For this test I've taken three cameras. Two compacts, which I'm comparing between themselves, too, Canon S2 IS and Sony DSC-H1 and I've also gotten best selling DSLR camera (and most blamed camera too), Canon EOS 350D with the lenses EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS and EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS.

Sony DSC-H1. Sharp, vivid, simply attractive out of the box.

Canon EOS 350D. Quite the opposite to the photo above. Why this photo is so bad since it is from the almighty DSLR camera? The answer is simple. The camera just made a completely different processing than the compact camera. At the first glance, here we have no sharpness, dull colors, no contrast. But how will it look after some post-processing?

A crop from the original

Sony DSC-H1. A crop from the original above. Sharp and saturated!

Canon S2 IS. A crop from the original above. There is difference among compacts, too. Sony makes more saturated colors, higher contrast and sharpness.

Canon EOS 350D. A crop from the original above. Where are sharpness and contrast? Is there something wrong with the camera or the lens?

Basic processing

Sony DSC-H1. Correction of tonal values and sharpness from the original photo above.

Canon S2 IS. Correction of tonal values and sharpness from the original photo above. With both compacts it is possible to enhance the photo to some degree, but this is the maximum we can get.

Canon EOS 350D. Correction of tonal values and sharpness from the original photo above. Compare now all three photos. It is clear that the EOS 350D works just fine. Only the file from the DSLR camera needs to be post-processed a bit.

Additional manipulation

Sony DSC-H1. After some basic processing I've done heavy tonal corrections. When comparing all three shots we can see that both compacts lost a lot of details.

Canon S2 IS. This was the first time I've noticed different recording as the H1. The Sony H1 looses details faster and is merging data sooner.

The image from a DSLR camera kept more details after the same procedure.

A crop from the original

Sony DSC-H1.

Canon S2 IS.

Canon EOS 350D. Again, the results are the same. Where have sharpness and contrast gone?

Basic processing

Sony DSC-H1.

Canon S2 IS. After the manipulation, we see evident errors. On the H1 they look like squares, on the S2 IS like grain.

Canon EOS 350D. There are enough details to pass even this manipulation. We see no such errors as with the compacts.

Additional manipulation

Sony DSC-H1. Because of the lack of the data, errors are clearly visible. The contrast is very high also.

Canon S2 IS. Canon S2 IS. More details remained, but the image is very grainy.

Despite the manipulation, the image from the DSLR kept good tonal values. We've already seen the quality of pictures from a DSLR camera. It can be done, it just needs some post-processing.

My compact camera makes more pleasant photos!

We've seen that there's nothing wrong with our DSLR camera. The file just needs some after-work. This is one of the first differences between DSLRs and compacts. Now you can also understand why for family photos compacts are in most cases a better and more convenient tool. In-camera processes in compact cameras make photos attractive out of the box. On the other hand we see how much we can squeeze out of a DSLR camera. What looks bad at the first glance might be radically improved! In this case we have to reach for a digital dark room, our image manipulation software. This is a thing most photographers would like to skip. So DSLR is not always a better choice, no matter what the price might be.

page 4 / differences in the pictures