Minolta Dimage RD3000Unusual 2-CCD design produces a professional-level SLR digicam at an affordable price.<<Reference: Datasheet :(Previous) | (Next): Print-Friendly Review Version>> Dimage RD3000 Sample ImagesReview First Posted: 5/23/2000 |
We've begun including links in our reviews to a Thumber-generated index page for our test shots.
The Thumber data includes a host of information on the images, including
shutter speed, ISO setting, compression setting, etc. Rather than clutter
the page below with *all* that detail, we're posting the Thumber index so
only those interested in the information need wade through it! ;) |
Please Note: These images were opened
and re-saved in
Photoshop to get around file format problems.
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Outdoor
portrait: (1179k) This is a tough shot
for many digicams, due to the extreme tonal range (which is why we set it
up this way). The trick is to hold highlight and shadow detail without
producing a "flat" picture with muddy colors. We shot this image in both
automatic (1201k) and daylight (1157k) white balance
settings, choosing daylight because it produced the most accurate overall
color balance while the automatic setting resulted in a very cool, bluish
image. An overall slightly greenish cast leaves warm tones and the foliage
generally looking pretty good, but the blue flowers and pants appear a
little muted and almost greenish. On the plus side though, there's none of
the purplish tint in the blue flowers here that seems to plague so many of
the digicams we test. Overall, the color of the RD-3000 will look rather
muted to viewers accustomed to the rather over-saturated images from
typical consumer digicams. Actually, while the colors here are a bit
undersaturated relative to the originals, they're probably closer than
those from many consumer cameras with snappier-looking images. We suspect
many practicing pros and studio photographers may prefer the
understatement in the RD-3000's color handling.
For our main image, we chose a +1.0 EV adjustment, but we were a little
torn between it and the +1.5 adjustment. At +1.0
EV (1179k) , the image seems just a shade dark but
the highlight areas look good. Alternatively, at +1.5 EV (1140k) , the
highlight areas are definitely too hot and the rest of the image is
borderline on being too bright. So, we stuck with +1.0 EV for the main
image, keeping the highlight areas in check. Resolution and detail
are both excellent, especially in the shadow areas which show great detail
and very low noise. The table below shows the results of a range of
exposure settings from zero to +1.5 EV in the daylight white balance
setting. Exposure Compensation Settings:
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Closer
portrait: (1048k) The RD-3000 performed
very well on this "portrait" shot, thanks in part to the camera's
interchangeable lens system which accommodates most of Minolta's Vectis
lenses. (Shorter focal length lenses tend to distort facial features in
close-up shots like this and the availability of longer focal lengths is a
key feature if you're going to be shooting close-up people shots.) For
this shot, we used the Minolta V 22 to 80mm lens that accompanied our test
camera. We like the color a lot here too: There's a bit of an overall
yellow cast, but that's easily dealt with through a little post-exposure
tweaking. The RD-3000's understated color is perfect for portraits like
this: Over-saturation is deadly in Caucasian skin tones, leading to
ruddiness and hot spots. Here, the RD-3000 produced a good gradation of
skin tones and nicely controlled color. As usual, our main shot (1048k) needed less
exposure compensation than the outdoor portrait, so we snapped this image
at +0.5 EV. Resolution and detail again look very good, with an almost
microscopic noise level. The table below shows the results of a range of
exposure settings from zero to +1.5 EV in the daylight white balance
setting.
Exposure Compensation Settings:
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Indoor
portrait, flash: (933k) This shot is
always tricky because of the potential differences between the color
balance of the flash and the bright room lighting. For this shot, we used
an external strobe (Sunpack 144), since the RD-3000 does not feature a
built-in flash. Because this is an inexpensive unit with limited power, it
turned out not to be strong enough for bounce work with the RD-3000.
First, we bounced the flash from the ceiling, which produced this (983k) very dim image.
