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Digital Camera Reviews
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Sony H5 vs Canon S3 IS vs Panasonic FZ7: Head-to-Head-to-Head Digital Camera Reviewby Patrick SingletonPublished on July 31, 2006
The Panasonic Lumix FZ7 takes resolution honors, not due to any outstandingly good scores, but because it didn't have the significant flaws we found in the other cameras.
Resolution: Corner Sharpness
The edge sharpness test revealed a problem we have been looking for, but hadn't seen in previous tests: one of the cameras performed very differently from corner to corner. This may indicate that its sensor is not well-aligned with its lens. The Canon PowerShot S3 IS performed much better in the upper left corner than in the lower right. Both the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 showed smaller disparities.
Resolution: Focal Range
In tests across the zoom range, the Panasonic FZ7 and the Canon S3 IS traded honors for best performance, while the Sony H5 took second place in two ranges, and last place in two.
Image Stabilization (Advantage: Canon PowerShot S3 IS)
With the equivalent of a 432mm telephoto lens, all three cameras need and have optical image stabilization, using motion sensors and moving optical elements to compensate for camera shake – not for subject motion. We shot all three cameras at their maximum zoom with a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second. Our illustrations show a crop of the center of the shot. One sample without stabilization shows significant motion blur, while the stabilized images are sharp. The Canon S3 IS is slightly sharper than the Panasonic FZ7, and the Sony H5 trails behind, again, by a slight margin.
Color Fringing (Advantage: Panasonic Lumix FZ7)
Color fringing shows up as tinges of color along the borders of two contrasting areas in an image. It's a fault of a camera's lens. Fringing can be distracting in a print if the colors are clear enough to see. Even if the colors don't show up, it affects the sharpness and resolution of the image. Our dynamic range chart is pretty much an acid test for fringing. It is a piece of film that we light from behind to shoot. The numbers in the images below are printed in the film. They are clear, and the background is very dark. The FZ7's Leica optic doesn't show fringing in our sample. There is some color noise, but contrasted with the Canon S3 IS and the Sony DSC-H5, it’s clear that the FZ7 image is clean. The S3 IS's image shows a purple tint on the upper right of each border, and green at lower left. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5's Zeiss lens fringes much more boldly. Its fringing is more likely to be noticeable in a print.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 has the advantage.
Moiré (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5) Moire is the commonly used, but not quite accurate, term for interference patterns that add color and sometimes lines to digital images. Moire effects can be distracting when they're obvious. When they're subtle, they can contaminate color and limit sharpness. We shoot images of a converging line target to show moire patterns. We typically shoot it from 8 feet, with cameras set to wide angle. The Canon PowerShot S3 IS shows relatively little color contamination in the star pattern, but the way the diagonal lines seem to veer away from the center of the target is a moire effect. The Panasonic Lumix FZ7 shows color effects – the yellow and blue in the image is a moire effect, not part of the target – and line distortion. The Cyber-shot H5 shows less of each sort of distortion, giving the Sony model the advantage here.
Distortion (Advantage: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 )
Long zoom lenses tend to distort at wide-angle, bowing lines out toward the edges of the frame in “barrel” distortion, so-called because an image of a rectangle gets rounded sides, like a barrel. Most lenses resolve this issue at their non-wide-angle focal lengths. That's the case with the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 and the Canon PowerShot S3 IS. All three digital cameras perform much better at any focal length above 10 mm.
We shot a rectilinear grid with all three cameras set at their widest view, at 6mm. The Lumix FZ7 displays the most curvature, and the Cyber-shot H5 the least, with the PowerShot S3 IS falling in the middle, somewhat closer to the FZ7 than the H5. We find the difference significant. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 is the clear favorite in this test.
Noise / High ISO Performance (Advantage: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5)
The photographic sense of the word “noise” comes from engineering, where data is described as a mixture of signal and noise. Signal is the stuff the engineers are interested in; noise is what gets in the way of the signal. In photography, the signal is the light and dark and color of the scene being photographed. The noise is any variations in light, dark and color that the camera adds to the scene accidentally. The most common noise in digital pictures looks a bit like grain in film-based photography – sort of a subtle, random speckling of subjects. It's most noticeable in subjects that viewers expect to be perfectly smooth, like a clear, blue sky. Noise increases at higher ISOs, so we test cameras throughout their ISO ranges. We photograph a GretagMacbeth color chart, and process the images with Imatest software, which yields a noise rating. The Panasonic FZ7 has a top ISO rating of 400, while the Canon S3 IS goes to 800, and the Sony H5 goes to 1000.
