Support this site by shopping below

To compare noise levels under real-life conditions we shot this scene with the Canon PowerShot D10, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT1 / TS1, and the Olympus TOUGH 8000 within a few moments of each other using each of their ISO settings. The lenses were set to approximate the same field of view.

The above shot was taken with the Canon PowerShot D10 in Program mode with the lens at its maximum wide angle setting of 6.2mm. The exposure was 0.8s at f2.8. The crops are taken from the area marked with the red square and presented below at 100%.

The D10’s high ISO performance is good, but not as good as we’ve seen from other Canon compacts that use the same sensor and processor – the PowerShot A2100 IS for example.

The D10 had a slight tendency to underexpose the image, nonetheless at the lower ISO settings there’s little evidence of noise even in the shadow detail. At 200 ISO the image takes on a barely noticeable granularity and at 400 ISO there’s no mistaking it.

Beyond that two things happen. first, the noise becomes quite intrusive, 800 and 1600 ISO are settings you’d only want to use if there was no alternative and it was a must-have shot. The other thing that happens is that the colour balance starts to go awry which detracts even more. Interestingly, with the 3200 ISO scene mode the colour sorts itself out and, though the resolution is reduced to 1600 x 1200 pixels this is a preferable result to the 1600 ISO one.

Once again, there’s not much to choose between the Canon Powershot D10 and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT1 / TS1 in these high ISO noise results. The FT1 / TS1 performs equally well at the lower ISO settings, with some perceptible noise, becoming more intrusive as you progress from 200 to 800 ISO. The Panasonic also loses its way with the colour balance at 1600 ISO, this time shifting to green rather than purple. The 3200 ISO crop shows noticeably less detail than that from the Canon.

The Olympus TOUGH 8000 shows no evidence of noise up to and including the 200 ISO shot. This is perhaps not surprising given the overall softness of the images and the fact that the 64 and 100 ISO shots were underexposed due to the camera not being able to select a shutter speed slower than 0.5s in Program mode. From 400 ISO up the Olympus images display much more noise than either of the other two cameras.

Now head over to our Canon PowerShot D10 Gallery to see some more real-life shots in a variety of conditions.

Canon PowerShot D10		Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT1 / TS1		Olympus TOUGH 8000
80 ISO		80 ISO		64 ISO
100 ISO		100 ISO		100 ISO
200 ISO		200 ISO		200 ISO
400 ISO		400 ISO		400 ISO
800 ISO		800 ISO		800 ISO
1600 ISO		1600 ISO		1600 ISO
3200 ISO (1600×1200)		3200 ISO (2048×1536)		3200 ISO (not available)