Ok, so we all know the DSi‘s camera is bad and that the miserable 0.3 megapixels is extremely, unbelievably low by even the lowest standards of today’s technology, but just how bad is it? It’s kind of hard to just imagine how much better your pictures would look on something better, like a 10.1 MP Sony CyberShot DSC-T300.
That’s where I come in. I took a little walk with both my DSi and my trusty CyberShot (which also has a touch screen) to take a series of pictures from a distance, close up, and one special shot which serves as the ultimate test. You may actually be surprised at the quality of some of the pictures the DSi took. I know I was.
All pictures are unedited aside from shrinking the CyberShot pictures from over 3,000 pixels to 640. DSi shots are on the left, CyberShot photos are on the right. Click ‘Read More’ to see the rest. All images can be enlarged by clicking, which I recommend doing.
Distance
In this picture it is very easy to see the color loss on the DSi’s camera along with the loss in detail in the water and in the shrubbery off in the distance, which gets very blurry.
Easily noticeable here is the overall loss of detail, even up close. The plants, water, and bush closest to the camera are all far less crisp on the DSi’s camera.
Here is a bridge top view of the polluted creek. Easily noticeable is the overall blurriness of the DSi image, and more discreet is how the surface of the water is more washed out by the sunlight.
Close Up
For the close-up images, notice the loss of depth. The DSi did a great job of rendering the blooming florals blossoming on the tree, but notice nothing is distorted or blurred to show depth. There is also far more color visible in the CyberShot image.
In this round, I’m really impressed with how the DSi’s image turned out. The inability to recreate certain colors actually made the image brighter and prettier with regards to color. However, everything up close looks a little too sharp and has lost a lot of detail while the sun washes out all of the scenery in the background which is only visible in the CyberShot image.
Taco
This picture was taken in less than favorable lighting, but the DSi’s image looks relatively, if not overly bright. But look at all of the detail that was lost. The rice looks like creamed carrots, the lettuce looks like guacamole, and the shredded cheese looks melted. But I love tacos, so I don’t even care.
*UPDATE*
A lot of people have been asking to see what the DSi pictures look like when blown up to the 3,698 pixels that is the default size for the 10.1 Mp camera.
Here the differences are obviously monumental because the DSi image was blown up to such a ridiculous size. But click the image to enlarge and you’ll be able to see even more clearly how big of a difference this is. It’s almost not even comparable. Notice, however, that the DSi image was blown up to over twice it’s original size and lost very little detail from the original shot.
Special thanks to GoNintendo for featuring this DSi Camera Comparison on their stellar blog. If you liked this, then check out the rest of our site, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!
Pingback: GoNintendo » Blog Archive » DSi - photo shoot comparisons- What are you waiting for?
Mexican plate in DSi’s photo look like I lose my appetite.
Pingback: linkfeedr » Blog Archive » DSi - photo shoot comparisons - RSS Indexer (beta)
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/technology/08pogue.html
oh look judging on pixel counts is a MYTH just like HD GRAPHICS IS A MYTH
the DS cam has roughly a 480p photo capability that is then down scaled and optimized to DS resolutions and screen size so WHY WOULD YOU USE A 3.O MP OR A 8MP if your down scaling to DSis screens
IT ONLY SHOWS HOW UTTERLY STUPID PEOPLE ARE
my phone camera is 3mp and iv compared it to DSi and simply there no difference in fact in low dark like the living room at night tv on DSi was better
HD IS NOT GRAPHICS AND PIXEL COUNTING MP CAMS IS 80% MARKETING MYTH
WHAT ABOUT CONTRAST,COLOUR,DEPTH,LIGHT AND THE OTHER THINGS A CAMERA LENS NEEDS TO CATCH
clearly DSI HAS GOOD SOFTWARE AND A GREAT LENS THE PIXEL COUNT IS PERFECTLY FINE FOR A DS SCREEN RESOLUTION
GROW UP MP COUNTERS YOU DONT HAVE A CLUE WHAT UR TALKING ABOUT
MY DADS A BIRD PHOTOGRAPHER HE ALSO TELLS ME THE SAME THING
LENS SOFTWARE HARDWARE ETC OVER MP COUNTING ANYDAY………
AND THE CAMERAS ARE THERE AS A GAMING INNOVATION RATHER THAN HIGH END PHOTOS
also any pics transfered to say a pc can be high ressed and optermized in the photo software before say PRINTING IT
Ahhh, WiiBoy. I’ve missed your idiotic cap statements from GoNintendo. Good to see you’re still reading the site even though you are banned from leaving any comments.
And I hope your dad falls out of a tree.
But other than that you are absolutely right. That was the entire point of this article, moron. I scaled all of the photos from the CyberShot DOWN to match the size of the DSi’s standard resolution without altering a thing that could cause a loss of quality.
And notice I took all of the things you said a camera lens needs to capture into account in the brief description of each photo.
The point of this article was to show that the differences between the two were hard to catch.
And when your dad falls out of the tree, I hope he lands in a pond and drowns. Then explodes.
At the resolution the thumbnails are at the compression rate would be enough to not be able to tell the difference.
I’m surprised, I thought the DSi photos would be much much worse.
But they’re not that bad.
Well bar the last one; that one is terrible.
Do you have any pictures of the DSI? And I have a website too. The web site is….darmj and we really don’t know how to put stuff on the web site. Can you send some help to help me out
Darmj posters
Interesting.
Pingback: Weekly Recap for April 13th - 18th « Everyview
Pingback: Top Posts « WordPress.com
Ahh Wiiboy, does your idoicy every cease? First GoNintendo, then Nintendo Life, and now you’re here at Everyview. *sigh…*
im leaving this message w/my dsi! i havent used the camera for anything other than messing around and playing warioware. after seeing this i still dont thibnk i will but im definitely impressed. congrats on the gonintendo feature and making the wordpress top posts by the way.
If you didn’t tell me which one was which I don’t think I could till just by looking at the pictures alone. It is amazing that on some of the photos the DSI is better then the Sony CyberShot which is sad for how low the megapixels are
Pingback: PackRat Paragraphs: Red Nintendo DS w/Mario Kart DS « Everyview
wiiboy101!!! you are the man!!!!
110% agree with you!!!
Sheer brilliance. Good show, my boy.
weiner
Hello,I am interested in iPhone but I do not know what the best function of iPhone since i
Pingback: Comparison Camera
“The rice looks like creamed carrots, the lettuce looks like guacamole, and the shredded cheese looks melted. But I love tacos, so I don’t even care.”
I lolled. Very true, everyone loves tacos no matter what.
I got my Nintendo Dsi in black, but now I regret taking the black one.
I like this post. I like some of your other post’s as well. When I read your posts, I think to myself that these posts are good and that I wish I had a website to make posts in which my posts would be as high-quality posts and the posts you post. Where do you get your inspiration?
the cam is not bad for the DSI screen but when you save the pics in the SD card then look at them on a big screen monitor on your computer you can see how bad it really looks, on a high res screen. the MP on the DSI cam was for the DSI screen but not for high res screens if you wanna use the SD card on something ells. also its a Nintendo DS not a apple iPhone so why should it have a good cam lens anyway.