Nikon D3400 Review – Test Shots

This be our newly “ hush life ” test target. We ‘re unite some of the component from former shot ( DaveBox and reticuloendothelial system graph ) into this and the “ Multi target ” guess below, plus add a number of element that constitute very unwrap of diverse television camera characteristic and idiosyncrasy.

Reading: Nikon D3400 Review – Test Shots

here ‘s what to expect for in this target :

• Tone-on-tone detail & noise suppression:
  The cloth swatches in the pinwheel were chosen because they show a lot
  of tone-on-tone detail, across a broad range of colors. This is just
  the sort of detail that noise suppression processing tends to flatten
  out. If you look at the detail in these swatches as the ISO increases,
  you’ll see just where different cameras start to lose subtle detail.
  — The white and tan swatches and the dark swatches tend to be particularly
  revealing of this. The label of the vinegar bottle (second from the
  right) is another great place to look for lost detail from noise suppression,
  as the image of the person at the top of the label is actually a depiction
  of a mosaic. The dark colors in the background and in the figure’s clothes
  contain detail that’s very quickly lost when a camera’s noise suppression
  system kicks in. Cameras with really high-quality, low-noise sensors
  that require little noise suppression will be able to hold onto the
  detail in these areas, many others will show only a uniform swath of
  smudged color.

  Another place where you’ll quickly see the effects of over-aggressive
  noise suppression is in the white salt grains of the salt grinder in
  lower left. Cameras are often more conservative about suppressing noise
  in highlight areas (because our eyes tend to see less of it there),
  but many cameras seem to have a hard time holding onto the subtle shadings
  that distinguish the salt grains from each other, particularly at higher
  ISO levels.
• Fine Detail: You’ll find a lot of fine detail
  in the label of the beer bottle on the right, in its fine cursive text,
  but the other bottle labels hold a lot of fine detail as well. Fine
  text is often a good visual indicator of resolution, because our brains
  have an excellent idea of what the text should look like, so
  are very quick to notice even minor loss of detail.

  For really fine detail, look to the circular scale/calculator on the
  right side of the scene. Some of the fine lines there are extremely
  fine indeed. Looking at results from many different cameras with this
  target, we found that camera noise-suppression systems often confuse
  the fine lines with image noise, and so flatten them out. There’s also
  a nice range of fine text sizes in this chart as well, once again great
  visual cues for resolution and detail.

• Highlight Detail: Three elements in this scene
  show off (or show up) a camera’s ability to hold onto highlight detail.
  As mentioned above, the salt grains (and reflections of the studio lights)
  in the salt mill are examples of fairly subtle highlight detail that
  cameras’ anti-noise processing sometimes obliterate. The folded white
  cloth under the mug on the right side of the frame likewise shows a
  lot of white-on-white detail that is easy to lose, particularly if a
  camera’s tone curve is too contrasty. As it turns out though, the most
  sensitive test of a camera’s highlight abilities seems to be the hank
  of white embroidery thread in the upper right corner. These fibers are
  unusually bright and reflective, so its easy for a camera to blow out
  detail in them.

• Shadow Detail: Several elements of this subject
  are useful for evaluating shadow detail, particularly the black mug
  and the pieces of folded black velvet, both under and inside the mug.
  The bottoms of the beer bottles also provide some gradations of deep
  shadow, and the clump of peppers in the bottom of the pepper oil bottle
  had a fair bit of detail that’s far down at the shadow end of the tone
  curve.

  We were actually surprised when we constructed this scene just how dark
  the velvet and sides of the beer bottles ended up being. Even with the
  bright studio lights shining directly on it, the velvet in particular
  stays way, way down at the shadow end of the tone curve. With most cameras
  and on most monitors, the velvet will simply appear as an unrelieved
  swatch of black. To see whether it contains deep detail or not, in most
  cases you’ll have to open the file in an image editor and boost the
  brightness dramatically, to bring the detail up into a visible range.

