Just got a kindle paperwhite in store at Best Buy - Page 11

MrDoug · 10-25-2012, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

I see it in all of them too. Whenever someone posts a pic claiming theirs is perfect, I still see it. So I agree, a lot of it is down to the user. Just because someone says they got a good one that has no defects, doesn't mean we wouldn't see it differently.

I agree.. mine is good enough for me NOW.. I bet in the next 3 months or less you may see a major improvement.
Doug

jaxx6166 · 10-25-2012, 09:33 PM

Yup. After checking the wife's, I definitely got a bad one. Talking to "Noel" from Amazon CS on chat now to try and get a replacement...so far it's a hassle

For some reason, he can't find the credit card I have on file..but I can find it?

beninma · 10-25-2012, 10:17 PM

I am going to upload a sequence of files here to show what my "Good" Paperwhite looks like. FWIW these were all shot on a tripod with an EOS 5D Mark III and a 50mm lens. The exposures were manually set to put the paperwhite screen at exactly the same exposure level in each shot even though the screen brightness of the Kindle actually varies. The Kindle actually varies it's brightness by enough that I was going to introduce color errors if I locked the exposure at exactly the same value for all the photos. (Typically the camera will "blow out" one color channel before the others, introducing a color shift, usually the whites will look reddish.)

No flash was used in any of these photos. The first 3 photos (this post) are shot in a totally dark room. The white balance was left up to the camera, no adjustments were made to color, the only adjustments were sharpening and noise. (These are ISO 1600, it was dark enough I didn't feel like waiting forever for super clean ISO 100 shots.)

Note in the dark shot, my preference for reading would probably be about 4-5 if I was actually reading in the darkened room.

In these the bottom looks reddish to me, the top looks cooler. I think this has to do with angle.. it never looks that way to me when I'm reading. When I'm reading in the dark the top looks more red then the bottom.

beninma · 10-25-2012, 10:19 PM

Here are the next 3, shot with the lights on in the room. The room is lit by 2x60w Incandescent bulbs up quite high (10 feet up?) No flash was used.

I am not sure what level of sophistication people are at here with respect to photography and imaging. Chrome & Internet Explorer do not use color profiling anywhere near well enough to judge color in photos. You pretty much need to look at these in Firefox or Safari to see them as they are supposed to look, or download them into a color managed application like Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, etc..

The browser seems to exaggerate the color issues to me compared to Lightroom.

In this lit room I would probably have the light set to the middle range.

I think my images look suspiciously like Amazon's on their "Kindle in different lighting conditions" page... now the question is, does Amazon doctor photos? Or did they just get someone with a professional quality camera who knew what they were doing to shoot their photos. (Clearly the marketing images are fakes.)

aceflor · 10-26-2012, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

I see it in all of them too. Whenever someone posts a pic claiming theirs is perfect, I still see it. So I agree, a lot of it is down to the user. Just because someone says they got a good one that has no defects, doesn't mean we wouldn't see it differently.

That is your truth because it is your perception, but I do not think it is necessary to claim "bad one" each time a new user posts his or her pics (I don't mean especially you, sparklemotion).At this point we all agree that Amazon ads were photoshopped, but that many pics we have seen here are similar to the ones amazon posted afterwards, so officially they are not "bad" screen.
So globally, what IS helping is to say what to do if someone does not like the PW he or she received. What IS NOT helping is detailling to each person who posted pics saying they have a good one and are happy with it, how bad the screen really is in your perception.
We should keep in mind that if we put two K4B next to each other, or two KK, or two K2, or two sony PRS-t1, I could keep the list going but I am sure you get the idea, both screens will never look exactly the same.

Once again, I am not defending amazon, but I am sorry for new users who were all excited to get a new PW, and were happy with it until they posted their pics here, or in practically any other PW thread right now.

MrsAmandaK · 10-26-2012, 09:55 AM

Thank you beninma for posting those pictures! I think those are good reference points for people - a realistic Paperwhite that looks ok!

My husband didn't see anything unusual on mine color wise - in fact he noticed ghosting that I didn't catch

so really I think it just depends on the reader.

I read on mine for a few chapters in a book last night (got tired, comprehension level plummeted) and I was very happy with it. In fact I took my Simpletouch (no light) and held it next to the PW and the ability to read was so clear where as the ST would have caused eye strain.

So far I am very happy with it and I figure if the screen goes wonky and green in the future I can always call Amazon

sparklemotion · 10-26-2012, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceflor

That is your truth because it is your perception, but I do not think it is necessary to claim "bad one" each time a new user posts his or her pics (I don't mean especially you, sparklemotion).At this point we all agree that Amazon ads were photoshopped, but that many pics we have seen here are similar to the ones amazon posted afterwards, so officially they are not "bad" screen.
So globally, what IS helping is to say what to do if someone does not like the PW he or she received. What IS NOT helping is detailling to each person who posted pics saying they have a good one and are happy with it, how bad the screen realiy is in your perception.
We should keep in mind that if we put two K4B next to each other, or two KK, or two K2, or two sony PRS-t1, I could keep the list going but I am sure you get the idea, both screens will never look exactly the same.

Once again, I am not defending amazon, but I am sorry for new users who were all excited to get a new PW, and were happy with it until they posted their pics here, or in practically any other PW thread right now.

