Head to Head Comparison continued

Below you can find a studio shot comparison between the Waitec IXO 334 and the BenQ DC S30 at ISO 400. Both cameras were mounted on a tripod and the shutter was released by the in-camera timer. There is no Aperture priority or Manual exposure mode on these cameras, so "Auto" was used for both of them with tweaks for using the appropriate WB, ISO and exposure compensation setting s. The shots where difficult to match as the IXO 334 had no tripod mount and we had to mount it using double sided tape on the tripods head.

High ISO performance

• Waitec IXO 334 : Single Shot mode, ISO 400, Fine Quality, Tungsten White Balance, Default Image parameters +0.5EV Compensation
• BenQ DC S-30 : "Manual" Shoot mode, ISO 400, Fine Quality, Tungsten White Balance, Default Image parameters +0.3EV Compensation
• Lighting: 2x500W Tungsten 3200K studio lamps with diffusion umbrellas

Waitec IXO 334	BenQ DC S30
ISO 400, F2.8, 1/360sec	ISO 400, F6.2, 1/160sec
Original Image (1.08 MB)	Original Image (1.04MB)

The IXO 334's ISO 400 performance is surprisingly good at ISO 400. The noise increase from ISO 100 is very slight, but the image looks softer. Nonetheless the gap increases as the mediocre noise we saw at S30's ISO 100, now is busted in high levels. Not a disappointing ISO 400 result for a sub- €200 3MP camera, but the even cheaper IXO 334 is clearly superior in every aspect and matches or even surpasses much more expensive cameras in high ISO performance! Excellent sharpness and very low noise that is.

Color accuracy is almost identical to this we saw when using ISO 100, with the IXO 334 providing realistic, strong colors and the S30 nice saturated colors, still spoiled by RGB noise.