Nikon D200 Vs. Fuji S5 - Overexposure Test

Control - Fuji S5 at 1/8 sec @ f 5.6

Nikon D200 (RAW) at 1/2 sec @ f 5.6 (2 EV overexposure)

Nikon D200 (RAW) at 1 sec @ f 5.6 (3 EV overexposure)

Nikon D200 (RAW) at 2 sec @ f 5.6 (4 EV overexposure)




Fuji S5 (JPG) at 1 sec @ f 5.6 (3 EV overexposure)

Fuji S5 (JPG) at 2 sec @ f 5.6 (4 EV overexposure)

Be sure to click on each image for a closer look. Sorry about the lack of paragraphs... the blog software won't cooperate today!

The original image is to the left and the "corrected" image is to the right. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom was used to correct the images.

These images compare the Nikon D200 and the Fuji S5 Pro camera's ability (or inability) to handle overexposure. Each camera was set at ISO 200 and exposures were taken manually except for the control image which was set for Aperture Priority. The Fuji camera was set for 400% dynamic range. Only ambient light from a nearby window illuminated the scene. The background is a "Studio Gray" background paper.

Both cameras recorded images in RAW + JPG Fine mode and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom was used for post processing. I processed all images, RAW and JPG and set the software's adjustment to come as close to the control image as possible. The best results are shown here.

I concluded that the JPG images from Fuji was very close to Fuji's RAW images in terms of quality and decided to show the JPG versions here. The Nikon RAW images gave more ability to fix the overexposures than the JPG versions so I included those here.

I found that the control image was taken at 1/8 second at f 5.6 at ISO 200 with the aperture priority setting of the S5. I then took shots in 1 EV increments until I reached 5 EV overexposure.

The images included here clearly show that the D200 RAW images could not bring back details after an overexposure of 2 EV. However, even with an overexposure of 4 EV, the JPG images of the S5 still show details.

Look closely at the face of the cat and you will see loss of detail on the D200 shots but detail is still visible on the S5 shots.

Even with an overexposure of 4 EV, the Fuji S5's images look better than the overexposure at 2 EV on the Nikon D200.

I conclude that the Fuji S5 is dramatically better than the Nikon D200 in working with overexposed images.