a laptop with me (not happening) or use the hotel computer to download the images and post them (slow and UGH).

Some day I may get a good DSLR that finally puts my trusty ol' Olympus to bed finally, but right now the 11 year old 2.1 MP camera is still besting the younger cameras in this household.

My Camera Comparison: Part 2 - Well Lit Exterior

In part one of my comparison I took pictures in a not so well lit interior. This time I was outside with good overhead sun, veiled by light clouds, so bright, but not too bright.

The Results

Before getting into the details, as you can see from the images below. Color was the main differentiating factor. Detail was very similar for all three, again despite the differences in mega-pixels.

The HTC EVO 4G has exagerated colors, on the artwork but the grass in the background is slightly muted. Other images with strong red colors blew out badly too, resulting in lack of focus.

Noise was again a problem for the EVO.

The Kodak seemed to have the most accurate color but lost some detail, especially on the cheek. The Kodaks noise levels seemed to be the lowest of the three as well.

The Olympus did well on detail and noise. Again the 2.1 mega-pixel limit didnt seem to hinder the camera. The color was way off though.

The winner, by just a hair was the Kodak Easy Share C533 in this test. Most cameras are going to do reasonably well in these conditions and I really would have been fairly happy with any of these images. The HTC EVO 4G was probably at the bottom of the pile...again.

My Camera Comparison: Part 1 - Interior No Flash

This is the first of a few tests that I'll be making with our three digital cameras that we currently own. The goal is to decide if it's worth taking older dedicated cameras on an upcoming trip or to simply use the cameras built into our phones.

The three cameras in question are:

Of course this isn't all about image quality. I'll be comparing the other pros/cons in a later post.

This comparison was a simple cereal bar that was sitting on my desk. There was some indirect light coming from the window but both the Olympus and Kodak cameras wanted to use their flashes. I turned them off.

After cropping the images to focus on the same point, I resized the two smaller images up to the largest (from the EVO). Despite nearly doubling the resolution of the Olympus image, it still looked great.

The Results

The EVO had by far the most noise. So much so that despite it's mega-pixel advantage much of the detail was lost. The color accuracy is good.

The Kodak camera had a difficult time focusing in the lower light. This camera has difficulty focusing in optimal conditions. The label is a bit more readable than the EVO but not by much.

The Olympus was able to focus, even in the lower light and all the detail is clear and legible, even with only 2.1 mega-pixels. The color is off, but it's clean. The noise levels are low and what noise there is seems to be mono-chromatic minimizing it's effects.

(click image for full resolution and detail)

The winner is clearly the Olympus. Under these circumstances mega-pixels don't mean anything. The Kodak and HTC just don't have the optics for lower light images.

I have more testing to do before I crown the Olympus a winner, but it's interesting so far that an 11 year old camera is standing up to what is quickly becoming the standard fare for most casual camera users.