Digital Cameras with red focus problems.

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While shooting named varieties of flowers outdoors with various digital cameras, I have come across a problem that I rarely see mentioned in camera reviews. Bad red focus. Because it is imperative to those of us involved in plant photography to have a camera which will focus clearly on all colours I am on the hunt for a camera which doesn't have this problem. The fault is clearly shown in the Comparometers outdoor test images of the girl with the bunch of flowers. With the exception of one or two cameras the red roses in the bunch are blurred when compared to the other colours. This is also my experience. To some degree or another red flowers blur, bleed, change colour or simply lack detail. Of the test shots in the comparometer, the Toshiba PDR-M1 displays the best red reproduction in my opinion. The Oly 320's red also looks okay if a bit dark. But the others?? Well - you be the judge. Even the Coolpix 950's reds look doubtful.

I have been collecting test shots of my own from various digital cameras. The most useful shot being that of a red flower alongside a control flower in a mid-range colour. It seems reasonable to expect that when the the control flower is clearly focussed the red should also be. More often than not this is not the case!! Is this a widely recognised problem and what if anything are camera manufacturers doing to rectify it?

-- Susan McKessar (brentor@ihug.co.nz), June 03, 1999


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