HP Photosmart M415 Review
Review Date: July 13th 2006
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Image Quality
All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 5M Best mode, which gives an average image size of around 1.5-2Mb.
Noise
There are 3 ISO settings available on the HP Photosmart M415 which you can select at any time if the camera is in the normal shooting mode. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting:
ISO 100 (100% crop) |
ISO 200 (100% crop) |
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ISO 400 (100% crop) |
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The images taken at ISO 100 were acceptable, with slightly above average noise levels. ISO 200 and 400 were a lot noisier and cannot be recommended unless you aren�t printing. The HP Photosmart M415 has a 1/2.5 inch sensor, which is small for a sensor containing 5 million pixels. Shadow detail often picked up excessive amounts of noise, and when Adaptive Lighting was used, this was even more noticeable. Even when it was turned off, some images showed some noise in blue sky areas, an area that normally doesn�t see this problem.
Sharpening
Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are slightly soft at the default sharpening setting and benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can't change the in-camera sharpening level.
Original
100% Crop |
Sharpened 100% Crop |
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File Quality
The HP Photosmart M415 has 2 different image quality settings available, with Best being the highest quality option. Here are some 100% crops which show the quality of the various options, with the file size shown in brackets.
| 5M
Best (2.37Mb) |
5M
Normal (1.86Mb) |
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Chromatic Aberrations
The HP Photosmart M415 suffers quite badly from chromatic aberrations, with purple fringing present around the edges of objects in high-contrast situations and also in shots where you wouldn't really expect it to occur.
| Example
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Example
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Macro
The HP Photosmart M415 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is 10cms away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.
| Macro Shot |
100% Crop |
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Flash
The flash settings on the HP Photosmart M415 are Flash Off, Auto Flash (default), Auto with Red-Eye, Flash On and Night. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.
| Flash Off - Wide Angle (36mm) |
Auto Flash - Wide Angle (36mm) |
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| Flash Off - Telephoto (108mm) |
Auto Flash - Telephoto (108mm) |
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And here are some self-portraits. As you can see, the Flash On setting caused slightly more red-eye than the Red-Eye Reduction option.
| Flash On |
Flash On (100% Crop) |
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| Flash - Red-Eye Reduction |
Flash - Red-Eye Reduction (100% Crop) |
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Night Shot
The HP Photosmart M415's maximum shutter speed is 2 seconds in the Night scene mode, which is not very good news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 4 seconds at f/5.4 at ISO 200. I've included a 100% crop of the image to show what the quality is like.
| Night Shot |
100% Crop |
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Overall Image Quality
The HP Photosmart M415 produced images of below average quality during the review period. The 10 megapixel images were a little soft straight out of the camera at the default sharpening setting of 0 and ideally require some further sharpening in an application like Adobe Photoshop, or you can increase the in-camera sharpening level. The HP Photosmart M415 dealt poorly with chromatic aberrations, with limited purple fringing appearing in quite a lot of the review test shots. Macro performance is average, allowing you to focus as close as 6cms away from the subject. The built-in flash worked quite well indoors, with no red-eye and fairly good overall exposure, although the maximum range of 1.9m at the telephoto setting is disappointing. The night photograph was a weak point, with the maximum shutter speed of 4 seconds in the Night scene mode limiting what you can achieve. The HP Photosmart M415 didn't deal with noise particularly well. The 1/1.8 inch, 10 megapixel sensor used in the HP Photosmart M415 produces noise-free images at ISO 50 and ISO 100, with but there's quite a lot of noise at ISO 200 and the fastest speed of ISO 400 has very obvious noise and blurring of detail. Anti-shake is a feature that sets this camera apart from its competitors on paper, but in reality it drastically degrades image quality. The new High Sensitivity mode extends the ISO range and allows you to take photos in low-light without having to use flash, but again the image quality is adversely affected. Overall, a pretty poor performance from the EX-Z1000.
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organisation. Our test results for the HP Photosmart M415
have been submitted to DIWA
for comparison with test results for different samples of
the same camera model supplied by other DIWA
member sites.