Took some photos today when out and about with my 9630, and when I got home I decided to compare two of the photos against two almost identical photos, taken from the same area, with a Nikon D300, equipped with a F/2.8 28-70 AFS lens. The photos of the hoodoo were taken in the identical place, so I thought I would compare the GPS data from the phone to the Solmeta N2 GPS device on the Camera that loads GPS data directly into the EXIF file; similar to the 9630’s setup.
All photos were resized in Photoshop, and auto levels were applied in Capture NX2. Other than those two adjustments, no other adjustments were made.
BB:
D300:
BB:
D300:
In addition, note that since I am using a free subscription to Photobucket, the photos are compressed and this messes up all photo; but the comparison should hold since Photobucket messed up all four photos.
I also was curious about the GPS data, so here are two screen shots from Google:
This shot of Google shows the location of the BB, D300 and the Hoodoo (or rock formation from the first photos). (D300 is RED, BB is GREEN, and Hoodoo is BLUE.)
Zooming in on Google Earth and you can see there is a small distance separation from the two shots.
I would say the D300 is more accurate. I compared the D300 coordinates against a Garmin 60CSx and they were almost dead on. This does not mean the D300 and the Garmin are more accurate, but I would say since two agree and one does not, the D300 photo is probably closer to actual position than the BB.
I will say the photos are not that bad when compared against photos taken with a semi-professional camera, with a $1500.00 lens, so I am not complaining, just comparing.
I should also say I was able to send both of these photos to friends via Verizon, from right where they were taken. More than can be said for a friend with her iPhone, that was with me.
(And yes, it is a red desert
)