The Hunt for the Best Ultra-Compact Camera

Color Reproduction

* For all of our color tests, we reset the cameras to their factory default settings. They were then set to record using the highest image quality option with auto exposure.

Tungsten WB

We took a picture of our color chart using each of the following WB settings: Auto, Tungsten, and Manual. Click on a thumbnail below to view the full-size image.

	Auto WB	Tungsten WB	Manual WB
Canon S410	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Casio Z40	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Pentax S40	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Reference Chart ("actual colors")

	Auto WB	Tungsten WB	Manual WB
Canon S410
Casio Z40
Pentax S40

The Z40 shows a remarkably accurate performance with the Auto WB setting. As you can see, both the S410 and the S40 produce the color chart with a yellowish cast. Another thing to notice is that the S40 has slightly underexposed the chart. When the cameras are set to Tungsten WB, the results are much better. The Canon S410 produces very accurate and well-saturated colors. While the Casio Z40 shows accurate colors, the chart is a little overexposed. The Pentax S40 appears to have a slightly cool (blue) cast in addition to being underexposed. With the cameras set to Manual WB, the Canon and the Casio are very accurate, while the Pentax has a cool cast again. This time, both the Casio Z40 and the Pentax S40 have underexposed the chart.

Daylight WB

We took a picture of our color chart using each of the following WB settings: Auto, Daylight/Sunlight, and Manual. Click on a thumbnail below to view the full-size image.

	Auto WB	Daylight WB	Manual WB
Canon S410	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Casio Z40	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Pentax S40	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Reference Chart ("actual colors")

	Auto WB	Daylight WB	Manual WB
Canon S410
Casio Z40
Pentax S40

In daylight, all three cameras did a pretty good job producing accurate color with their Auto WB settings. That being said, the Canon S410 shows the best exposure. The Casio Z40 has slightly overexposed its chart while the Pentax S40 has slightly underexposed its chart. Also, the Casio Z40 appears to have a very slight bluish cast. It's the same story when the cameras are set to Daylight/Sunlight WB. The Canon and the Pentax produce very accurate colors and the Casio is slightly cooler. As you would expect, all three cameras show accurate color reproduction when set to Manual WB. The only real difference is in the exposure: the Casio is the lightest and the Pentax, the darkest.

Overall, all three of these cameras did well. We were really impressed with the Casio's Auto WB performance in tungsten light. It would have been the clear winner if not for its tendency to slightly overexpose the charts with a slightly bluish cast. The Pentax S40 did a good job as well. The main problem that we had was with its tendency to underexpose the charts (particularly under tungsten light). In the end, we think that the Canon S410 shows the best performance. Although it shows the typical yellowish-cast in tungsten lighting with Auto WB, in every other test, the S410 reproduced the color chart with bright, accurate, and well-saturated colors.

Studio Shot

In this shot, we tested each camera's ability to reproduce colors in our studio shot using different WB settings with tungsten light. This provides an easier way to see the differences between the different settings. The cameras were set to Auto w/out flash.

	Auto WB	Tungsten WB	Manual WB
Canon S410	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Casio Z40	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.
Pentax S40	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.

It is clear that the Casio has the best Auto WB ability. However, in the manual WB shot, you can see the bluish cast quite clearly. In our studio shot, it appears that the Canon S410 has slightly underexposed its images while the Pentax S40 shows a good exposure. This is the opposite of what we saw in our color charts.

Built-in Flash

For the flash test, we set all cameras to Auto mode w/Auto flash. The picture was taken from 5 feet away.

Canon S410	Casio Z40	Pentax S40
Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.	Click to enlarge.

Our flash test revealed that the Casio Z40 has the best performance. The Canon S410 produced fairly accurate skin tones, but underexposed the shot. The Pentax S40 overexposed the image with a slight bluish cast. Overall, the Casio shows a good skin tone and exposure.