Very high contrast with dark midtones, and a slightly cool color balance.

The extreme tonal range of this image makes it a tough shot for many digicams, which is precisely why I set it up this way, and why I shoot it with no fill flash or reflector to open the shadows. The object is to hold both highlight and shadow detail without producing a "flat" picture with muddy colors, and the Finecam SL300R had a fair bit of trouble here.

The shot at right was taken with a +0.3 EV exposure compensation adjustment, which resulted in very dark shadows, with very bright highlights, and almost no midtones. Detail is all but completely lost in the brightest highlights, though the deep shadows do manage to hold onto a moderate amount. (Here's a shot at the default exposure, which is very dark.) I chose the Daylight white balance setting, though it produced slightly cool results similar to the Manual option. The Auto setting was warmer, but too warm for my taste.

The cool cast and high contrast result in pale skin tones, and the blue flowers in the bouquet are quite dark. (Many digicams have trouble with this blue. The SL300R renders them quite dark, but gets the color more or less correct.) The red flowers are oversaturated (as is the case with so many digicams I test), and so bright that detail is limited in the highlights. Resolution is fairly good for a 3-megapixel camera, although details are just slightly soft throughout the frame. In some areas, such as along the edges of the red flowers, detail appears a bit pixilated. Image noise is moderately high in the midtones and shadows, obscuring details here also.

Higher resolution with stronger detail, but contrast is again very high.

Here again, the SL300R once again had trouble with the harsh lighting, and produced a very high contrast shot with limited highlight detail. The lower midtones are quite dark as well. The shot at right was taken with a +0.3 EV exposure compensation adjustment, as anything lower was just too dark overall. The SL300R's 3x zoom lens helps prevent strong distortion of Marti's features, though a small amount is noticeable. Detail and resolution are stronger in this shot, with better definition, though details are still a bit soft. Image noise is again moderately high in the shadows and midtones.

To view the entire exposure series from -0.3 to +0.3 EV, see files SL3FACM1.HTM through SL3FACP1.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

Normal Flash +0.0 EV

A bright, powerful flash (almost too powerful), though good color.

The SL300R's built-in flash was very bright in this portrait, even at its default exposure setting, which I ended up choosing for the main shot, even though I felt it fell just slightly short of the ideal exposure. (The shot at +0.3 EV just seemed too bright to me, even though Marti's face was better illuminated in it. In a case like this, the best results may actually be obtained post-capture, using image editing software.) Overall color is nearly accurate, with only a minor orange cast from the bright incandescent room lighting on Marti's hair and the rear wall.

Auto White Balance

Incandescent White Balance

Manual White Balance

Warm color balance from the incandescent lighting with all white balance settings, high contrast as well. Image noise is also quite high.

This shot is always a very tough test of a camera's white balance capability, given the strong, yellowish color cast of the household incandescent bulbs used for the lighting. The SL300R had a tough time here, and produced warm color balances with both the Auto and Incandescent white balance options. The Manual setting also produced a warm cast, but with more of a red tint. The shots at right were taken with +0.7 EV exposure compensation adjustment, brought the midtones up to where they needed to be, but lost some detail in the highlights.

ISO Series:
Noise is noticeable in the SL300R's shots here, even at the ISO 100 setting. Noise jumps to a higher level at ISO 200, and I personally wouldn't consider the shots at ISO 400 and 800 usable, the noise even affecting the color balance because of the increased number of blue pixels.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Manual White Balance

Good resolution, but a slightly warm color balance.

Though slightly warm and yellowish, the SL300R's Auto white balance produced the best overall color here, though results weren't much different from the Manual setting. (The Daylight setting also produced similar results, but with a stronger yellow-green cast.) Resolution is pretty good, with reasonable detail visible in the tree limbs and front shrubbery, though details are slightly pixilated in appearance. There's quite a bit of softness in the two left corners of the frame, though.

Moderately high resolution and detail, though exposure is contrasty and dynamic range is limited.

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.

This is my ultimate "resolution shot," given the infinite range of detail in a natural scene like this, and the SL300R performed pretty well, relative to its 3-megapixel class. The tree limbs over the roof and fine foliage in front of the house show pretty good detail, with fairly good definition in the leaf patterns. Details are slightly soft throughout the frame, with increased softness in the two left corners, but the overall result isn't too bad. The camera loses practically all detail in the bright white paint surrounding the bay window, a trouble spot for many digicams, although the SL300R does worse than most with it. Detail is also low in the shadow area above the front door, further evidence of a limited dynamic range, doubtless due at least in part to the camera's high native contrast. Exposure is a bit bright, with high contrast. The camera's Auto white balance setting produced pretty good color, but with a slight greenish cast. The table below shows a standard resolution and quality series, followed by ISO, sharpness, saturation, and color series.

Resolution Series:

ISO Series:

Sharpness Series:

Saturation Series:

Saturation Series
Low	Normal	High

Color Series:

Color Series
Normal	Black and White	Sepia

Lens Zoom Range

A fairly typical 3x zoom range.

I routinely shoot this series of images to show the field of view for each camera, with the lens at full wide angle, at maximum telephoto (3x, in this case), and at full telephoto with the digital zoom enabled. The SL300R's lens is equivalent to a 38-115mm zoom on a 35mm camera. That corresponds to a moderate wide angle to a moderate telephoto, slightly biased toward the telephoto end, relative to the 35-105mm range that's most common with 3x zoom point & shoot digicams. Following are the results at each zoom setting.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Manual White Balance

Slightly green, pale color, but good resolution and detail.

