5-Way ISO Fight

This effort by Gerd Gldenast certainly deserves a mention – a painstakingly-done, side-by-side image put together to compare the ISO100 and ISO400 performances of 5 cameras, namely:

• Panasonic Lumix DSC-FZ30
• Panasonic Lumix DSC-FZ50
• Fuji FinePix S9000 Zoom
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5
• Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z850

Go ahead and view a larger version of the images and read the discussion thread. What do you think of it?

My personal preference for the Top 2 digital cameras in the ISO100 series are the Panasonic FZ30 and, surprisingly, the Casio EX-Z850 – both show the highest levels of sharpness and "realistic" detail.

The ISO400 series is a different story – pretty much all of them show horrendous results, with too much smudging resulting in a "painterly" effect. The only exception is the FujiFilm Finepix S9000 – that's quite an impressive ISO400 performance for a camera with a small imaging sensor.