Part of the trouble is that the maximum aperture on the lens we received
with our test model was only f/6.7, and the flash unit was too weak to
work with such a small aperture. Next, we pointed the flash directly at
the model and adjusted the ambient exposure setting to -1.0 EV, producing
this (933k) much brighter
image. Pointing the flash directly at the subject causes some rather harsh
shadows, but the highlight areas aren't overexposed and the color balance
looks pretty good. For the next shot, we bounced the flash off of the
ceiling (in automatic white balance mode) and boosted the ambient exposure
setting to +1.5 EV, which produced this (933k) very nicely balanced shot. We were surprised that the
different color temperature of the room lighting and bounced flash
exposure didn't lead to odd color effects, but for whatever reason, the
color balance was unusually good. We chose this image as our main
selection for this test. Finally, we set the white balance to the flash
setting, but switched over to manual exposure control. We bounced part of
the flash off of the ceiling, but the main force of it was bounced off of
a white piece of paper held above the flash head, which produced this (983k) image with
mostly direct but softer lighting (notice the shadows are a little less
harsh). This shot ran a close second for our choice as main selection.
More clearly a flash exposure, but clean and well-exposed. A lot of our
difficulty in achieving good exposure on this shot was due to our
inexpensive, underpowered flash unit: A more powerful strobe would have
stood us in good stead. Nonetheless, the RD-3000's manual mode gave us a
good ability to tweak the balance between ambient and flash exposure,
producing good results. |
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Indoor
portrait, no flash: (983k) We were very
impressed with the RD-3000's performance on this shot (which is a very
tough test of a camera's white balance capabilities, thanks to the strong
yellowish cast of the household incandescent lighting it's shot under). We
got the best results from the incandescent
(983k) white balance setting, which required a +1.5 EV
exposure compensation adjustment for the main shot. Automatic (983k) white balance
also looked very good, but we preferred the incandescent setting because
it left more of the original character of the lighting in the image (the
automatic setting also had a slightly magenta tinge). The manual (983k) white balance
setting also turned in very nice results, although they were a little cool
and neutral. (Depending on personal preferences, some people could easily
choose the manual white balance version over the incandescent one.) We
also took one shot at the 800 ISO (1333k) setting, which gave us considerably less noise than
we expected. The table below shows the results of various exposure
compensation settings from zero to +2.0 EV in the incandescent white
balance setting.
Exposure Compensation Settings:
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House
shot: (1583k) NOTE that this is the
"new" house shot, a much higher-resolution poster than we first used in
our tests. To compare the C-3030 with previously tested cameras, here's a
shot of the original house postertaken with the manual (1733k) white balance
setting, and with +1.0 EV of exposure compensation dialed in. (For some
reason, the RD-3000's default exposure came out rather dark on this
target.)
For this shot, we tested the automatic (633k), daylight (583k) and manual (583k) white balance settings. The daylight setting produced
very warm results, while the automatic setting was too cool. Manual white
balance gave us the best overall color balance and tone, so we chose it
for our main series. As with the outdoor portrait, resolution and detail
look exceptionally good. The tree limbs above the house are very crisp and
full of detail. Color saturation seems slightly muted, but not bad
overall. (See our earlier comments about "professional" color vs
"consumer" color.) We found only trace evidence of the in-camera
sharpening around the dark and light edges of the house (which appears as
a tiny halo effect). - We'd have to say that the RD-3000's sharpening is
just about perfect. Again, noise is extremely low. Other than the slightly
reduced color saturation, we can find no fault with the RD-3000's images
here... We also snapped an image at the camera's 800
ISO (683k) setting, which brightened the image a
little and increased the noise moderately (but, considering the high
equivalent, the noise level is very good). The table below shows our
standard resolution and quality series.
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Far-Field
shot: (1733k) This image is shot at
infinity to test far-field lens performance. NOTE that this image cannot
be directly compared to the other "house" shot, which is a poster, shot in
the studio. The rendering of detail in the poster will be very different
than in this shot, and color values (and even the presence or absence of
leaves on the trees!) will vary in this subject as the seasons progress.
In general though, you can evaluate detail in the bricks, shingles and
window detail, and in the tree branches against the sky. Compression
artifacts are most likely to show in the trim along the edge of the roof,
in the bricks, or in the relatively "flat" areas in the windows.
