Canon PowerShot G5 against an old Nikon FTn

Last Updated August 26, 2003

WIDE-ANGLE TESTS

Image WIDE-1

I took 3 pictures like this one with the Canon G5

#1 - RAW (5MB), which I later converted into TIFF (14.7 MB)

#2 - JPEG in Super Fine compression mode (2.6 MB)

#3 - JPEG in Fine compression mode (1.6 MB)

 

Pictures were taken with a Canon PowerShot G5 on August 20, 2003 at 3 PM
ISO 50, Autofocus ON, Auto White Balance ON, zoom set at 7.2mm (equivalent to a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera) and 2592x1944 resolution, speed manually set at 1/500 sec., auto-aperture set by the camera between F7.0 and F8.0.
Below are images of some zones (turquoise boxes in the picture above) of the original test picture in various file formats, they are displayed at at 100% scale.

 I then made a copy of each file so that I could further enhance them with Photoshop by applying Unsharp Mask (Amount: 40%, Radius: 10 pixels, Threshold: 0 Level), Auto Levels, Auto Contrast and Auto Color).

Below are images of some zones (turquoise boxes in the picture above) of the original test pictures in various file formats, they are displayed at 100% scale.
IMAGES AS GENERATED BY THE CANON G5 SAME IMAGES ALTERED WITH PHOTOSHOP
Zone #1
Image G1 (236K)

This is a cropped portion of the WIDE-1 image in RAW then converted to TIFF (14.7 MB), as-is straight out of the Canon PowerShot G5

 

 Image P1 (215K)

This is a cropped portion of the WIDE-1 image in RAW then converted to TIFF and further enhanced with Photoshop (14.7 MB).

It looks like we still need Photoshop (or equivalent software) to enhance images generated by 5 MPixels digital cameras.
Image G2

This is a cropped portion of the WIDE-1 image in JPEG with Super Fine compression (2.6 MB), as-is straight out of the Canon PowerShot G5.

 

Slightly sharper than G3

 Image P2

This is a cropped portion of the WIDE-1 image in JPEG with Super Fine compression, enhanced with Photoshop (1.5 MB).

 

Slightly sharper than P3.
Image G3

This is a cropped portion of the WIDE-1 image in JPEG with Fine compression (1.6 MB), as-is straight out of the Canon PowerShot G5.

 

 Image P3

This is a cropped portion of the WIDE-1 image in JPEG with Fine compression, enhanced with Photoshop (1.5 MB).

To me this seems to be the optimal choice. It does not take as much memory in the G5 memory card as the Super Fine compression option (1.6 MB versus 2.6 MB) and, after Photoshop enhancement, gives the same sharpness as the Super Fine version.
  Image P4

I did another interesting test: using Photoshop I converted the Photoshop-altered TIFF version (14.7 MB) into JPEG with a Quality value of 9. This gives me a 1.4 MB JPEG file, which is approximately the same size as what I got when I enhanced a JPEG file (Super Fine or Fine) with Photoshop (1.5 MB).

As you can see in Image P4, the result is a little bit sharper than P3, but similar to P2.
It is incredible to see how sharp the above object is when one knows that it was not more than three feet away from the camera, but yet so sharp. This camera is sharp and has extraordinary depth of field thanks to the very short focal length at its widest setting.
Zone #2

Similar tests and settings as for Zone #1 images
TIFF Image G5 (149 KB)

 

 TIFF Photoshop-enhanced Image P5 (151 KB)

 
Image G6

JPEG Super Fine

 Image P6

JPEG Super Fine Photoshop-enhanced
Image G7

JPEG Fine

 Image P7

JPEG Fine Photoshop-enhanced
Zone #3

Similar tests and settings as for Zone #1 images
TIFF Image G8 (96 KB)

 

 TIFF Photoshop-enhanced Image P8 (99 KB)

 
Image G9

JPEG Super Fine

 

 Image P9

JPEG Super Fine Photoshop-enhanced
Image G10

JPEG Super Fine

Image P10

JPEG Fine Photoshop-enhanced

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