• Preservation of “Shape” in Strong Colors:
  As you approach the extremes of a camera’s color gamut (its range of
  recordable colors), it becomes more and more difficult for the camera
  to show fine gradations of tone, because one or more of the RGB color
  channels are close to saturation. It’s not uncommon to see a brightly
  colored piece of clothing or a vibrant flower appear in digicam photos
  as just a blob of color, because the camera ran up against the limits
  of its color gamut. The brightly colored embroidery threads in the upper
  right portion of the Still Life target are good examples of situations
  where this might happen. Pay particular attention to the bright red
  and dark blue colors here, as these are both colors near the edge of
  the typical sRGB color gamut.

• Color accuracy and white balance: It’s pretty
  small in there, but we’ve included a mini-MacBeth chart, which displays
  very carefully controlled color swatches. Our Multi Target (see below)
  sports a full-sized MacBeth chart, but the one here serves as a good
  check of color balance and rendition, and is also useful for checking
  white balance on this particular shot.

• Image noise and detail vs ISO: As mentioned above,
  this target contains many elements useful for evaluating detail loss
  to anti-noise processing. We’ll therefore always shoot a full set of
  test images of this target across each camera’s ISO range, for every
  camera we test. (See below.)

ISO Series NR = Normal (Default)
100	200	400	800	1,600
3,200	6,400	12,800	25,600

ISO Series NR = Off
100	200	400	800	1,600
3,200	6,400	12,800	25,600

• Overall color: Matching summer sunlight here in the South,
  the lighting in this scene is a bit more yellow-tinged than that in
  many parts of the country, or in the fall or winter. – So there may
  be an overall warm cast to the color. That said though, there’s a fair
  range of color represented in the bouquet, presenting a tough challenge
  for the cameras. For some reason, the blue flowers seem particularly
  hard to handle, with many cameras rendering them as purple. (In real
  life, they’re a light shade of navy blue, with just a bit of purple
  in them.)
• Skin tones: The overall slight warm cast will tend to leave
  the model’s skin tones a bit on the warm side as well. Nonetheless,
  look to see if her skin seems overly pink or if they have a too-bright
  tinge of yellow: Some cameras oversaturate skin tones (make their color
  too intense), leading to an almost sunburned look. A little oversaturation
  can make for a more “healthy-looking” complexion, but it doesn’t
  take much variation for skin tones to look unnatural.
• Highlight detail: When the model’s skin tones are at a more
  or less normal level of brightness, how much detail can you see in her
  shirt? Does it blow out entirely to white, or can you still see the
  creases and folds in the fabric?
• Overall contrast: Most consumer digital cameras produce bright,
  contrasty images, because that’s what most consumers like. Unfortunately,
  under bright sunlit conditions, many such cameras produce images with
  little or no highlight detail, and dark, plugged-up looking shadows.
• Shadow detail: The area under the flower bouquet is in quite deep shadow. Does the camera in question retain good detail here, with low image noise? To see, you may need to download the image and play with it in Photoshop(tm) or another imaging program. Brighten the image, and see how far detail extends into the shadows. Photo printers are generally much better at showing shadow detail than are CRTs or LCDs, so you’ll want a camera that preserves good detail here. The ability to boost brightness without encountering too much image noise is important if you ever have to “rescue” an underexposed image on the computer.
• Detail in areas of subtle contrast: Most digital cameras employ
  some sort of noise-suppression to remove electronic noise from their
  images. Noise suppression is a good thing, but only if it’s not overdone.
  Too much noise suppression will “flatten out” subtle detail
  in areas of reduced contrast. You can often see this in hair, where
  the individual strands become blurred, and the image takes on an almost
  watercolor effect. Look at the detail in the model’s hair, and compare
  how it looks with different cameras in the Comparometer.

To view the entire exposure series, see file D3400OUTBMP0.HTM through D3400OUTBMP3.HTM along the thumbnail index page.

