Nikon expert Thom Hogan has posted an interesting comparison of the Canon G10, Panasonic LX3, and Nikon P6000. As usual, Thom has done an excellent job with the testing and analysis.

One correction: Thom says "The 16:9 aspect ratio is a love it or hate it thing. If you don't love it, this is not the camera for you, as you'll be leaving pixels on the floor and the camera suddenly doesn't have enough pixels to do more than smallish output." This is not true. In fact, the camera uses less total pixels in 16:9 than it uses in 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratios. The reason for this is explained and illustrated here.

Thom's high ISO results and conclusions are interesting and somewhat surprising. I have a G10 on the way and look forward to testing it against the LX3/D-LUX 4.

Link: bythom - The Coolpix, PowerShot, Lumix Challenge

[Thanks Ted J]

Arne Hvaring posted the following commentary and photos in a discussion which took place today in the GetDPI forums. We were discussing Michael Reichmann's G10-P6000 comparison on The Luminous Landscape (mentioned earlier today on the blog):

Here are a few things MR didn't tell you :)

The DPP RAW conversion of G10 files introduces significant and sometimes rather bizarre artefacts. In default mode it also seems to sharpen the image to such an extent that any further sharpening looks overdone. MR uses "another RAW converter" which might be better, but officially DPP is the only game in town at the moment. The files of P6000 converted in ACR looks rather soft in comparison, but have much less demosaicing artefacts. The Nikon files can be PP significantly and sharpened a lot before becoming ugly.

Below you'll see the full image, then 100% crops first from G10, then P6000. The crop is taken quite a bit from the edge of the picture and yet also the sharpness degradation (actually in the form of doubling of contours) of the Canon lens can be seen. But mainly the crops show the curious mess DPP/G10 makes of the green bush. The P6000 file is sharpened moderately and looks to me more natural and 3-dimensional.

The next two crops (Canon first) are from a more central part of the same image. While the Canon shows slightly more fine-detail resolution, it comes at a price. The diagonals (white wooden boards a.o.) have rather rough stair pixelling, and the tiles show much the same. The Nikon is more well behaved and looks smoother and more natural. The good news for G10 users is that most of these artifacts are not really visible in print, even up to A3+.

I find it curious that MR didn't notice the loss of sharpness in the outer zone of the Canon lens. Like Amin I noticed it immediately in the images posted in Photography Blog, and I have confirmed it in my own testing. In fairness it should be mentioned that the softness is significantly less at the longer focal lenghts. The Nikon lens is more conservatively specified, both in regard to zoom range (4x vs. 5x) and in speed and it shows. It draws nicely and evenly over the full imaging area.

Finally, let's not make too much of this, first of all we are comparing only two cameras, sample variation might throw this off completely. Secondly, even as it stands, both are state of the art small sensor cameras capable of excellent output.

Which one did I keep? By a small margin the P6000 (main reason: on the whole a better lens and smaller/lighter camera), but with better optical performance than my copy showed, it might just as well have been the G10.

Michael Reichmann has published his comparison of the Nikon P6000 and Canon G10 along with some references to the Panasonic LX3/D-LUX 4. No spoilers here, but I'm interested to hear others' thoughts on this one, as I'm considering another shootout.

Link: The Luminous Landscape - Pocket Battleships

[Thanks Todd O]

Addendum (spoiler alert, do not read below until you have read the LL article):

Having read the article a couple times now, I'm not sure the crops shown are doing justice to the P6000 relative to the G10. Consider the following full-res JPEGs from PhotographyBLOG:
Canon G10
Nikon P6000

Note how the G10 is clearly outresolving the P6000 in the center of the frame; yet when you go out to the periphery, there is significant degradation of G10 image quality while the Nikon holds out right to the corners. Not one of the crops used in the L.L. comparison were taken from the peripheral region of the selected frame.

