Tong Family

“Digital Camera Info”:http://digitalcamerainfo.com is the only site that I’ve found that has analytically compared the color, resolution, noise for these widely different cameras. It’s interesting to see how a $2600 Canon 5D with aa $1100 lense compares with a $300 compact. Here are the high points:

* Professional DSLR. The Canon 5D at $2600 street is truly remarkable. You get very faithful color, 11 real megapixels, shooting at ISO 1600 with low noise and zero shutter lag. It’s the dream camera but with a dream-like price.
* Budget DSLR. The $800 Digital Rebel XT is actually quite close in picture quality. It’s probably the best compromise of quality and price there is. With a fast ISO 800 sensor, low noise and a true 7 megapixels even with the cheap kit lense. Only caveat is avoid the auto ISO mode as this was just terrible in these tests. You can easily set it to ISO 400 for everyday and push to 800 when you need it.
* Superzoom EVF. The $500 Sony H5 is the best superzoom and shows all the tradeoffs. You get a 12x zoom lense and weights less than a pound, but it’s picture quality is the issue mainly because of the small sensor that has to be used to get the zoom so big. Unlike just about every superzoom, it handles low light ISO 400 well. But like most of the rest, you really only get 4 megapixels effective, the color accuracy “consumer like” which means it the reds are unnatural. And the 0.42 second shutter lag is really a problem for shots with kids and people. So get this one only if you can’t stand the weight of the DSLRs.
* Compacts. The Fujifilm F10 and F11 is a standout, its lowlight performance works well to ISO 400 and with some tradeoffs you get to an incredible ISO 800 maximum. The main drawback is the color is red-pushed to please consumers. The main drawback is that it is relatively large and heavy with a 1″ width wheres as most super compacts are a svelte 0.3″ wide. I also put the SD500 in because, it shows that a 7 megapixel sensor camera can have less resolution that a 6 megapixel F10. It’s all about lense quality.

| Camera | Color | Resolution/Sharpness | Noise | Lowlight | Lag |
| “Canon 5D”:http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-EOS-5D-Digital-Camera-Review/Testing–Performance.htm | 9.0 [Faithful setting] 99.6% saturation 6.7 mean error | 10.9mp [24-70 F/2.8L USM] 2281×2182 | 13.51 ISO1600 Max | 8.5 | 0.01 sec |
| “Canon XT”:http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-Digital-Rebel-XT-Digital-Camera-Review-/Testing–Performance.htm | 8.36 [Parameter 1?] 115% sat 7.17 mean error | 7.10mp [Kit Lens] | 11.53 ISO1600 | 9.0 | 0.02 |
| “Sony DSC-H5”:http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Sony-Cyber-shot-DSC-H5-Digital-Camera-Review/Testing–Performance.htm | 7.14 [Normal] 109% sat 6.45 mean error | 4.41mp 1723×1835 | 8.21 ISO400 | N/A | 0.42 sec |
| “Fuji F10”:http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Fujifilm-FinePix-F10-Digital-Camera-Review-/Testing–Performance.htm | 6.68 [Normal] | 5.47mp | 11.42 ISO800 | 6.6 | 0.01 |
| “Canon SD500”:http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-PowerShot-SD500-Digital-Camera-Review-/Testing–Performance.htm | 8.12 | 5.28mp | 4.06 ISO100 | 7.0 | 0.17 sec |

h2. Noise curves

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