Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W510
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Written by Gordon Laing
Quality
Sony Cyber-shot W510 vs Nikon COOLPIX L24 vs Canon PowerShot A1200 Real-life resolution
Sony Cyber-shot W510 | Nikon COOLPIX L24 | Canon PowerShot A1200 | ||
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f3.2 80 ISO | f5.5, 80 ISO | f3.5, 80 ISO | ||
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f3.2 80 ISO | f5.5, 80 ISO | f3.5, 80 ISO | ||
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f3.2 80 ISO | f5.5, 80 ISO | f3.5, 80 ISO | ||
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f3.2 80 ISO | f5.5, 80 ISO | f3.5, 80 ISO |
The sensitivity setting on the Cyber-shot W510 and PowerShot A1200 was set manually to 80 ISO – the lowest available setting. The Nikon COOLPIX L24 doesn’t allow manual setting of the sensitivity, but in the bright, sunny conditions automatically selected 80 ISO. The above image was taken with the Sony Cyber-shot W510. The lens was set to a focal length of 6.7mm (37mm equivalent). The metering selected an exposure of 1/1000th of a second at f3.2 with the sensitivity at 80 ISO. The original 4000 x 3000 pixel image had a file size of 4.97MB. The crops are taken from the areas marked with red rectangles and are presented here at 100%. Let’s start with the overall picture. The Cyber-shot W510 has made a great job of the exposure with good shadow and highlight detail from a scene with a wide tonal range. The image lacks contrast though, given it was a bright sunny day we’d have expected a punchier result with richer blacks, as it is it looks a bit flat and washed out and the colours are a little subdued. What about the crops? The lack of contrast may be a contributing factor, but the Cyber-shot W510 crops all look decidedly on the soft side. The detail in the foreground of the top crop with the chapel looks particularly indistinct, but the chapel itself is reasonably well resolved. Similarly the foreground detail in the lighthouse crop looks soft, but again the edge detail would look a lot crisper if only there was a little more contrast. On the third crop, the definition has deteriorated a little and there’s the merest hint of red fringing around the window frame and again on the final crop low contrasts exaggerates the slight softness of the edge detail. Sony’s DRO (Dynamic Range Optimisation) was set to Standard, the default camera setting for this test and it’s possible, even likely that you’d achieve a more contrasty result by turning it off. Compared with the Nikon COOLPIX L24 we’d say there’s no question of a doubt that the Cyber-shot W510 crops show more detail and considerably less noise. Only on the last crop from close the the centre of the frame does the COOLPIX L24 match the Cyber-shot W510 in terms of clarity and detail, the additional contrast in the COOLPIX L24 crop also gives it an edge. But generally, the COOLPIX L24’s 14.1 Megapixel sensor can’t deliver the low noise results of the Cyber-shot W510 outdoors in bright sunlight at low ISO sensitivities The Cyber-shot W510 also outshines the Canon PowerShot A1200 in terms of noise. A slight graininess is in evidence in flat colour areas (e.g. the sky) in the A1200 crops. But despite that the PowerShot A1200 lens and sensor combination delivers sharper clearer detail than the Cyber-shot W510 right across the frame. That combined with the punchier contrast of the PowerShot A1200 crops gives it a clear lead over the Cyber-shot W510. Now let’s see how they compare at higher sensitivities in our High ISO Noise results. | |||||||||
Sony Cyber-shot W510 vs Nikon COOLPIX L24 vs Canon PowerShot A1200 High ISO Noise
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 | To compare noise levels under real-life conditions we shot this scene with the Sony Cyber-shot W510, the Nikon COOLPIX L24 and the Canon PowerShot A1200 within a few moments of each other using their best quality JPEG settings at each of their ISO sensitivity settings. |
The Cyber-shot W510 and Canon PowerShot A1200 were set to Program mode and the COOLPIX L24 was set to Auto mode. The lenses were set to approximate the same field of view and ISO was manually set on theCyber-shot W510 and PowerShot A1200. ISO sensitivity can’t be set manually on the Nikon COOLPIX L24, but a series of shots taken in auto mode yielded results at ISO settings of 80 and 400 which we’ve shown here for comparison purposes.
The above shot was taken with the the Sony Cyber-shot W510 in Program mode. The lens was zoomed to a focal length of 6.7mm (37mm equivalent) to provide a similar field of view to the PowerShot A1200 and COOLPIX L24. The sensitivity was set to 80 ISO and the exposure was 1/3rd of a second at f3.2. The crops are taken from the area marked with the red square and presented below at 100%.
At 80 ISO the results from the Sony Cyber-shot W510 show no evidence of noise but, like the outdoor test the detail in this crop looks quite soft. Though there’s only a slight deterioration in image quality on the 100 ISO crop, that too is soft. At these sensitivity settings you’d expect to see all of the the fine detail in the stone column and the edge of the column should be a well-defined clean line rather than the slightly furry edge you can see in these two crops.
At 200 ISO the noise is starting to become apparent and is further obscuring image detail. As well as the disintegrating column edge there’s a clumpiness beginning to appear in the wood panelling. As you’d expect at 400 ISO things take another downward step with the noise now everywhere. the 800 to 3200 ISO settings are ones you’d only want to use for special shots.
The Cybershot W510’s 12 Megapixel sensor produces fairly noise free images at the base ISO setting, but it seems that a lot of processing is going on to produce these results. As soon as the ISO starts to rise, there’s no headroom and the noise reduction processing struggles to deliver good detail.
Though the colour balance has gone awry the COOLPIX L24 80 ISO crop shows more image detail than the one from the Cyber-shot W510. At 400 ISO the white balance has recovered, but the noise and processing artifacts have combined to produce a poor result that could easily be mistaken for a higher ISO crop. It looks a little harsher and more processed than the Cyber-shot W510 400 ISO crop, which we’d say is the better result at this sensitivity setting.
The Canon PowerShot A1200 doesn’t suffer from the Cyber-shot W510’s softness and does a much better job of retaining fine detail up to 200 ISO. Compare the detail in the stone column, the wood panelling and the column edge, it’s crisper and cleaner in the PowerShot A12000 crops. From 400 ISO on up, there’s less of a difference. The PowerShot A1200 crops still deliver slightly more detail, but there’s more noise as well. On balance though, we think the Powershot A1200 outperforms the Cyber-shot W510 across the sensitivity range.
Now head over to our Sony Cyber-shot W510 gallery to see some more real-life shots in a variety of conditions.
Sony Cyber-shot W510 | Nikon COOLPIX L24 | Canon PowerShot A1200 | ||
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80 ISO | 80 ISO | 80 ISO | ||
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100 ISO | 100 ISO Not available at time of testing | 100 ISO | ||
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200 ISO | 200 ISO Not available at time of testing | 200 ISO | ||
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400 ISO | 400 ISO | 400 ISO | ||
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800 ISO | 800 ISO Not available at time of testing | 800 ISO | ||
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1600 ISO | 1600 ISO Not available at time of testing | 1600 ISO | ||
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3200 ISO | 3200 ISO Not available | 1600 ISO Low light (2M) | ||
