A camera comparison

I’ve had the new camera for about a week, and there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to get to know it yet, but I’m enjoying it — and it takes fantastic pictures. I thought it might be kind of interesting to see an A/B comparison between the new Canon PowerShot SD800 IS and my older camera, the Sony DSC-T9. The differences are pretty striking. Keep in mind that all settings are on default, and there’s no flash. If I put one camera on macro, both are on macro. If I set white balance to something other than auto (say, natural sunlight), both went to that setting.

Here’s a shot from the deck. First, the Sony:

And the Canon:

What is the Sony focussing on? One thing to note is that the two cameras were in the same position, but you can see a whole lot more in the Canon shot because of its wide-angle lens. (The Sony is not zoomed at all; that’s just the lens difference.)

This is “Self-Portrait in Mirrored Lamp.” First, the Sony:

And the Canon:

In this case, the Sony has come a little closer to the wall color — it’s not quite as gray as the Canon indicates, but it’s also not exactly peach as the Sony reads — but the Sony is way off on the red levels in the photo next to the lamp. I might have been slightly flush at my birthday dinner last year, but I wasn’t that red.

Here are some coasters. First, Sony:

And Canon:

In the Sony, it appears that the rust-colored coaster is on fire. It’s not. That chair in the background is also not supposed to be orange. It’s brown.

Finally, what would this comparison be without pictures of food? Here are some homemade molasses spice cookies. (Best recipe for these can be found in Cooks Illustrated. Mmmmm.)
Sony:

And Canon:

There’s considerably more detail in the Canon, and it’s not due to the increased resolution (7.1 MP vs. 6 MP). You can see a lot more individual sugar crystals. The difference in the wide angle lens on the Canon is hard to miss here. The Sony admittedly used to take good pictures — until I sent it to Sony for servicing on the sync issue, and it came back like this. Nice job, Sony. You suck.

Here are a few pics from the Canon alone. First, it’s Loki in his artsy senior picture pose.

One of the silly but fun features of the Canon is the ability to shoot only one color, and have the rest of the shot in black-and-white.

AEJ suggested this shot. Presumably due to disease, some huge old trees are being cut down a few doors from our place. Their current state — against the insanely blue sky of a smog-free LA day — is pretty cool.

Here’s Loki, tryin’ to look sexy. That’s right, ladies, he’s available. And fixed.

And last but not least, because I’m apparently doomed to be a crazy cat person, here’s a shot of the 3″ cat figurine who sits on a speaker in my studio. Yes, we bought it as a joke. Or did we?

Comments

Jake Wallace says

Canon is the way to go. IN LIFE.

My PowerShot S50 (an oldie but a goodie) handles like a brick and has all the same aesthetics, but I'll be damned if it doesn't take a pretty picture. If only I had the cash to buy an EOS...

I'll see you this weekend - I'm working on an email to yous guys right now...

Cathy says

In "Self-Portrait in Mirrored Lamp", you should have changed a few things in your background (number of books on shelf, placement of chair, etc.) to see if anyone noticed.
~C

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