Nikon Coolpix S600 Indoor Crops

The crops below show the performance of the Nikon Coolpix S600 next to the same ISO for the Fujifilm Finepix F100fd
Fujifilm Finepix F100fd. These cameras have a large sensitivity range, starting at ISO 100 and going up to ISO 3200 for the S600 and up to ISO 12800 for the F100. This required a scene with very low-lighting which made taking the shots an exercise in tricking the cameras. The S600 behaved best in Auto mode where it slightly under-exposed the ISO 100 because the minimum shutter-speed it selects is 1s. The F100fd has a minimum shutter-speed of 1/4s in Auto mode (Called Manual on the F100fd) which causes severe under-exposure for the ISO 200 shot. Since all slow-shutter modes lock the ISO at 100, we got a bright ISO 100 shot in Night scene-mode.

All crops below are 100% from their respective camera taken at the highest image quality setting available. Besides the scene-mode used for the Fuiji's ISO 100 shot, all other settings were left on automatic or on their default values. 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 point at which a print becomes unacceptably noisy is a matter of personal taste.

Nikon Coolpix S600	Fuji Finepix F100fd
ISO 100	ISO 100 (Night scene-mode)
ISO 200	ISO 200 (Underexposed)
ISO 400	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 800
ISO 1600	ISO 1600
ISO 3200	ISO 3200
Here the Fuji Finepix F100fd consistently shows superior image quality than the Nikon Coolpix S600. On the S600 we can see noise starting at the ISO 100 shot and both cameras lose details as ISO increases. The F100's head start is all it takes to keep it ahead at all ISO settings. One thing to note is that the S600's noise reduction destroys image colors and produces a less saturated image as ISO increases.