Hewlett Packard Photosmart R817

Reviewed November 2005

Image Quality

The Hewlett-Packard Photosmart R817 is competing in a very crowded segment of the marketplace. This segment is dominated by manufacturers that are well-known as "camera manufacturers," unlike HP, which is more commonly identified as a computer and computer peripheral manufacturer.

Yet the R817 competes quite well: it is elegantly finished, is equipped with a 5X Pentax zoom lens, and its image processing, a major area of expertise for HP, creates a combination that makes for an interesting product.

With a focal length equivalent to 36mm at the wide angle end, the Pentax lens provides a starting aperture of f2.8, almost a standard with compact digital cameras. And, at the maximum telephoto end, the equivalent to 180mm, apertures start at f4.7, which is reasonably bright for a 5X zoom.

Throughout the zoom range, photos show no trace of any chromatic aberration. Furthermore, at the wide angle end images reveal little barrel distortion, while at the telephoto end pincushion distortion is, likewise, quite light.

At all focal lengths image sharpness is good and quite even from one edge of the frame to the other. However, at the maximum telephoto a slight decrease in sharpness can be detected in the extreme corners.

If optically the R817 turns in a solid performance, it is not especially fast at capturing photos and has a noticeable shutter lag while it focuses.

When the shutter release is half-pressed to focus, the image freezes disconcertingly on the monitor, making it quite easy to loose track of a moving subject. While the lag can be partially overcome with a bit of practice with the camera, it is nevertheless present and can occasionally lead to missed shots.

This highlights the other drawback of the R817: the lack of an optical viewfinder. While indoors the camera is able to increase the sensitivity so that the monitor displays a visible image under low light, outdoors on a sunny day, the monitor is very difficult to see, even with its brightness set to the maximum, and framing a shot can be a chore.

The metering on the other hand is very trustworthy. By default the R817 uses a centre-weighted pattern and not its average pattern that gives less importance to the middle of the frame. And, while framing can occasionally be difficult because the monitor is hard to see, the accuracy of its metering and the image quality that the camera produces is undeniable.

Although images can contain a bit of shadow noise even at 50 ISO, the colour and exposures are normally excellent, with a good level of detail in the shadows and no overexposure of the highlights. This precision in metering is evident with images such as those shown here, which contain great contrasts. Worth noting, even the bright snow is correctly exposed, and this without any type of intervention such as adding exposure compensation.

Similarly, colours regularly turn out true to life and vibrant, an indication of a reliable auto white balance setting.

Similarly, with flash photos the HP R817 turns out to be a bit of a surprise. The small flash has a good range if the sensitivity is set to Auto, and is able to light an average size room quite evenly. Moreover, the sensitivity rarely increases beyond the 100 ISO mark, and while some noise can be seen in flash photos when these are inspected at 100% scale on a monitor, the noise stays within an acceptable range.

In fact, noise is relatively light up to 200 ISO, a range that the Auto ISO has access to, and only becomes more noticeable at 400 ISO. Images captured at 400 ISO outdoors and under bright light in order to maintain a fast shutter speed, are generally quite useable and not overly noisy, allowing them to print well up to a 4 x 6 inch size, and possibly a bit more, without looking overly grainy.

As with all other cameras, the R817 provides preset image quality levels.

And, while all other user-selected settings revert to their defaults when the camera is turned off — unless My Mode is set as the default shooting mode — the Custom image quality setting is recalled irrespective of the mode in use.

Indeed, while at the 3-star image quality level the R817 produces very good photos, when it is set to the 4-star image quality, images are even more detailed and, for a modest file size increase, it is possible to get the best image quality possible out of the camera.

But the R817 also has strengths. It has a genuinely high image quality, offers a good design, overall provides very responsive controls, and is equipped with all the shooting modes that are normally found on larger and more expensive cameras.

Put succinctly, the R817 is good value for the money, and that's important.