Pt. 1 - Appearance and Zoom Range
Pt. 2 - JPEG Noise
Pt. 3 - ISO 80 JPEG Crops at 35mm & Full Aperture
Pt. 4 - Flare Performance
Pt. 5 - Noise Performance Revisited
Pt. 6 - G7 Default JPEG vs GX100 Silkypix Conversions
Pt. 7 - Key Timings
Pt. 8 - Build Quality, Quality Control, and Battery Life
Pt. 9 - Conclusion
The Ricoh GRD has a reputation for "grain-like" noise, particularly with black and white photographs. I was anxious to see whether the GX100 would offer a pleasing quality of noise since noise is such an important part of small sensor digital photography. To me, the effects of over-zealous noise reduction are much more offensive than those of noise itself, especially if the noise can be considered "grain-like." Unlike the G7, the GX100 and D-LUX 2 each offer the option to shoot RAW, with complete control over noise handling. However, before I dive into a comparison of processed RAW files from the GX100 and D-LUX2, I thought I'd compare the default B&W and color JPEGs from the three cameras from a noise standpoint.
Methods: The following are all 100% crops with the camera on a tripod, self-timer, image stabilization on, aperture priority mode at f4 (f4.1 on the GX100 since it won't do f4). All B&W images were taken using default in-camera B&W settings. All sharpening, color, white balance, exposure compensation, contrast, and noise reduction settings were at default.
I didn't get the framing exactly right, and the file sizes of the D-LUX 2 made for a very different field of view. Between that issue and the poor white balance, I think the Leica was made to look worse than it is. However, it's fair to say that the D-LUX 2 is not the best at handling noise when shooting JPEGs.
In the following crops, the D-LUX 2 is on the left, the GX100 is in the middle, and the G7 is on the right. In each case, click on the image to see at full size.
EDIT - Sorry for any inconvenience, the crops have been removed. If you are interested in reviewing the full-resolution files (large), they can be downloaded from this Flickr set.
GX100 vs. G7 vs. D-LUX 2 Shootout Pt. 2 - JPEG Noise
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Posted by Amin
Labels:
Canon,
D-LUX,
G7,
GX100,
JPEG,
Leica,
noise,
Powershot,
Ricoh
3 comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The D-Lux 2 has such dramatically different color space that it's hard to tell the quality since it's so much warmer than the GX100 or the G7.
All three seem ok from your samples.
I agree that the D-LUX 2 white balance being so different makes the results harder to interpret. Another issue pointed out to me by Brian Mosley on DPR is that I left the OIS on for all three cameras - should have turned it off since using a tripod. Either way, I think these results are provocative. I'll be posting images processed from RAW later today.
First - thanx for all the work you are doing here. Great job.
I really was waiting for your results - because Im having an eve on the new GX100 because I crashed my GX8. :-(
The GX8 IMO had too hard noise, but the concept of the gx series for me is very attractiv, so Im looking for your test with big interest...
Right now the GX100 seems to had learned from the problems of the GX8... but we will see... :-)
Please, more !!!
Michael