An In-Depth Look at 4 Ultra-compact Digicams

Color Reproduction

* For all of our color tests, we reset all 4 cameras to their factory default settings. They were then set to record using the highest image quality option. All images are sRGB.

With each camera, we took a picture of our color chart using each of the following WB settings: Auto, Incandescent, and Manual. Click on a thumbnail below to view the full-size image.

Incandescent

	Auto WB	Incandescent WB	Manual WB
Canon SD400	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Nikon S1	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Olympus IR-300	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	N/A
Sony DSC-T33	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	N/A
Reference Chart ("actual colors")

	Auto WB	Incandescent WB	Manual WB
Canon SD400
Nikon S1
Olympus IR-300			N/A
Sony DSC-T33			N/A

Under tungsten light, we found that all three cameras show a moderately strong yellowish cast with Auto WB. The Sony DSC-T33 produced the brightest and most saturated colors of the bunch. When we set the cameras to Incandescent WB, all the cameras show a dramatic improvement over their performance with Auto WB. However, the Canon SD400 is, by far, the most accurate. In fact, we measured the exact same RGB values with both the Incandescent and Manual settings. The Canon SD400 and Nikon S1 are the only cameras with the advantage of a Manual WB option, which provides extremely accurate color reproduction.

Daylight

* NOTE: Distortion seen in some of these samples is not barrel distortion caused by the lens. During our testing, the heat from the sun started to warp our color chart creating the illusion of barrel distortion.

	Auto WB	Daylight WB	Manual WB
Canon SD400	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Nikon S1	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Olympus IR-300	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	N/A
Sony DSC-T33	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	N/A
Reference Chart ("actual colors")

	Auto WB	Daylight WB	Manual WB
Canon SD400
Nikon S1
Olympus IR-300			N/A
Sony DSC-T33			N/A

As with most of the cameras that we test, all four cameras generally did a very good job reproducing accurate colors under direct sunlight. However, there are a couple of things to note here. We found that the Sony DSC-T33 produced the brightest results. The Olympus IR-300 showed a very slight yellowish color cast when set to Daylight WB. Overall, we are very impressed with the results of all four cameras when set to Auto WB in direct sunlight.

Built-in Flash

For the flash test, we set all cameras to Auto mode w/Auto flash. The pictures were taken from 5 feet away.

Canon SD400	Click to enlarge.
Nikon S1	Click to enlarge.
Olympus IR-300	Click to enlarge.
Sony DSC-T33	Click to enlarge.

It is obvious from the samples above that the Sony DSC-T33 produces images with significantly warmer skin tones than the other three cameras when using the built-in flash. Although the Nikon S1 appears cool in comparison to the other cameras, it actually produces the most accurate white (wall). The skin tone from the Canon SD400 is the closest to being accurate. However, this isn't very easy to see because of the underexposure. We found the Olympus IR-300 to have the strongest color cast (yellow-orange) out of the bunch.