This shot is often a tough test for digicams, as the abundance of blue in the composition frequently tricks white balance systems into producing a warm color balance. However, the SL300R's Auto and Daylight white balance settings produced slightly greenish color balances, while the Manual setting took on more of a reddish tint (particularly noticeable in the skin tones). Though skin tones are slightly pale with the Daylight setting, I preferred it over the very red skin tones of the Manual shot. Despite the green cast, overall color is actually pretty good. Resolution is high, with a lot of fine detail visible in the embroidered birds of the blue robe, as well as in the beaded necklaces.

Standard Macro Shot

Macro with Flash

A very large macro area, though detail is good. Flash throttles down pretty well, though with some falloff.

Macro shooting isn't the SL300R's strong suit, as it captured a rather large minimum area, measuring 7.07 x 5.31 inches (180 x 135 millimeters). Resolution is high, with good detail in the dollar bill, coins, and brooch. Color is pretty good, though slightly reddish in the gray background, and exposure looks good as well. The SL300R's flash throttled down pretty well for the macro area, though with some significant falloff at the corners and edges of the frame.

Auto White Balance

Daylight White Balance

Manual White Balance

A slightly bright exposure and high contrast, but fairly accurate color.

Results were similar with the Auto and Manual white balance settings, but I settled on the Manual as the most pleasing overall. (The Daylight setting produced a warmer color balance.) Exposure is bright and high contrast, but the SL300R distinguishes the subtle tonal variations of the Q60 target pretty well. Colors are bright and vibrant in the large color blocks, though the additive primaries (red, blue, and green) are a bit too saturated. Shadow detail is limited in the charcoal briquettes, and image noise is moderate.

ISO Series:

Sharpness Series:

Saturation Series:

Saturation Series
Low	Normal	High

Color Series:

Color Series
Normal	Black and White	Sepia

Low-Light Tests

Decent low-light performance, but autofocus system has trouble in the dim lighting and noise is high at the higher ISOs, but good color and exposure overall. Ultimately, only just usable under average city street-lighting at night.

The SL300R produced bright, usable images down to the 1/16 foot-candle (0.67 lux) limit of my test, with good color at the 400 and 800 ISO settings. You could arguably use the images shot at this light level with the 100 and 200 ISO settings, but the overall exposure was slightly dim. With both ISOs, better images were captured at the 1/4 foot-candle (2.7 lux) light level. Color was pretty good overall, though the dimmer shots had a reddish cast. Noise was moderately high at the ISO 200 setting, and climbed to a very high level at ISO 400 and 800. However, at ISO 100, noise was fairly low. The camera's autofocus system had some trouble in the low lighting though, resulting in soft focus at light levels lower than one foot-candle (11 lux). The table below shows the best exposure I was able to obtain for each of a range of illumination levels. Images in this table (like all sample photos) are untouched, exactly as they came from the camera.

(Note: If you'd like to use a light meter to check light levels for subjects you might be interested in shooting, a light level of one foot-candle corresponds to a normal exposure of two seconds at f/2.8 and ISO 100.)

	1 fc 11 lux	1/2 fc 5.5 lux	1/4 fc 2.7 lux	1/8 fc 1.3 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux
ISO 100	2 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8
ISO 200	1 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8
ISO 400	1/2 sec f2.8	1/2 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8
ISO 800	1/6 sec f2.8	1/4 sec f2.8	1/2 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8

Flash Range Test

An underpowered flash, with significant falloff throughout the test series.

In my testing, the SL300R's flash just barely illuminated the test target at 14 feet, and underexposed the target somewhat even at the eight foot distance, and continued to decrease in intensity from that point on. Kyocera doesn't seem to give the SL300R's flash a distance rating in the manual, but based on these results, I'd have to say it's probably somewhere on the order of 6 feet or less. Below is the flash range series, with distances from eight to 14 feet from the target.

8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft	12 ft	13 ft	14 ft
1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100	1/60 sec f2.8 ISO 100

ISO-12233 (WG-18) Resolution Test

Good resolution for a 3MP model, 1,000+ lines of "strong detail." High barrel distortion at wide angle, and a small amount at telephoto.

The SL300R performed about average on the "laboratory" resolution test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 600 lines per picture height, in both horizontal and vertical directions. I found "strong detail" out to a bit over 1,000 lines, although you could perhaps argue for as high as 1,100 lines in the horizontal direction. "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,350 lines.

Optical distortion on the SL300R is higher than average at the wide-angle end, where I measured an approximate 0.9 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared much better, as I measured a 0.2 percent barrel distortion, although cameras that I test with 3x zoom lenses show little or no distortion at the telephoto ends of their zoom ranges. Chromatic aberration is quite amazingly low though, showing only about two or three pixels of very faint coloration on either side of the target lines. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)

Resolution Series, Wide Angle

Wide Angle	"Fine" JPEG	"Normal" JPEG
2,048 x 1,536	SL3RESW2048F	SL3RESW2048E
1,600 x 1,200	SL3RESW1600F	-
1,280 x 960	SL3RESW1280F	-
640 x 480	SL3RESW0640	-

Resolution Test, Telephoto

2,048 x 1,536 (Fine, Tele)

SL3REST2048F

Sharpness Series