First Comparison Nikon S10 and D200

I've delayed posting this as long as I can bear so that Nikki's jewelry gets a bit of a view before other things are added to distract from it - but now I can't wait any longer. Here is the first comparison between my Nikon S10 point and shoot camera and my D200. Now a few things need to be bourn in mind, first I have had not practice with the expensive camera yet and am using manual focus because I haven't read the owners manual and have no idea how to do much of anything on this camera yet. Autofocus seems to win out every time on simple pointing and shooting (of course manual will give me chance to adjust focal depth etc once I know what I am doing.) The longer lense on the expensive camera means a shorter depth of field (ie the background will be fuzzier on the expensive camera unless I alter apertures etc and I'm simply testing what the cameras do with available light and how close and far they will go and how the quality differs.

That being said the S10 stacks up very well. Here are some side by side (ahem) bottom by top comparisons. I'll put Coolpix S10 on the top and Nikon D200 on the bottom.

First each lens with as much in it as possible.





The D200 obviously includes more at the same distance. The light let in is more with the longer lens when wide open and less when stopped down. Here is the same vantage point with the telephoto as far forward as possible.





Here the S10 really does a good job. Here is an identical area comparison of the same detail in each image.





Now I want to look at a medium shot. Here is the same flower with a bug in the center. I have done no manipulation at all.





The D200 allows less light in with its longer lens and thus does not have such vibrant colors. Each image is as is from the camera (without separate white balance).

Here is the same image corrected automatically in photoshop.





Finally here is a detail from each photo to compare.





As you can see I've gotten pretty competent with the S10 and need to learn more about the D200. The S10 is more contrasty (maybe a bit too much so and the D200 is less contrasty (maybe a bit too little so - although this will allow for more detail I suspect in the long run.) Clearly I'm not so good at manual focus yet and that plays a role inthe comparison. I'll do this again once I learn autofocus and white balance and have had practice with focussing manually!