We shot this series with the automatic (933k) and manual (1733k) white balance settings, choosing manual because of
its more accurate color balance (the automatic setting actually appeared
slightly warm). This test is the strongest test of detail of any we do,
because the bright white of the central bay window often tricks digicams
into losing detail in that area and the RD-3000 did a nice job of catching
most of the details here. Resolution and detail are outstanding. Color
balance and saturation look about right, but again we notice that the
overall color is a little flat. We snapped an image at the 800 (1983k) ISO setting, which
brightened the image somewhat and increased the noise level (but not as
much as you might expect with such a high ISO). The table below shows our
standard resolution and quality series.
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Lens Zoom Range: We've received a number of requests
from readers to take shots showing the lens focal length range of those
cameras with zoom lenses. The RD-3000 features a standard Minolta Vecits
lens mount which should fit most of the Vectis lenses. Our test model was
accompanied by a Minolta Vectis 22 to 80mm lens, so we're happy to show
you the following views at full wide angle and telephoto for this
particular lens. (Obviously, the RD-3000 will exhibit the zoom range of
whatever lens is attached to it, so the full range will be a good bit
wider than that resulting from this one particular lens.
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"Musicians"
poster: (1383k) We shot this test with
the automatic (533k), daylight (493k) and manual (483k) white balance
settings. The manual setting seemed slightly cool, as did the automatic
setting, so we chose daylight because of the more accurate skin tones. The
RD-3000 does a nice job with resolution and detail on this image,
particularly noticeable in the subtle detail of the bird's wings and the
tiny silver threads on the Oriental model's robe. The flower garland and
the beaded necklaces on the other two models also look nice and sharp. We
again find the color balance a little flat, which is more forgivable in
this image because of the range of tonal variations. We're again very
impressed with the noise level, as it's just barely visible. Even the
noise from the poster appears relatively subdued. As with our other tests,
we shot at the 800 ISO (1683k)
setting and found a slightly brighter image with just a moderate
level of noise. Great job! Below is our normal resolution and quality
series in the daylight white balance setting. Resolution/Quality series:
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Macro
shot: (1645k) Our test model's 22 to
80mm lens performs reasonably well in the macro category, although not as
well as many digicams we've tested. To use the RD-3000 for macro
photography, you'll probably want to attach a macro lens. However, we went
ahead and snapped some images with the lens we had, which managed to
capture a minimum area of 5.95 x 4.08 inches (151.18 x 103.63 mm).
Resolution, detail and color all look nice, although the brooch appears
just a hair soft (possibly due to a limited depth of field). We tried
shooting at opposing apertures, to see how this affected the depth of
field, noticing that at F/22 (1604k), the brooch appears only a little sharper and at F/6.7 (1589k), it appears only
a bit softer. Neither setting seemed to affect the depth of field greatly.
Our opinion? For the best results, plan on purchasing a macro lens. (One
of the extensive lens kits offered with the RD-3000 includes a macro
lens.) |
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"Davebox" test
target: (883k) With this test target, we shot
at the daylight (283k), manual (283k) and automatic (283k) white balance
settings. As we found with our other tests, the automatic setting was a
little too cool, while the daylight setting was very warm. Thus, we chose
the manual setting as the most accurate overall (particularly noticeable
in the mini resolution target on the right side of the box). We've noticed
throughout our testing that RD-3000's color is somewhat undersaturated,
and this is definitely true for the Davebox. Nearly all of the large color
blocks on the left side of the box look muted and somewhat weak,
particularly in the subtractive primaries of yellow, magenta, and cyan,
the magenta most of all. On the bright side (no pun intended ;-), the
RD-3000 does a great job separating the red and magenta color blocks on
the middle, horizontal color chart, which is a problem area for many
digicams. Likewise, the subtle tonal variations in the "B" range of the
Q60 chart are completely visible and clearly distinguishable. The shadow
area of the briquettes shows a fair amount of detail and the best part is
that there again is only a minuscule noise level. We also tested the ISO
800 (433k) setting, which
gave us a little brighter exposure with a moderately increased noise
level. As we've been saying all along, the comparatively low noise level
of the 800 ISO setting is very impressive. Despite the somewhat muted
color saturation, everything else looks wonderful. Following is our
standard resolution and quality series. Resolution/Quality series:
