I am interested in the Toshiba PDR-5. But based on the quality of the pictures on the site, and the question of battery life, I am really left unsure about whether to make the plunge.

It would be great to get a real test of the battery life of the camera. As soon as someone has that, please let me know.

But probably more important is to see some better examples of PDR-5 pictures. The "House Shot" and "Davebox" show some very nasty effects that I can only describe as blooming. There are white spots under the plants in the house shot and white bands over the boxes in the Davebox. The other photos also seem to have some of this effect (under the right eye of the Japanese "Musician"). Is this inherent to the camera or was there a problem with this particular "shoot". If anyone else gets ahold of this camera, please let me know...

Thanks Mike Redmond

-- Michael Redmond (michael.redmond@MCI2000.com), August 30, 1998

Answers

Hi Mike, thanks for the post!

Sharp eyes! What you're seeing is actually a result of the in-camera "image sharpening" algorithms. (Blooming refers to a spreading of the light area around a very bright light source.) What the sharpening algorithms do is increase the contrast locally, right around any contrast edges in the image. Thus, on a dark-to-light transition, they'll boost the brightness of the light side, and cut the brightness of the dark side, right around the edge between the two. This is what you've observed in the images you referred to: In the case of the Oriental musician's eye, the light skin under the dark iris of her eye is being pushed all the way to white by the sharpening algorithm. The same thing is happening under the clumps of flowers on the house shot. For whatever reason, the camera seems to do this more in the vertical direction than the horizontal, but you can see the same thing happening on the bricks next to the black shutters in the house shot also.

This is probably a fact of life with this camera: It's possible there could be some difference in the production models, but I strongly doubt it. If we can get a unit to re-test for battery life, I'll try to shoot another picture or two of these subjects to see if the sharpening is the same on production models.

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), September 02, 1998.