Travel compacts Grouptest: Third and Fourth stops

Buckingham Palace

WHITE BALANCE

Travel Compacts Grouptest

Our next stop was Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria memorial opposite, which were chosen as a relatively neutral targets for assessing each camera's auto white balance system. With plenty of natural daylight none of the cameras was expected to struggle here, although some cameras did do a better job at retaining neutrality throughout their exposures.

The Canon, Samsung, Fuji and Panasonic each did a fantastic job to retain the mood of the scene, and while each differed slightly from one another, none strayed out of any acceptable boundaries. The only two which did were the Nikon and the Sony, with the former often providing images with a slightly green cast and the latter making images noticeably warmer than they appeared in reality. In some situations the slight warmth provided by the Sony may not be too bad an idea, but from the perspective of accuracy it just fell short.

Verdict

Canon SX230 HS 4/5
Fujifilm F550EXR 4/5
Panasonic TZ20 4/5
Nikon S9100 3/5
Samsung WB650 4/5
Sony HX7V 3/5

Trafalgar Square

DESIGN AND VIDEO PERFORMANCE

Travel Compacts Grouptest

The constant stream of tourists and surrounding traffic made Trafalgar Square an ideal location for testing each camera's movie capabilities. Here too the consequences of each camera's design became apparent. For example, the Canon had the advantage of its screen already framing the aspect ratio of the movie, while the Panasonic TZ20 had the slight awkwardness of a record button not visible from the rear.
With its raised corner and a mode dial positioned at a 45° angle, the design of Fujifilm's F550EXR is the most unconventional, but in terms of handling was all the better for it. It fit the most naturally in the hand and made zoom operation the easiest.
The Nikon and Samsung both suffered from being a little slippery in the hand, while the Canon failed to provide a grip of any sort. It's a pity that the Panasonic didn't offer a more secure grip either, as otherwise its freely-moving zoom collar and ample thumb space made it comfortable to operate. The Sony almost matched the Fujifilm for handling, thanks to its light weight, ample rubber lining on the grip and plenty of thumb space on the rear.
Perhaps surprisingly it was the Nikon S9100 which produced the finest movies - full of detail and with decent stereo sound quality. It did a stellar job to maintain focus as it was zoomed too. Panasonic's TZ20 and Canon's 230 HS were close behind, with both displaying good detail and sufficient control over the focusing system while zooming, while the Sony also did an excellent job to record smooth and detailed footage, albeit with slightly more tinny audio. Sadly, with its poor control over focusing while zooming the Fujifilm F550 EXR failed to impress. But the rasberry in this test goes to the Samsung WB650, whose video clips were not very good at all.