Canon Powershot SX100 IS Samples

Here are sample crops from an artificially-lit scene at each of the Canon Powershot SX100 IS's ISO settings. When available, next to each of these crops, there is a crop from the Fuji Finepix F480 at the same ISO setting. Although these are both digital cameras with 8 megapixels sensors, they are not direct competitors because the SX100 has a much larger feature set, including a very different lens.

Images below are all unmodified 100% crops from their respective cameras. The ISO sensitivity was set on the camera but white-balance and exposure were fully-automatic, not that there is a choice on the Fuji F480. The SX100 was left to its default settings.

These crops help determine which ISO settings can be acceptably used on these cameras. As noise increases, most cameras compensate with noise reduction which introduces softness. The result is that, while you can partly reduce noise at the expense of details, the maximum acceptable print size gets smaller as ISO is increased. The point at which a print become unacceptably noisy is a matter of personal taste.

Canon Powershot SX100 IS	Fuji Finepix F480
ISO 80
ISO 100	ISO 100
ISO 200	ISO 200
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	It appears that the characteristics of the 8 megapixels sensors used in both these cameras are similar. The main difference is that the Fuji Finepix F480 appears more aggressive than the Canon Powershot SX100 IS when it comes to noise-reduction. Color and white-balance is very similar between these two models. Exposure was also similar but the F480's sensor delivers more dynamic range than the SX100's, so we had to dial in -1/3 EV on the SX100 to avoid blowing the highlights. The F480 was left at its default exposure.