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Point & Shoot vs. Digital SLR

I have recently bought the Canon 350D with 50mm F1.8 MKII and 17-85mm lenses. You can see pics I have taken here. However, after two brand new 350D failed (details here), I finally decided not to risk the third one and returned everything (350D body and the two lenses). This was it, the end of my DSLR experience for two weeks! What if the 3rd one died after the 30-day return policy expires? I will be stucked with endless repairs!!

I really like the 350D despite the failures, however, I still think that I am not geared to DSLR for various reasons:

1) Photos are not as sharp out of camera (I know I know, post processing (pp) is inevitable for DSLR) but compared to my S1, it takes much more effort to achieve the same 'out of camera' clarity as my S1. It is not that I dislike pp, it is just that I would rather not pp if the image was good straight out of camera.

2) I thought low light capability was going to be fantastic with the 350D+50F1.8, but I was wrong. In fact it was about equal to my S1. Especially when I need to get everything sharp, I had to stop down the 50mm to around F5 which makes shutter speed too slow to hand held (even at ISO 1600) and in similar situation my S1 could produce sharper results at F2.8 (I know I cannot compare p&S to dslr, but the end result matters to me).

3) Again, I know that DLSR is completely different to P&S. As I am so used to the flipout LCD on my S1, I find using the 350D rather embarrasing and I hesitated to take pictures in public (may be it is just me). I have been starred at and even stoped by security guards at Canary Wharf while taking pics of building (thinking that I may have a plot for terrorism?). This makes me concious of taking my 350D camera out. As I do like to take street photos (see my website), the 350D is actually inhibiting me from doing so.

Pro for 350D:

1) I miss the responsiveness and the speed of AF even in low light. I find that this is a major advantage over p&S for me.

2) Wide angle! Wide angle! Wide angle!! I do miss this.

3) Shallow DOF with large aperture!! (although could be mimicked by pp see Figure 1)

During my two weeks with the 350D, I took many test pics in order to compare it to my S1 and see what how DSLR differs from point &shoot (in this case my S1). Of course this is not a valid test because the sensor size is 8MP (350D) vs 3.2MP (S1). Anyway,below are a series of comparison shots between the 350D and S1:

Figure 1. Shallow DOF can be reproduced by post processing. There are two images overlaying on top of each other (mouse over to see the two images). One was taken by the 350D with 50mm lens at F1.8 (no post processing) and the other image was taken with the S1 at F3.1 and subsequently post processed using Photoshop to create the same DOF as the 350D. Although the exact ‘bokeh’ cannot be recreated but the overall look can be convinsingly repoduced by post processing. Overall I still prefer the colour of S1.

Figure 2. To produce the same DOF as the S1 at F3.1, the 350D has to be stopped down to around F10 or more! Both images above were resized and cropped to the same size, no other post process was done. Stopping down is not a problem in bright situation like this but may be a problem in low light situations, hence making the 350D bad for taking low light deep DOF images. Although high ISO, for example ISO1600 is usable in the 350D, to achieve the same DOF in low light, the DSLR is no better than the S1. So, the S1 wins here in terms of producing deep DOF. One cannot reproduce deep DOF with post processing but the reverse is possible (as shown in Figure 1). Again the colour of S1 appears more pleasing to my eyes, the 350D looks dull in comparison.

Figure 3. 350D wins on resolution simply because it has an 8MP sensor compared to 3.2MP on the S1. But at normal viewing size eg screen size, one can hardly differentiate the two. It is only obvious when magnified. The left image (350D) is a 63% crop and the right (S1) is a 100% crop. Note that at 100%, the S1 failed to maintain the sharpness whereas the 350D can maintain its resolution very well at 100% (bottom image).

Figure 4. These are the 4 images from Figure 1 and 2 above. Two were taken with the 350D (left) and two with S1(right). I personally prefer the images from S1 which are sharper and colours are more vivid straight out of camera (both cameras were set with parameters at the highest sharpness and saturation. Conclusion so far is that S1 at a fraction of the price is actually giving much better results straight out of camera compared to 350D if we only compare the end result (ignoring other benefits of the DSLR over P&S).

Low Light Comparison

Figure 5. Low light comparison. Please excuse the slight change in objects on the table due to interruption by a member in the house! The first image was taken with the 350D at ISO 100, F1.8, 1/30s, and the second image was taken by the S1 at ISO 50, F3.1, 1/10s. As you can see that at F1.8, the image was very soft.

Figure 6. Now, in order to get the same DOF as the S1, the 350D had to be stopped down to at least F10. Unfortunately, stopping down to F10 was not possible to hand hold without shaking. So I ended up stopping down to F7.1, 1/6s at ISO 1600 but still unable to hand hold and shoot without shaking. I know that the S1 has IS but this is not acceptable for me that the 350D with a LOW LIGHT lens (EF 50mm F1.8) could not out perform the S1. Also problems at ISO1600 such as the exposure (tend to over expose at ISO1600) and WB (tend to get warmer) were obvious. This is not a one-off result, I have reproduced this several times with the same results which is why I am writing this comparison to point out this issue that DSLR is not as capable as people have claimed. Such a simple low light scene that the S1 was capable of capturing at ISO 50 without much trouble compared to the 350D!!! I simply could not believe what I got with the 350D

Figure 7. Guess which is which? The answer is: First image was 1/13s, F5.6 ISO800 and second image was 1/10s, F3.1 ISO100.