Crazy 5 camera comparison 4 January 2020

Cockatoo, FZ300

I have the opportunity to use  many different types of camera covering most of the spectrum from high end to budget consumer models. One thing which has impressed me over the years is the lack of any great difference in output quality between them.

Just for fun I ran a simple test yesterday. I photographed the same scene with each of  five cameras:

Nikon Z6 with Z 24-70mm f4, Lumix G9 with Lumix 12-35mm f2.8, Sony RX10.4, Lumix FZ1000.2, Lumix FZ300.

The most expensive cost 6 times as much as the least expensive and has a much smaller zoom range.

Approximate sensor diagonal measurements are: Z6  43mm, G9  21.5mm, RX10.4 and FZ1000.2  15.9mm, FZ300  7.67mm.

The Nikon sensor has 31 times the area of that on the FZ300.  

The test scene is one I have used previously as a general guide to the imaging capability of various cameras in daylight. On the day of the test there was a pall of bushfire smoke which has become the new normal in Eastern Australia in summer. Not ideal but each camera had to contend with the same conditions.

I set the lens on each camera to the previously determined optimal aperture and made several exposures at a focal length of 70mm or equivalent, hand held.

Without further ado here are the resulting photos.  Each was captured as a RAW file. I adjusted color balance and lightness to make each approximately similar in overall appearance.  I output each as a JPG at a vertical height of 3000 pixels. The Z6, RX10.4 and FZ1000.2 use 3:2 aspect ratio, the G9 and FZ300  use 4:3 ratio so the final pictures are not exactly the same size. But they are close enough for this comparison I think.

Discussion

Did you pick which picture came from which camera ?

It should be easy, right ?....

One is a full frame professional model, another is a near bottom of the range budget consumer bridge cam.

Were you thinking to buy a full frame camera in the expectation of getting better pictures ?

Or were you hoping to support your favourite camera brand by buying an expensive camera which you don’t actually need ?

My take on this is that for many photographic situations particularly outdoors in reasonably bright light  the budget model does just fine if used thoughtfully.

Each of these cameras can make excellent pictures in the right hands although this is more reliably achieved in low light with models having a larger sensor.

By the time images are compressed for the internet as is the case on this blog it becomes very difficult to distinguish one from the other.