The Lumix FZ7 delivers the worst results on this test. It has significantly more noise than the PowerShot S3 IS at ISO 80 and 200, though the two cameras were comparable at ISO 400. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 performed markedly better throughout its range, with nearly steady performance from 200 to 800.
Night Scene We shot an outdoor scene with all three cameras set to take 8-second exposures at each available ISO setting. We also shot the Cyber-shot DSC-H5 and the PowerShot S3 IS at longer exposures. We set the white balance to auto, and shot in shutter-priority mode. The Panasonic Lumix FZ7 consistently shot 1/3 EV brighter than the other cameras. The Canon S3 IS's white balance was much bluer than the other cameras. In a mixture of mercury and sodium vapor lights, it's impossible to say which is more accurate, but the Canon image has a broader range of color, which is an advantage. Night Scene - ISO 80 The Canon S3 IS’s image at ISO 200 looks noisier than the Panasonic FZ7’s, but it also shows more detail – the FZ7 looks as though it has been run through some “artistic” Photoshop filters – maybe the “Bob Ross” filter, followed by the pointillist filter. The Cyber-shot DSC-H5 is less noisy than either the FZ7 or the S3, with a bit more shadow detail than the Lumix FZ7.
Low Light / Long Exposures (Advantage: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5) As digital sensors work, there's a race going on. The sensor needs a certain amount of time to build up a signal from the light falling on it, but at the same time, the electric current running through the sensor builds up more and more noise as time goes on. That's not much of a problem for short exposures, but for long ones, it gets to be a big deal. In some cameras, the noise loses its random distribution, and starts to show up as stripes. Click on the cropped images below to view the full resolution photographs.    Canon PowerShot S3 IS Panasonic Lumix FZ7 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 (ISO 400 - 8 seconds) (ISO 400 - 8 seconds) (ISO 400 - 8 seconds) At 8 seconds, all three digital cameras are out of their comfort zone. The Panasonic FZ7 is at the maximum exposure it allows. The Sony DSC-H5 and the Canon S3 IS will go longer, but our Imatest results show that their noise levels are elevated at 8 seconds. Our real-world shots validated the Imatest results, with much nosier images from the S3 IS and the FZ7.
We also looked at long exposures through lab testing, shooting images of the GretagMacbeth color chart for analysis with Imatest software.
The Cyber-shot DSC-H5 delivered the best results from Imatest, showing low noise scores in exposures from 1 to 5 seconds, and then gradually increasing noise scores up to 25 seconds, with a big leap from 25 to 30 seconds. The Lumix FZ7 had significantly worse scores than the Cyber-shot DSC-H5, but its scores didn't deteriorate significantly from 1 second to its maximum exposure of 8 seconds. The PowerShot S3 IS performed as well as the Cyber-shot DSC-H5 at 1 second, but lost quality quickly as exposure time increased. At 5 seconds, it was as bad as the Lumix FZ7, and it was worse at 8 seconds. Its performance did not deteriorate as rapidly as the Cyber-shot DSC-H5 from 10 to 15 seconds, but the Cyber-shot DSC-H5 was still better.
Dynamic Range (Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7)
Cameras' exposure is keyed to mid-tones, the ones that are neither too bright nor dark. When we evaluate a camera's exposure accuracy, we look at mid-tones. A camera's ability to show highlights, mid-tones and shadows simultaneously is its dynamic range, and we test that by photographing a test target with tonal values that range 13.3 EV from light to dark. We use Imatest software to measure how many values of exposure a camera captures. We look at Imatest's “Low Quality” setting, which shows the EV steps with up to 1 EV of noise, and “High Quality” setting, which includes steps with up to 1/10th of an EV of noise. Low Quality is important, because even with significant noise, the range adds texture to shadows and highlights – it prevents areas from blowing out. High Quality indicates the range of tones that appear at the camera's best quality.
