The D-400Z test pictures on imaging-Resource seem really flat with no highlights or contrast. Has anyone seen anything better that could be used for judging this camera. I like the packaging better than the CP-900s but there is no comparison of quality of the output if these pictures are typical of what the D-400z will produce. I would appreciate any links you know of to other sites.

Norm

-- Norman Barker (ndbarker@volcano.net), November 07, 1998

Answers

Norm-

I was surprised by your comments, because the two cameras seem very close to me when I look at them in the Comparometer. (Were you viewing in the Comparometer, or by themselves in separate browser windows?)

The Oly does seem to hold back a little more on strong highlights (such as in the outdoor shot), which produces a duller appearance in bright, high-contrast lighting, but it does a better job of preserving highlight detail. I have one copy of the outdoor shot in the archive that had the exposure compensation pushed a bit higher - it's brighter, but starts to lose some detail in the model's shirt. The skin tone does look a little washed-out, but it's hard to compare, due to variations in outdoor lighting. The day of the Oly shot had a very intense blue sky, which tended to make the flesh tones look a little muddy. - Variations in sun/sky like this are why we also shoot the in- studio stuff, where we can really lock-down the exposure parameters.

Interestingly, the CP900 itself seems to be a bit lower contrast and therefore lower saturation than other, earlier cameras, such as the Oly D600. We haven't posted the pictures yet, but the Canon Pro70 seems to continue this trend. I've noticed that many earlier cameras went for higher contrast and color saturation, newer ones at the high end seem to be concentrating more on preserving image information (not blowing out or plugging things up), at some cost to the snap and color saturation. This gives you more to work with in Photoshop (or other programs), but it means the raw pictures don't looks as good "out of the box."

Try looking at the "house", "musicians", and "test box" pictures in the Comparometer, and I think you'll find the two cameras pretty closely equivalent on those images. However they perform on these targets, "what is is what is" - the subjects are identical, and the lighting is very rigidly controlled to be identical between shots.

I guess overall, this demonstrates the value of having comparison images of the same subjects: Two people can look at the same picture and react entirely differently. The important thing is to pick the camera whose images make you happy!

(As to other sites, I don't think there are any US ones yet, because we had the camera so early. You might find Japanese or European sites though, that had the foreign model of the camera. - Look for references to the 900Z, rather than the 400Z)

Hope this helps, good luck!

PS: After all that, was the outdoor shot in fact where you were seeing the difference, or have I been barking up the wrong tree entirely?

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), November 08, 1998.

Thanks Dave for your input on possible philosophy of Olympus on going for detail rather than high contrast and saturation. I was printing downloaded outside shots and inside flash pictures from the separate browser window for the c400z, cp900 and pdr-m1 at about 3x5 as I felt these would represent what you could expect on normal picture taking. The d400z pictures just did not seem to have the 3D look of separting the beautiful model from the background seen in the others. I ran comparisons by bringing up full screen images for each set of these pictures on Thumbs Plus, reducing each to the Taskbar so I could cycle through them quickly and also look at zoomed sections for comparison. I see what you were saying about detail and lack of washed out areas in the d400z shots. Leaves me with the decision of whether I want the best looking print out of a picture right out of the camera or something I can work with for manipulation or enlargement with a photo program. Kind of a case of more information just makes the decision harder for selecting a camera to buy.

-- norman Barker (ndbarker@volcano.net), November 09, 1998.

I've posted unedited (but resized)pictures from the Olympus D400Z. Although most shots are macros, I intend to add regular shots soon.

-- Vikki Hansen (vhansen@wzrd.com), January 24, 1999.