Cheap (serious) compact from 4 years ago- what do you think of these RAW samples?

madmaxmedia

Veteran
Location
Los Angeles
Via service mode I can take RAW photos with my Casio EX-Z1080, which I picked up for a song ($50) on EBay. What do you think of these (full-sized) samples? ISO 400, 800, and 1600 with both RAW and out-of-cam JPEG:

Casio EX Z1080 RAW ISO Comparisons: madmaxmedia: Galleries: Digital Photography Review
(after you click on an image, scroll down a bit and click on 'original' to view original full size image.)

I personally care a lot more about detail than noise- obviously noise obscures detail, but excessive NR further obscures noise- so my processing tilts towards that. Chroma noise is easily removed at even ISO 1600, remaining luminance noise is not bad IMO, especially ISO 800 (this is at 100% viewing.) I didn't do too much work on these, so they don't completely match on exposure and color, and could be further improved with more time/better skills than I. I would say the ISO 800 RAW looks nice even at full-size, the ISO 1600 RAW looks very good at 1600x 1200, probably even better in B&W.

I am on a tight budget and we already have a Canon Digital Rebel, so no GRD III or anything like that for me for the time being. But the Z1080 is pretty usable-

  • 10 MP 1/1.75" sensor for reasonable pixel density
  • f/2.8 lens at 38mm with surprisingly fast AF, I prefer 28mm but that's okay for now
  • No RAW buffer or anything like that, but very usable RAW cycle time of 3.5 seconds with a SDHC card
  • You have to press a couple of buttons on startup to enable RAW, but pretty easy
  • Immediately click to adjust exposure compensation, no need to drill through menus
  • Good auto ISO which selects from 80 to 800
  • No PASM but I don't really care with small sensor (there is sports/portrait/kitty/etc. modes which will tweak the program if you want)
  • Lens seems reasonably sharp (with RAW) to me for a compact consumer cam, corners are not as good but what do you expect for a consumer zoom?
  • Surprisingly usable MF mode! You can set the camera to remember MF distance which makes it kinda like Ricoh snap mode.
  • Pretty good video mode- 848 x 480 H.264 for occasional use

Here is a gallery of typical converted snaps, I re-sized to 1600 x 1200 and did some sharpening afterwards. Most are at low ISO, a couple at ISO 800:

Z1080 Samples: madmaxmedia: Galleries: Digital Photography Review

Would love to hear what you guys think. I think considering the age/size/class of camera, these are great results. I'm not sure I could find a current cam for 3x the price that could deliver these results given my image preferences (hate most in-cam JPEG.) Only other candidate is Canon with CHDK, but most of their compacts now use smaller sensors. 1 funny observation- looking at DPReview specs, I am pretty sure this camera uses the exact same sensor as the Ricoh GRD II.
 
madmaxmedia, am I correct that you have posted a couple of these here before in the image threads? I think they look great!

I am really not qualified to respond technically, thus I've held off. I am a person that knows what I like when I see it and your photographs look very good with plenty of detail to me via the dpreview gallery. Your daughters, I'm assuming they are your daughters, are beautiful. I can't see what is not to like.:flowers_2:
 
They're very nice!

I think older digital cameras can be really overlooked. Here's what you can do with 1.3 megapixels, for instance.

Having owned a Nikon CookPix 950 (2.1MP), and (still) a Fuji F31fd (6.3MP), I couldn't agree more. I have a beautiful picture from Jedediah Smith State Park taken (full credit to my wife) with the Fuji blown up to 16x20 hanging in our house.

These facts certainly did not stop me from getting, and loving, my E-PL1.

Back to the pictures, that's a great $50 find!
 
Back
Top