Samsung HZ15W

	Color
	Product Tour	Page 3 of 16	Noise

Color Accuracy (12.50)

The HZ15W has fairly accurate color, shooting under our lab testing conditions with 3000 lux illumination. For this test, we determine how closely the colors in photos of the X-Rite ColorChecker chart match the known color values of each patch, measuring color error using Imatest software. Click here for more on how we test color

In its most accurate color mode (which was called "calm"), the camera accurately captured most colors, but had a tendency to undersaturate blues and oranges. The table below shows how each of the cameras, when shooting in its most accurate mode, compares to the ideal value of the color, which is shown in the left hand column.

	Camera Color Comparisons
	Ideal	Samsung HZ15W	Canon SD970	Nikon S630	Panasonic FX580
Dark Skin
Light Skin
Blue Sky
	Ideal	Samsung HZ15W	Canon SD970	Nikon S630	Panasonic FX580
Foliage
Blue Flower
Bluish Green
	Ideal	Samsung HZ15W	Canon SD970	Nikon S630	Panasonic FX580
Orange
Purplish Blue
Moderate Red
	Ideal	Samsung HZ15W	Canon SD970	Nikon S630	Panasonic FX580
Purple
Yellow Green
Orange Yellow
	Ideal	Samsung HZ15W	Canon SD970	Nikon S630	Panasonic FX580
Blue
Green
Red
	Ideal	Samsung HZ15W	Canon SD970	Nikon S630	Panasonic FX580
Yellow
Magenta
Cyan

NOTE: Because of the way computer monitors reproduce colors, the images above do not exactly match the originals found on the chart or in the captured images. The chart should be used to judge the relative color shift, not the absolute captured colors.

Color Score Comparisons

As you can see, the Samsung performed respectably, lagging the top two by very little.

Color Modes (5.00)

Samsung includes a wide assortment of color modes, as they do with most of their cameras, which are all unhelpfully named. They're all accessed by pressing the E button on the back of the camera. There's vivid (which oversaturates everything); soft (which struggles with oranges, blues and reds); forest (which oversaturates everything, even more so than vivid); retro (puts an orange hue on, but isn't quite sepia); cool (puts a blue tint over everything); calm (slightly undersaturated, but the most accurate); classic (black and white); and finally normal. From normal mode, you can tweak a number of settings: color casts can be added (in black and white, sepia, red, green, blue, negative and custom which lets you alter the levels of red, green and blue); as well as sharpness, contrast and saturation over a five-point scale.