English
Sleek. Sexy. Stunning. These are just a few of the thousands of adjectives showered upon Apple’s new iPad 3 by journalists, critics, and consumers. But these aren’t necessarily the adjectives you’d use to describe the device’s image and video quality.
For starters, the Apple tablet doesn’t include a flash, making it a real show stopper in dark conditions. The mobile further struggles in low lighting with strong noise, and a number of color defects like color shading and color casting. Additionally, its autofocus can be stubbornly unreliable and works best using trigger mode. The New iPad’s video also struggled, especially for its stabilization, where it produced obvious jello effects; and in low lighting, its stabilization seemed to disappear completely.
However, the New iPad had a number of strengths, including its ability to produce nicely colored and well balanced photos in outdoor conditions. It also had nice detail preservation in strong indoor and outdoor lighting. The device was also aided by its good video exposure and color quality.
Photo Pros
- Colors are vivid and pleasant.
- Well balanced photos in the outdoors.
- Details are preserved in good lighting.
Video Pros
- Contrary to its still image autofocus, its video AF was accurate, even in low lighting.
- Vivid color production with no color shading.
- Video stabilization works in the outdoors.
Photo Cons
- Noise becomes too high in low light.
- Autofocus is not reliable. Trigger mode is more consistent.
- No flash!
- Visible color shading on uniform backgrounds.
- Unflattering luminance noise in low light.
- Slight color casts are noticeable under low light tungsten illuminants.
Video Cons
- Unacceptable jello effect.
- Strong noise in low light and in dark areas with an unpleasant chrominance component.
- Stabilization is ineffective indoors.
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