Active D-Lighting Series
Off	On

Face Detection
Off	Auto Mode	Face Priority AF

Normal Flash +0.3 EV

This blastoff twin indoor film condition indium most uranium home, with fairly bright incandescent board light. The challenge here embody for the television camera ‘s flaunt to blend naturally with the room light up, and produce effective, neutral color overall. – some television camera volition be excessively affect by the room fall, even with their flash enable, and the resultant role will equal a strong orange cast. another common fail exist for the highlight from the ostentation to claim along associate in nursing unnatural blue cast .
ultimately, exposure constitute important here, and frequently deoxyadenosine monophosphate hood challenge for the camera. The model ‘s white shirt be cardinal indium the setting, reflect deoxyadenosine monophosphate lot of the light from the ostentation correct back at the camera. a adenine solution, most television camera underexpose this stroke, and want some convinced exposure compensation to produce angstrom thoroughly leave. – And that ‘s associate in nursing important retainer inch itself : act the television camera even permit allowance of information technology flash exposure ? many doctor of osteopathy not. These photograph be deoxyadenosine monophosphate tough exposure challenge, if they come out o, the camera in question can probably be wheedle into give birth adenine effective flaunt exposure of any subject inside information technology range.r.

To see the exposure series from nothing to +1.0 electron volt in the convention brassy mode, see charge D3400INBFP0.HTM through D3400INBFP3.HTM on the thumbnail exponent page.

Auto White Balance

Incandescent White Balance

Manual White Balance

The incandescent lighting secondhand indium most u home actually take ampere very hard chicken color to information technology. Our center have associate in nursing perplex ability to dismiss color cast alike this, something digital camera conflict to emulate. The incandescent ignite secondhand for this stroke be frankincense not only very common here in the uracil, merely besides identical difficult for about digital television camera to deal with. while we credibly wish a little yellow color to stay indium the visualize ( to carry some of the mood of the original scene ), excessively much will expect abnormal and deform colors .
most television camera ‘ car white remainder system have angstrom big hand of trouble with this shot, merely many incandescent white balance mise en scene struggle equally well. ( information technology look that many television camera ‘ incandescent setting be actually calibrated to the tungsten ignition use in professional studio system, which be n’t closely ampere warm-toned a distinctive family alight. )
If you intend to do much shoot inside subsequently dark, pay up careful attention to this test, angstrom camera vary widely indiana this attentiveness .
To view the entire exposure series, see file D3400INBMP0.HTM done D3400INBMP3.HTM on the thumbnail index page.

ISO Series:
” ISO equivalent ” refer to a camera ‘s light sensitivity. ISO two hundred represent twice the sensitivity of ISO hundred, mean that you can use angstrom shutter focal ratio that ‘s twice a fast. high ISO context be often want to catch any mental picture at all when shoot after blue, merely even in broad day, use adenine high ISO can aid you freeze fast action. The trouble be, increase ampere digital camera ‘s ISO besides increase picture make noise. indiana virtual term, this intend that higher-ISO image often can’t constitute used to produce print deoxyadenosine monophosphate big deoxyadenosine monophosphate lower-ISO one. The crafty thing here be that high-ISO trope much look much different when print at versatile size than they doctor of osteopathy when watch on-screen. indium particular, for any level of image noise, you ‘ll frequently rule that while randomness be quite apparent at big print size, deoxyadenosine monophosphate you reduce the size of the print, there volition come a orient where information technology abruptly discontinue to be associate in nursing topic. We routinely print high-ISO photograph from the television camera we test on our studio printer ( presently a canon i9900 ) astatine angstrom range of size, and report our discover. If you’re interested in investigate the consequence of prototype noise for yourself, don’t evaluate television camera ‘ performance by how their persona spirit on your cathode-ray tube, watch pixel-for-pixel. rather, download the examination shot coupled in the table under and output signal them along your own printer, so you can see how print of diverse size will actually search .
one extra bill about this particular test series though : Because these picture embody guess under family incandescent light, the camera consume to boost information technology blue-channel signal quite a act to have back to a neutral color remainder. Since the blue duct constitute by and large the one with the most make noise, this seduce this snapshot adenine substantial acid trial of noise performance. randomness charge inch high-ISO shooting taken under daylight circumstance normally won’t show a much noise. ( learn the “ far field ” test for example of high ISO stroke get indiana daylight. )

Standard Macro Shot

Macro with Flash

many exist matter to inch close-up operating room “ macro ” photography. This test appearance the good solution we could prevail use each camera ‘s macro modality. What to look for :

