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Canon PowerShot Pro1 New level of sophistication takes over the top spot in the PowerShot line. Select a topic Reference: Datasheet Pro1 Sample Images --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Executive Overview 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on Pro1 Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Video, Power, Software :(Previous) | (Next): Reference: Datasheet>> Page 12:Test Results & Conclusion Review First Posted: 05/14/2004

Test Results

In keeping with my standard test policy, the comments given here summarize only my key findings. For a full commentary on each of the test images, see the PowerShot Pro1's "pictures" page.

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the PowerShot Pro1 with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

As with all Imaging Resource product tests, I encourage you to let your own eyes be the judge of how well the camera performed. Explore the images on the pictures page, to see how Pro1's images compare to other cameras you may be considering.

• Color: Excellent, accurate color, with appropriate saturation. Overall, the Pro1's color was accurate and well-saturated throughout my testing. The Pro1's white balance system performed very well, without any significant color casts, although the Outdoor Portrait shot ended up with just a slight yellow tint. I found the Auto and Manual settings typically did the best job, though the Daylight setting handled the difficult Musicians target the best. Indoors under household incandescent lighting, both the Incandescent and Manual white balance options did very well, albeit with rather different "looks." The Incandescent option produced a slightly cool-toned image, while the Manual option left a bit more of the warmth of the original scene. Both images look quite nice though, and it's nice to have a camera that gives you two excellent options under difficult incandescent lighting like this. Across the board, the Pro1 delivered very nice looking color, under a wide variety of light sources
  
  
• Exposure: Excellent exposure accuracy. Good tonal range, but contrasty under harsh lighting. A useful low-contrast option though. The Pro1 did a good job with exposure, for the most part requiring fewer exposure compensation adjustments than most cameras I test. The high-key lighting of the Outdoor Portrait resulted in high contrast, but the low-contrast option helped a fair bit. (I'd really like to see more steps in the contrast control though, extending further in the low-contrast direction.) Despite its somewhat high native contrast, the Pro1 showed good dynamic range, preserving shadow detail very well, with fairly low noise.
  
  
• Resolution/Sharpness: Very high resolution, 1,600-1,650 lines of "strong detail." Very sharp from corner to corner. The Pro1 performed very well on the "laboratory" resolution test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns at resolutions as low as 1,100 lines per picture height, in both horizontal and vertical directions, but offering "strong detail" out to at least 1,600 lines vertically, 1,650 lines horizontally. (Although there are enough artifacts at these points that I question whether I should perhaps drop back to 1,500-1,550 lines, per my own, fairly conservative criteria - see my comments on the Pro1's pictures page.) "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until right around 2,000 lines, but even then, some detail is faintly discernible. Overall, the Pro1's absolute resolving power was pretty much the same as the other leading 8-megapixel cameras, and its corner sharpness was about in the middle of the pack as well.
  
  
• Image Noise: Very good image noise at ISO 50, increases steadily at higher ISOs, but very little flattening of subject detail at high ISOs. The PowerShot Pro1 delivers very clean-looking images at its minimum ISO of 50, but the noise levels increase quite steadily beyond that point. (Its noise levels more or less track those of the Sony DSC-F828 and Nikon Coolpix 8700.) For most users, noise will be negligible at ISO 50 and 100, noticeable but acceptable at ISO 200, and objectionable at ISO 400. On a positive note though, there's relatively little loss of subtle subject detail caused by anti-noise processing, at any ISO setting.
  
  
• Closeups: Really exceptional macro performance, but the flash is blocked by the lens in the closest shots. The Pro1 performed exceptionally well in the macro category, capturing a very tiny minimum area of only 0.97 x 1.29 inches (25 x 33 millimeters). Resolution is very high, with excellent detail in the dollar bill. The coins and brooch are soft due to the shallow depth of field at the very short shooting distance (not at all the fault of the Pro1), but the level of fine detail in the bill is excellent. As is often the case with digicam macro shots, all four corners of the frame are rather soft, due to curvature of field at this very close shooting distance. While it would be better if this were not the case, almost every camera I test that shoots anywhere near this close ends up with softness in the corners of its images. The Pro1's flash is in a bad spot for macro shooting, especially given the very close range, so you'll definitely need an alternative light source for the closest macro shots.
  
  
• Night Shots: Great low-light performance, with good color and exposure even at the darkest light levels. Excellent low-light focusing as well. The Pro1 produced clear, usable images down to the 1/16 foot-candle (0.67 lux) limit of my test, with good color at all four ISO settings. (Although at ISO 50, the best shot was at the 1/8 foot-candle, 1.3 lux, light level.) The camera's automatic white balance setting did a very good job here as well. Color balance was just a little pinkish at the lowest light levels, but overall color was much better than average for such low-light conditions. Noise was quite low at the lower ISO equivalents, rising to a moderate level at ISO 200, becoming distracting at ISO 400. Low-light operation could be enhanced by the bright white AF-assist light, but it unfortunately is only available when the flash is active. (?!) Surprisingly though, even without the AF assist light, the Pro1's hybrid AF system can focus (albeit slowly and slightly hit-or-miss) down to incredibly low light levels, actually even lower than the 1/16 foot-candle limit of my tests. (!)
  
