An In-Depth Look at 4 Ultra-compact Digicams

General Image Quality

For these pictures, the cameras were reset to their factory default settings. Then, they were set to the highest quality recording setting. The pictures were then taken in Auto mode unless stated otherwise. Portrait-style images have been rotated using Irfanview's "lossless operations". Click on a thumbnail to view the full-size image. All images are in sRGB color space.

Canon SD400	Nikon S1
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Olympus IR-300	Sony T33
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In the first set of crops above, the Canon SD400 does the best job capturing the highest level of detail. The Sony T33 has the second highest level of detail. Both the Olympus IR-300 and the Nikon S1 produce somewhat fuzzy results. That being said, the Nikon seems to have done a better job capturing subtleties such as the detail in the horizontal blinds where the Olympus image shows no definition. Another point to note is the color differences. The Canon SD400 has produced the most neutral colors out of the bunch while the other three cameras produced warmer tones. The Sony T33 has the most saturated colors out of the pack.

Canon SD400	Nikon S1
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Olympus IR-300	Sony T33
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In this second set of crops, the Canon SD400 and the Nikon S1 produce a similarly high level of detail. The Olympus IR-300 does a decent job producing fine details, although it appears that the camera has over-sharpened the image. The Sony T33 sample looks very fuzzy throughout the image. Interestingly, although both the Canon and Nikon cameras show good color reproduction, both the Olympus and Sony cameras have a noticeable yellowish-orange color cast.

Canon SD400	Nikon S1
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Olympus IR-300	Sony T33
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Again, in this third sample, the Canon SD400 is able to produce the highest level of detail. The Nikon S1 is able to produce fine details, but the overall image is a bit fuzzy. The Sony T33 is a step down in detail from the Nikon S1 as the image appears fuzzy overall. The Olympus IR-300 is generally able to give the illusion that it can produce images with more detail due to its use of over-sharpening. However, the end result can sometimes look like it does in the sample above. The image looks over-compressed and has JPEG artifacts throughout it. All 4 cameras showed purple fringing in extreme circumstances such as this. However, the Canon SD400 showed the most fringing, followed by the Nikon S1. Both the Olympus and Sony cameras did an impressive job of avoiding purple fringing in almost all circumstances.

Movie Mode

Canon SD400	Nikon S1
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Olympus IR-300	Sony T33
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In terms of quality, the Canon SD400 and Sony T33 video clips are much more detailed and clearer than the Nikon or Olympus samples. Remember that you will need a Memory Stick Pro Duo in order to record at the highest quality (Fine) with the Sony DSC-T33. Although the Nikon S1 records video at 640x480, the video is quite blurry and the frame rate is only 15 fps. The Olympus IR-300 records video at a maximum resolution of 320x240 at 15 fps, which is behind the times considering that the other three cameras record at 640x480.