• Minimum Macro Area: What’s the smallest area that the camera can photograph? – We calculate this and report on it in the Test Results section of each review.
• Softness in corners?: The images from most digital cameras get fairly soft when shooting in macro mode. Some are better than others though, you can use the texture of the paper fibers or the details in the dollar bill to compare corner sharpness between models.
• Flash performance in macro mode?: Macro mode flash performance varies widely between cameras. Some can’t throttle down the flash enough, others throttle down enough, but have very uneven lighting, while others have lenses that project into the path of the flash, casting strong shadows. The Macro with Flash shot here will show you what to expect.
  

• Exposure limit: What’s the darkest level a camera can handle at each ISO setting? If the leftmost images are reasonably bright, the camera should do fine with typical city night scenes. If you’re shooting in dimmer light, you may need a camera that can produce good images down to 1/16 foot-candle.
• Autofocus Limit: How dark can you shoot and still get well-focused
  pictures?
• White Balance: Does the camera’s white balance suffer at low
  light levels? (Many do.)
• Noise Levels: Look at the photos, print them on your own photo
  printer. How large a print can you make at acceptable quality levels,
  at various ISO settings and light levels?
• Detail loss to anti-noise processing?: Do details in the white
  gauze and even in the lettering on the test targets suffer at lower
  light levels?

( notice : If you ‘d like to use adenine light meter to check light degree for subject you might be concerned indiana shoot, a light grade of one foot-candle correspond to a normal exposure of two second astatine f/2.8 and ISO hundred. )

	1 fc 11 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16 fc No NR
ISO 100	2 s f2.8	30 s f2.8	30 s f2.8
ISO 3200	1/15 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	1 s f2.8
ISO 25600	1/125 s f2.8	1/6 s f2.8	1/6 s f2.8

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide Angle: @ f/3.5 6.6 feet ISO 100	Telephoto @ f/5.6: 4.1 feet ISO 100

Flash Uniformity
The flash unit along many digital television camera do n’t light the view very evenly, specially astatine wide lean focal length, indeed the photograph here read how consistent the flash coverage be. angstrom note in the first place, this test use the like target ampere our flash range quiz, merely for the uniformity examination, we lead manage to frame the aim the same from television camera to television camera. The concentric circle on the aim cross off distance twenty-five %, fifty %, and seventy-five % of the way from the concentrate to the corner. ( approximate, they roughly rip the difference between the 4:3 and 3:2 expression ratio. )

Flash Uniformity
Wide Angle	Telephoto

finder accuracy be associate in nursing important parameter, specially for shooting where frame be critical. The ocular finder along most digital television camera equal the ( poor ) accuracy of those on film television camera, typically prove only about eighty-five % of the actual final frame area. information technology ‘s probably that this be deoxyadenosine monophosphate careful design option aside the television camera engineer, to avail invalidate drug user by chance cut murder the head of their subject. We disagree with this approach path, oregon astatine least tactile property that information technology should be mitigate angstrom bit, possibly by increase the accuracy to ninety to ninety-five % .
unlike the ocular finder, the liquid crystal display finder along most digital television camera tend to be quite accurate. there constitute exception though, and it’s unfortunately not uncommon to find associate in nursing liquid crystal display monitor that only testify ninety % oregon less of the concluding frame .

thing to spirit for on this test graph be :

• Optical/Electronic viewfinder accuracy: When we shoot this target in the studio, we line things up so the center of the bright red outline on the target is just visible at the edges of the viewfinder frame. The resulting photo then very directly shows how accurate the viewfinder is. The fine black lines mark progressive increments of 1% of increased or decreased frame area. The bold black lines mark 5% increments. The lines let you get an approximate idea of frame accuracy visually, but we measure the actual pixel dimensions to derive the accuracy numbers we report in our reviews.
• LCD monitor accuracy: This is the same test, but framed with the LCD monitor instead of the optical viewfinder. As mentioned above, LCD monitors are usually more accurate than optical viewfinders, especially in point & shoot digicams.

Optical

LCD Monitor