  
• Viewfinder Accuracy: Excellent accuracy from the electronic viewfinder. The Pro1's electronic "optical" viewfinder (EVF) was very accurate, showing 99+ percent frame accuracy at both wide angle and telephoto zoom settings. The LCD monitor was also very accurate, since it shows the same view, just on a larger screen. Given that I like LCD monitors to be as close to 100 percent accuracy as possible, the Pro1's LCD monitor is essentially perfect in this regard.
  
  
• Optical Distortion: Higher than average barrel distortion, but very low pincushion distortion. Optical distortion on the Pro1 is higher than average at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.9 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared much better, as I found only 0.06 percent pincushion distortion there (about two pixels' worth). Chromatic aberration is higher than I'd have expected, given the "L-series" glass in the Pro1's lens, with about seven or eight pixels of fairly strong coloration on either side of the target lines in the corners. (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.) It's likely that the chromatic aberration was exaggerated somewhat by corner softness, which I noticed in a few shots (most visibly in the macro shot).
  
  
• Shutter Lag and Cycle Time: Good shutter response speed, but not quite as fast as some of its rivals, very good cycle times. Thanks to its hybrid phase-detect/contrast-detect autofocus system, the PowerShot PRO1 is pretty responsive to the shutter button, with full-autofocus shutter lag ranging from 0.63-0.74 seconds, depending on the zoom setting of the lens. While this range of shutter lag is good when compared to lower-end cameras, it's somewhat slower than the equivalent lag times of 0.55-0.58 for the Olympus C-8080 and 0.46-0.55 seconds for the Nikon Coolpix 8700, and within the slower end of the 0.25-0.69 second range of the Sony DSC-F828, but slower overall than the blazing 0.39-0.45 seconds of the Minolta DiMAGE A2. The biggest problem with shutter lag on the Pro1 though, is that the LCD screen freezes while the lens is focusing, something that's very distracting while shooting with it. The Pro1's cycle times are quite good, faster for JPEG images than all but the Sony DSC-F828 and Minolta A2, and faster than any competing 8-megapixel models when shooting RAW-format files, thanks to the fact that its buffer memory works even in RAW mode.
  
  
• Battery Life: Really excellent battery life. I wasn't able to test the Pro1 power drain explicitly, because I didn't have an adapter to fit its proprietary power connector. I did time how long it took the camera to run down in its worst-case power drain mode (capture mode, with the rear-panel LCD turned on, and the camera kept fully "awake" by half-pressing the shutter button periodically), and the result was a very impressive 191 minutes. (3 hours, 11 minutes.) This is almost exactly equal to the performance of the Sony DSC-F828, and easily beats all the other 8-megapixel contenders.

 

Conclusion

Learn what the manual left out - How to *use* your camera. Camera manuals are (sometimes) fine for knowing which button does what, but where do you go to learn how and when to use the various features? Dennis Curtin's "Shortcourses" books and CDs are the answer. (Cheap for what you get, too.) Order the Shortcourses manual for the camera reviewed in this article.

Canon has produced a consistently excellent line of digicams for some years now, and there are never less than two or three different Canon models on the top-10 list of models most favored by Imaging Resource readers. The new PowerShot Pro1 kicks things up another notch, with its 8-megapixel CCD and long-ratio L-series zoom lens, with its very useful 28mm minimum equivalent focal length. The camera scores big points for its beautiful images (with typically excellent "Canon color"), powerful exposure and focus controls, great build quality, and excellent cycle times (including its times in continuous mode, contrary to some reports), particularly when shooting in RAW mode. In fact, if you're a raw-mode shooter, the Pro1 is really the only 8-megapixel model out there that I'd consider acceptably fast to use. It's also great at low-light photography, its EVF/LCD viewfinder system surprisingly able to show usable subject detail under very low-light conditions. For closeup work, its super-macro mode gets incredibly close, able to satisfy the most fanatic bug-hunter. It feels great in the hand too, and ties with the Sony DSC-F828 for having the best battery life of any of the current crop of 8-megapixel cameras. On the downside, I was surprised to find as much chromatic aberration and softness in the corners of its images as I did, given the L-series lens it's equipped with. Not horrible, but certainly not what I expected to see from L-series glass. Its single most annoying trait though, was the way its viewfinder displays "freeze" when the lens is focusing. This might be more of an individual like/dislike, but I personally found it very distracting. Like the rest of the 8-megapixel models on the market, the Pro1 has both strengths and weaknesses, but I'd have to say that there are happily quite a lot more of the former than the latter. Bottom line, I don't think that any of the 8-megapixel digicams amount to a slam-dunk relative to the others, a lot will depend on your particular shooting needs and preferences. The Pro1 will be an easy choice for anyone interested in RAW-mode shooting though, is faster shot to shot than most of its competition, and has a viewfinder that does quite a bit better than most under dim lighting. If any of those factors are important to you, the Pro1 will probably make you (very) happy. All in all, a strong contender in the 8-megapixel derby, and one that should be on your short list of candidates if you're shopping in that market.