Very high resolution and detail, with accurate color.
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 Kodak SLR/n performed very well.
The shot at right was taken at the default
exposure setting, which produced reasonably bright midtones,
but at the expense of detail in the highlights. (Of course,
Kodak tends to keep a fair bit of extra headroom in their
DCR raw-format files, so it's likely that I could bring back
a fair bit of the lost highlights here if I tweaked the exposure
setting in the Picture Desk software and re-exported from
the original DCR file.) I shot with the Auto white
balance setting, which produced very nice results, although
I confess that I twiddled the white balance slightly in Photo
Desk. Skin tones are about right, but the blue flowers in
the bouquet are a little darker and slightly more purple than
in real life. (Many digicams have trouble with this blue,
which actually has only a modest amount of purple in it.)
Color looks good throughout the rest of the frame however,
with good saturation. Resolution is exceptional, with a lot
of fine detail visible throughout the frame. Shadow detail
is pretty good as well, with moderate noise.
This shot really shows both how far Kodak has come since the
Pro 14n in terms of image noise and its impact on resolution,
as well as the relatively short ways that they still have
to go. If you look carefully at the detail in Marti's hair,
you'll see that there is indeed an impressive amount of detail
there, but you'll also see that in areas of relatively low
contrast (look just left of center, in the slightly shaded
areas), the noise-suppression algorithms still "smoosh
out" (a technical term) the fine details. Overall though
this is an eminently usable camera, a characterization I wouldn't
have applied to the original 14n.
To view the entire exposure series from -0.5 to +0.5 EV, see
files SLRNOUTAM1.HTM through SLRNOUTAP1.HTM on the thumbnail
index page.
Again, excellent resolution and detail,
with good color.
Resolution and detail are even stronger
in this close-up shot, with great definition in the fine details
of Marti's face and hair. I again noticed a pixelated effect
in the color gradations, but overall, detail is excellent.
The shot at right was taken with a -0.5
EV exposure compensation adjustment, which resulted in
a slightly underexposed shot. However, the default
exposure was much too bright overall.
Given a little more time with the camera, I'll try to come
back to this shot to adjust the exposure in Photo Desk. -
This is a perfect example where the combination of headroom
in the raw files and a fine-grained adjustment capability
in the JPEG-extraction software can really make a difference.
Indoor Portrait, Flash:
(Test not shot - I'll try
to fill-in at some point, after the PMA show.)
Excellent color and great exposure. - Minor white balance
adjustment in Photo Desk produced great color.
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 SLR/n's
Auto white balance handled the challenge surprisingly well,
such that I had to apply only a relatively slight white balance
tweak in Photo Desk to produce the results at right. (I deliberately
left a little warmth in the image, to evoke the warmth of
the original tungsten lighting.) The main shot was taken with
a +1.0 EV exposure compensation adjustment, which resulted
in a nice, even exposure without any loss of detail the highlights.
ISO Series:
Image noise on the SLR/n is dramatically lower than on the
Pro 14n that came before it. At ISO 160, the noise is quite
acceptable (IMHO), but it does rise significantly with increasing
ISO settings, becoming objectionable and obscuring detail
by the time ISO 800 is reached. Even at ISO 160 though, there's
more loss of detail in areas of subtle contrast than I'd like
to see.
Outstanding resolution and detail. (Really hitting the limits
of the poster.)
The one-click white balance adjustment in Photo Desk produced
excellent results here, with colors that are just spot-on.
As you'd expect, resolution is very high, with a lot of fine
detail visible in the tree limbs and front shrubbery. (The
SLR/n's 13.5 megapixel CCD really pretty well reaches the
limits of this poster as a test target. Even though the poster
was made from a 500MB scan of a 4x5 negative shot with a tack-sharp
lens, the SLR/n extracts about all the detail that's to be
found here. - I have an updated poster coming later this year
that will far outstrip this one (and any conceivable commercial
camera/lens system) in terms of resolution...
High resolution and good detail, with a good dynamic range
as well, but also a lot of lost detail in areas of subtle
contrast.
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 Kodak SLR/n does an excellent job. Details in
the bark of the tree limbs over the roof are quite strong,
despite the slight pixelated look I mentioned on the Outdoor
shot. The fine foliage in front of the house shows strong
detail, though the smaller leaf patterns appear blurred slightly.
In-camera sharpening is good overall, with the sharpest details
in the linear patterns on the house front. The camera picks
up pretty good detail in the bright white paint surrounding
the bay window, which is a trouble spot for many digicams.
Detail is also strong in the shadow area above the front door,
further evidence of the camera's excellent dynamic range.
Overall color looks good, though exposure is a little bright
at the camera's default setting.
While this image shows off the SLR/n's ultimate resolving power,
particularly in the pine needles against the sky, it also
highlights the problems caused by the noise-suppression algorithms,
also in the pine foliage. In clumps of pine needles, the image
is reduced to blobs of color, rather than resolved as distinct
needles. There's no question that the SLR/n is light years
ahead of the Pro 14n in terms of image noise, but it's equally
clear that there's yet a ways to go.
Lens Zoom Range
Not shot - irrelevant to an SLR with interchangeable lenses.
Musicians Poster
Not shot - This test subject is
too low-res to show anything of interest with the SLR/n
Macro Test
Not shot - irrelevant to an SLR with interchangeable
lenses. (Although my 105mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor is an awesome
macro performer.)
Auto white balance produced a very warm-toned image, but
click white balance in Photo Desk cleaned things up nicely.
Excellent color and low noise.
The Kodak SLR/n's Auto and Daylight
settings produced similar images with very warm color balances.
The Click white balance option did an excellent job of cleaning
things up though, using the medium gray of the MacBeth chart
as a neutral reference. The default exposure was a little
dim, so I tweaked it upward a couple of tenths of an EV in
Photo Desk. Saturation is excellent in the large color blocks,
though the large red block is a little hot, and the hues are
dead-on. Some detail is missing in the darkest shadows, but
noise is lower than I'd expected to see. (Mind you, I'd still
like to see it lower in areas where there's subject detail
going on, but it's still a decent performance overall.)
2x Res Target
(All res numbers are 2x what's indicated on
the chart)
Excellent resolution, ~2,000-2,100 lines of "strong detail."
The Kodak SLR/n performed spectacularly on the "laboratory"
resolution test chart. - In fact, it pretty much runs off
the edge of the standard ISO-12233 chart. Fortunately, I have
a custom-made 2x res chart available, and that shows the resolution
of the SLR/n topping out at about 2,100 lines both horizontally
and vertically. It does start showing pretty strong artifacts
in the horizontal direction around 1,700 lines though. Still,
a very impressive performance.
I normally comment here on the optical distortion of the cameras
I test, but that obviously has no relevance to SLRs, as distortion
will naturally vary as a function of the lens used, rather
than the camera itself. Hence, no comments on distortion here.
Viewfinder Accuracy/Flash Uniformity
Excellent accuracy from the camera's digital SLR design.
The Kodak SLR/n's digital SLR viewfinder is very accurate,
showing roughly 98 percent frame accuracy. Given that
I like SLR viewfinders to be as close to 100 percent
accuracy as possible, the camera performs very well in
that regard.