I don't agree that the P6000 is "uncompetitive" against both the G10 and the LX3. Sure the G10 is more fully featured, resolves more detail (at least in the center), and is almost a stop faster on the tele end. However, if the G10 is too large and heavy for you and the LX3 and GX200 don't go long enough to suit you, the P6000 is the obvious choice. It's good that we once again have a number of different choices amongst compact cameras that offer RAW. Not long ago, Panasonic and Ricoh were the only ones.

PhotographyBLOG has posted sample photos from the Nikon P6000 and Canon G10 in preparation for their upcoming reviews. There are 40 full-resolution in-camera JPEGs, 9 RAW files, and one sample video for each camera.

The subject matter is the same for many of the photos in each set, so this is a good chance to compare the relative performance of these cameras. A few of the matched samples favored the Canon, but overall I came away impressed with the corner to corner performance of the Nikon. I still think Nikon made a mistake putting such a slow (f/5.9 at the tele end) lens in their flagship compact, but the PhotographyBLOG P6000 samples are promising.

Links:
Nikon Coolpix P6000 Photos
Canon PowerShot G10 Photos

1001 Noisy Cameras found an interesting head-to-head comparison of the Nikon P6000 and Panasonic LX3 at Digital Camera Review.

Link: Digital Camera Review via 1001 Noisy Cameras

DC Watch has posted their part one analysis of the Coolpix P6000, including the usual look at sharpness, bokeh, distortion, close focus ability, high ISO, and more.

Link: DC Watch - Coolpix P6000

Great news for Sigma DP1 users! The latest Adobe Camera RAW release provides support for Sigma DP1 RAW (X3F) files. DP1 RAW support is considered preliminary "due to an unresolved white balance bug that will require additional testing". However, users are reporting good results using automatic WB in camera in tandem with processing the RAW files in ACR.

More information at Lightroom Journal
Get Camera RAW 4.6 from Adobe Labs

[Thanks Britton]

Update: Thanks to kmoon for pointing out that ACR 4.6 fully supports the Nikon Coolpix P6000. There had been widespread concern that Nikon's new RAW format in the P6000 would not be supported by third party developers.

Nikon has announced their new flagship Coolpix model, the Nikon P6000 (Amazon pre-order). The major features and specifications are exactly as rumored just over a month ago and can be summarized as follows:

• New 13.5MP 1/1.7" CCD
• 4x 6-24mm (28-112mm equivalent) f/2.7-5.9 optically-stabilized zoom lens
• Integrated optical viewfinder
• RAW support via new NRW format, compatible for use in-camera, with ViewNX (Windows version only, available early October 2008) or with WIC-based applications. Capture NX, Capture NX2 and NEF files are not compatible with NRW (RAW) images.
• Hot shoe that supports Nikon’s i-TTL flash control, which enables wireless control over one group of remote Speedlights including the newly announced SB-900 Speedlight.
• Support for manual focus
• Mode Dial with access to Programmed Auto [P], Shutter-priority [S], Aperture-priority [A], and Manual [M] exposure modes, the choice of two user-defined settings, (U1/U2), as well as automated scene modes
• Command dial and customizable Function button
• Wired LAN support for uploading pictures to Nikon's my Picturetown service
• Built-in GPS and support for geotagging
• Weight 240g without battery
• Optional 0.76x wide-angle converter (21mm equivalent)
• Active D-Lighting and in-camera barrel distortion correction

Expected United States availability in September 2008 at a MSRP of $499.95.

[Thanks to 1001 Noisy Cameras!]

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Featured Comment by Bruce Mcl:

Windows RAW so that you can't use Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, etc. Nikon clearly wants you to us their own software to process images. An ethernet connection which automatically uploads files to Nikon's photo sharing website instead of flickr, pbase, zenfolio, etc. Nikon seems to be going out of their way to restrict the creative options of the photographer.

These are deliberate and very bad choices made by Nikon. The direction that Nikon is heading that of controlling what is done with your photos as much as possible. Next up: a new license agreement you must agree to when you buy a camera with gives Nikon copyright of every photo you take. You think this can't happen? Just wait a few years...