The camera club I belong to (the Toronto Camera Club) has drifted into the
digital world over the last few years, and has been making do with a digital
projector bought over three years ago, a M*tsubishi XD300U, which uses DLP
technology.
We decided earlier this year that we really needed a second projector as
backup in case of failure - same as we have a surplus of Ektagraphic
projectors in the projection booth - and though we'd be able to capitalise
on both improvements in technology and a dramatic drop in prices.
We decided to approach one distributor and one high-end photo retailer (from
whom we'd bought the original projector) to evaluate the current state of
the art. Well, we had a few surprises, and have yet to decide to spend our
budget (C$3500-4000) on anything. I thought I'd relate this OT tale here in
case anyone can point us to flaws in our knowledge or methodology, or concur
with our experience.
I should mention that we project onto a screen which is the painted end wall
of our auditorium, which itself is the rear 3/4 of a two-storey space
converted from two adjacent store properties. The screen is a good 15'/5m
high and perhaps 25'/8m wide, and is about 40'/13m from the second-floor
projection booth. We project slides from the booth, but no affordable
digital projector has a 40' throw, so that projector is up near the front of
the auditorium (and nearly at the limit of its keystone control); this also
limits the digital image size to less than the full height of the screen.
H*tachi LCD projectors (the 440 series - the 340 series were not bright
enough and the 1200 series too expensive) were the first stop. We viewed
them in the distributor's display theatre, on a large screen, and quickly
ruled them out due to insufficient shadow and highlight detail.
Next stop: the photo retailer with the latest low-end M*tsubishi DLP
(XD450U) and the C*non LCOS (SX60). We tried evaluating them in the
showroom, but there was too much extraneous light and really not enough time
[salespeople seem to get antsy when it becomes clear they're nowhere near a
sale, too], so we rented the two for the Labo(u)r Day weekend to do an A-B-C
comparison with our existing M*tsubishi.
The setup was three PC laptops, each driving one of the projectors, with the
three images projected side-by-side. We calibrated each PC/projector using
the Spy*der2PRO at the start of the session. Each PC had the same set of
test images, drawn from various sources, plus a selection of actual Club
competition images from the previous year.
Calibration brought the first surprise. We assumed naively that when the
calibration exercise was complete, we'd have three virtually identical
images on the screen and would be ready to go. Not so. Subjectively, we
though that the "before" image was better than the "after" image for all
three projectors, but especially on the two M*tsubishi ones. Worse, the
colours on those two seemed drab and the grey seemed to have a slight green
cast, whereas the C*non colours were very bright but - especially the blue -
quite saturated. We were a little suspicious that the instructions for the
Spy*der said it was OK that it was staring at its shadow on the screen [you
put it only a yard/metre or so away, on a stand so that it's looking at the
centre of the image], so we recalibrated with less shadow but saw no
difference. We then re-recalibrated in the approved manner, and saw no
difference in the results. So three left-brain, analytical types were very
puzzled, but decided to move on with the comparisons.
Of the three of us, it turned out that one was most concerned about detail
(shadow and especially highlight), one about overall sharpness, and one
about colour fidelity. To make a long story short, the new M*tsubishi has
excellent shadow detail, but insufficient highlight detail; good sharpness;
and good colour (tho' we had a minor concern about the slight green cast,
but left that to a better future understanding of calibration). The C*non
has good detail at both ends, though not as much shadow detail as the
M*itsubishi, and good colour but significantly saturated in the reds and
greens *and* extremely saturated blue to the point of rendering many skies
unnatural. The old M*tsubishi had much less detail at both ends, and
virtually the same colour characteristics as its newer sibling.
Many hours into the session - we spent about 12 hours altogether, I think -
we noticed an odd thing about the image from the new M*tsubishi. On a
relatively dark image, and more clearly visible when muted, were circular
"hot spots" of light, some overlapping in one quadrant and a couple
separately in other quadrants. Staring at the lens from in front of the
projector and moving your head about, you could clearly see these bright
spots where there should have been even illumination. More dramatically,
when I placed a white card about 6" in front of the lens, these showed up as
bright white spots.
When tracking down these spots, we also noticed that there is significant
light spill in the immediate area outside the projected area [not present in
the 300]. It's hard to believe that these are just manufacturing defects. We
haven't yet received an explanation, but this pair of problems was enough to
kick the M*tsubishi entirely out of the running. The problems might not be
seen with a PowerPoint presentation in a boardroom, but were unacceptable
for high-end image display for a camera club.
Back to the C*non. We liked everything about it except the oversaturated
blue, so we tried to correct that. We ran every adjustment, advanced or
otherwise, from stop to stop and in many combinations to see if we could
find the magic to fix it, and had no luck.
So we're stuck. We did a lot of Web searches, and found very little about
calibrating to a camera club's exacting requirements. We did find
suggestions that the Spy*der2PRO didn't produce good or consistent results,
but no obvious answers. In summary, for our budget:
1. LCD projectors doesn't have the required shadow and highlight detail
2. The M*tsubishi has light artifacts and light spill that were unacceptable
3. The C*non has blue that is unacceptably saturated
4. "Calibrated" PC/projector pairs were visibly quite different one to
another and subjectively had either a colour cast or oversaturation
We're trying to get some help from the photo retailer and from the vendors,
but have nothing back yet. At this rate I suspect we'll try to find a used
XD300U or XD350U to match what we have, and look again in a year or two. Or
perhaps bite the bullet, double the budget, and go through the exercise
again with higher-end projectors. Any comments or suggestions you might have
are welcome.
Thanks,
Michael
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