The Lumix FZ7 delivers the best data points for both high and low quality. It's at its best at ISO 100, where it is more than a whole EV better than either the S3 or H5 at high quality, and more than 2/3 of an EV better at low quality. The H5 does marginally better at ISO 200 and significantly better at 400. The Canon PowerShot S3 IS is the surprise in the group – its scores are significantly inferior at every ISO. The H5 and S3 have high ISOs, but their dynamic range scores at their top ISO settings are much lower than their performance in the moderate range.
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7's top scores at ISO 100 give it an overall advantage in dynamic range. Color (Canon PowerShot S3 IS) We test color by photographing a GretagMacbeth color target under controlled lighting, and analyzing the images with Imatest software. For comparison reviews, we report results for every ISO setting on each camera. Imatest reports results for three parameters: color error, color saturation and color noise. Color error measures shifts in hue, color saturation measures errors in color intensity, and noise measures accidental color speckling. The Canon PowerShot S3 IS and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 have good scores for color error at ISO 80 and 100. The H5's Natural and Normal modes both look good. The Panasonic Lumix FZ7 is not nearly as good at low ISOs, and its performance deteriorates even worse at higher settings. The Sony H5's performance deteriorates slightly at ISO 200, and then more significantly at 400, 800 and 1000. The Natural setting is less accurate than the Normal setting. The Canon S3 IS stays remarkably accurate all the way to 800, its top ISO.
The ideal score in our color saturation measure is 100 percent, which means that the colors in the image are just as bright, but no brighter than the colors in the scene. Most camera manufacturers boost saturation, because most consumers want bright colors, and are impressed by them. We argue that it's better to shoot accurate color, and then boost color after the fact with imaging software. Oversaturating color in the camera decreases the amount of detail recorded in the image, and it can't be fixed in editing software.
The H5's Natural mode goes overboard to avoid oversaturation, turning in a maximum score of 91.59 percent score at ISO 400. Its scores at higher ISOs are really gloomy: 79.93 percent at ISO 800 and 74.29 percent at ISO 1000. The camera overshoots saturation with its Normal setting, running about 110 percent up to ISO 400, and generally performing about the same way the Canon PowerShot S3 IS does. The Panasonic Lumix FZ7 is very, very oversaturated, with scores hovering around 120 percent – its colors tend to look like cartoons.
Overall, the Canon and Sony models have a strong edge in color reproduction. The PowerShot S3 IS scored significantly better in color accuracy, but the Cyber-shot DSC-H5's score is still a solid performance. Still, the Canon has the advantage here. Daylight White Balance Error Fluorescent White Balance Error Tungsten White Balance Error The clear loser is the Sony H5, which gave poor results in two lighting types. Identifying a winner is tougher. Both the FZ7 and the S3 gave good results in two lighting types. Both cameras imparted color casts on their tungsten shots, but the under-corrected PowerShot S3 IS shot looks more errant than the Lumix FZ7's over-corrected one.
Portrait (Advantage: Canon PowerShot S3 IS) The human face must be the most common subject for both amateur and professional photographers, and there really isn't a substitute for looking at images of people to consider how well a camera performs at portraiture. The images below are 100 percent crops from each camera, and they show several characteristics of the cameras that affect their usefulness for portraiture. We shot the images by window light.
Our shot from the Panasonic Lumix FZ7 looks more sharpened than the other two – not simply sharper, but in-camera sharpening has brought up some highlights and speckles. The Canon PowerShot S3 IS imposes less in-camera sharpening, but has about the same level of detail. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 looks soft in comparison. The FZ7 delivered higher contrast images, with highlights on the nose that might print too close to pure white. The H5 gives a much flatter rendition, and the S3 IS somewhere in between. The three cameras handle color shifts from highlight to shadow differently – in the lighting we had available, the shadows are cooler than the highlights. That's most noticeable in the FZ7 shot, where the lower eyelid takes on a cool hue. The effect is much more subtle in the Canon S3’s portrait, and hard to discern in the H5 shot.
We find the portrait from the Canon PowerShot S3 IS the most appealing, with good detail, but smooth transitions of color and tone as well.
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