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Low-Light Tests Given the RD 3000's excellent shadow detail under normal shooting conditions, we weren't too surprised to see how well it did at low-light shooting. Well, maybe a little surprised at just how good the pictures actually were: It produced excellent, well-exposed images down to a light level of 1/4 of a foot-candle at its default ISO 200 sensitivity setting, and all the way down to 1/16 of a foot-candle at the higher ISO 800 setting. What was most surprising though, was how good the image quality was, even with very long exposures at ISO 800: Noise was very well controlled, and color balance was excellent all the way down. (We used the "daylight" white balance setting on these shots.) We don't have a good way of measuring low-light focusing ability, and in fact used manual focus on all these shots. We were particularly amazed that even the lowest-light samples still showed good detail in the briquettes, a very unusual accomplishment. Overall, an excellent performance! We've recently changed our test procedure to insure that the cameras we test are at a uniform 70 degrees F (~21 C) when we shoot the low light tests, and we proceed from the lowest light levels to the brightest. This insures that the camera electronics and sensor are at their lowest temperature when we test under the most sensitive conditions (longest exposures, highest ISO settings). CCD noise levels are very sensitive to temperature, doubling every 6-8 degrees C. Thus, if you attempt a low-light shot after running the camera continuously for an hour or two, you'd probably get drastically worse results than those shown here. Likewise, if you were taking pictures on a winter night and the camera had equilibrated to the low air temperature, your results could be substantially better.
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Flash Range Test Because the RD-3000 does not have a built-in flash, the results would be entirely dependent on the particular external strobe system you chose to use. We therefore did not perform this test.  |
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ISO 12233 ("WG-18") resolution target: The
RD-3000's resolution test target results were rather interesting, in that
the camera seemed to fare better in the "real world" subjects against the
3.3 megapixel consumer digicams than it did in this "scientific" test. We
were expecting a good performance, due to the excellent detail we saw in
some of our "natural" test targets, and in the very delicate in-camera
sharpening it applied. We were surprised then, when it performed at a
slightly lower level on the laboratory resolution test target. We called
the RD-3000's resolution at about 750-800 lines per picture height in the
horizontal direction, and 700 lines per picture height in the vertical
direction. As noted in the main review, the RD-3000 uses an unusual
optical system, with two CCDs attached to a prism that splits the light
from the lens between them. One is entirely composed of green pixels, the
other of equal numbers of red and blue pixels. This is a rather different
approach from most digicams, where the red, green, and blue pixels are
interlaced across the surface of a single CCD. You'd expect the fine
structure of an RD-3000 image to look slightly different as a result, so
it's no surprise that it does: There's just the slightest checkerboard
texture to areas of high detail, different from the sort of artifacts
we're accustomed to seeing in more conventionally designed digicams. We
found this cross-pattern graininess a bit more noticeable than the
interpolation artifacts we're used to seeing, but the plus side is that
there appears to be much less color aliasing present. (Color aliasing is
the rainbow colors you sometimes see in areas of very fine detail shot
with a camera having a conventionally striped CCD array.) Overall, we like
the detail rendering of the RD-3000 very much. The tables below show
resolution chart samples shot at both Wide Angle and Telephoto zoom
settings. Wide-Angle Resolution/Quality series:
Telephoto Resolution/Quality series:
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Viewfinder accuracy/flash uniformity target: We found the RD-3000's optical viewfinder to be a little tight, showing approximately 85 percent of the final frame at wide angle (283k) and about 87 percent at the telephoto (283k) end. (A recent change in our terminology: We previously would have referred to this inaccuracy as "loose.") We also noticed that the framing of our test unit seemed to be tilted slightly towards the lower right corner. Geometric distortion will be entirely dependent on the lens chosen: On the 28-85mm zoom we received with our test unit, distortion was moderate, spread evenly between a value of 0.41 percent barrel distortion at the wide angle end and 0.52 percent pincushion distortion at the telephoto end. Chromatic aberration was present but very low, we picked up maybe half a pixel's worth of coloration on each side of the black lines. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.) As there is no built-in flash, we did not check flash uniformity on this target. |
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