I do agree with you. I have tried to comment only when someone is posting pics where they are asking how theirs looks. Since there has been a lot of photos posted, I apologize if I lost track and commented on someone's pic that wasn't asking for an opinion.

I certainly realize what I see with my eyes, someone else might not see with theirs. Also, even if they do see something, it might be perfectly acceptable to them. If someone is happy with their unit, I'm happy for them. All that really matters is how we perceive our own units and how happy we are with them. Either way, I do agree with you that it's best to be careful commenting on someone's screen when they're happy with it.

Penforhire · 10-26-2012, 01:12 PM

ben, I can easily imagine Amazon's press release photographer had pro lighting that made the screen look near-perfect. I've got some hot lights (Smith Victors) that I can bounce off my white ceiling to make a soft nearly-shadowless high intensity source.

The more you know about photography the more you understand there is no such thing as an "unaltered" digital image, aside from an actual RAW or NEF file (which can't be directly viewed without some form of interpretation). Even my older Nikon bodies allowed a tonal adjustment curve (in the camera body) for JPEG's. Many choices are made in RAW file interpretation -- white balance and exposure at least, often also sharpening, geometric distortion correction (from known lenses), and chromatic aberration reduction (e.g. purple fringing) as well.

beninma · 10-26-2012, 01:43 PM

We know Amazon's "what it looks like in the dark" pictures weren't using any fancy lighting though.. as the rest of the room is dark and it shows the uneven lighting at the bottom of the screen. If you give the PW screen any external illumination it almost immediately erases all the screen defects.

The marketing one of the woman reading in the dark may have been as well.

I have umbrellas, etc.. but I wouldn't be able to shoot those "dark" shots with flash to make the screen look better without also lighting up the background.

FWIW my pictures were processed in lightroom with the "Adobe Standard" calibration. That actually puts a decent amount of saturation/contrast into the images for my camera. If I was trying to fool someone I would have used the "Camera Neutral" calibration which would go a long way to making even a bad PW look perfect I expect.

My main point is you take a camera phone shot in the dark and it's going to add a lot of red & green chroma noise, and then the JPG processing is going to pump the saturation up a ton and exaggerate the noise and/or the screen defects.

Penforhire · 10-26-2012, 03:48 PM

I just looked again at the main Amazon Paperwhite product page. The "perfect for bed" photo clearly has additional lighting. The woman's hand has backlit "rim" lighting and the shadow on the blanket or shawl (along with a highlight on the PW edges) suggests some overhead light.

I agree the dark room examples in the "see more" section do not appear to have any additional lighting, but then again it seems they did that entire section to lower peoples' expectations.

beninma · 10-26-2012, 05:03 PM

Yah Sorry I was unclear. I definitely think the "marketing" photo of the woman reading in the dark was set up very carefully, professionally lit, and possibly had the screen photoshopped in... (as it would be way easier than putting a spot or grid light right on the screen.)

MrsAmandaK · 10-27-2012, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

I do agree with you. I have tried to comment only when someone is posting pics where they are asking how theirs looks. Since there has been a lot of photos posted, I apologize if I lost track and commented on someone's pic that wasn't asking for an opinion.

I certainly realize what I see with my eyes, someone else might not see with theirs. Also, even if they do see something, it might be perfectly acceptable to them. If someone is happy with their unit, I'm happy for them. All that really matters is how we perceive our own units and how happy we are with them. Either way, I do agree with you that it's best to be careful commenting on someone's screen when they're happy with it.

How is your situation with the PW going? What did you decide to do?

MrsAmandaK · 10-27-2012, 11:12 AM

Absolutely camera can affect the appearance. I suspect Amazon used hot lights/Light Boxes/additional lighting to light their PW and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they doctored it in Photoshop - even if it was just curves

NNolan · 10-28-2012, 07:36 PM

The Staples store in my neighborhood got their PWs in today, so I went out and picked one up to see if these later batches are any better. My original PW had one bright spot on the left towards the bottom of the screen, this one has one in about the same spot and 3 others on the right side. The LED on the far left is brighter and sits up higher than the other 3, in fact it looks like the LEDS are on a slant from left to right. Because the two LEDS towards the right aren't as bright the right side of the screen is kind of shadowed, but I haven't seen the pink and green blobs that my original PW had....at least not yet. Although this one seems a bit better blob-wise than my first one, it's still not as good in the dark as my Nook Glowlight. Go figure. I'm hoping my Kobo shows up before I have to make a decision about returning this to Staples so I can compare them.

sirmaru · 10-28-2012, 08:39 PM

All the PW photos shown in this Forum were taken by amateurs. I'm sure Amazon uses high paid professioals with very expensive cameras and supplemental software similar to Photoshop.

They also were probably allowed to shoot hundreds of sample units before choosing the final cut.

Thus, none of our photos will ever come up to the promos on the Amazon site.

Again, our personal perceptions and preferences come into play. What is acceptable and even great for one customer may be a disaster for another customer. Remember, one man's garbage is another man's gem.

EBay capitalizes on that every day where amateur users try and market their garbage to others who will be well satisfied with what they get.

My Paperwhite looks fine to me but the photos I posted here turned lots of other folks off. Either my photo work was defective, the real life unit was better than the photo, or what pleases me may not please others.

10-25-2012, 10:17 PM	#153
beninma Enthusiast Posts: 38 Karma: 6638 Join Date: Sep 2012 Device: Various Kindles, iPad	I am going to upload a sequence of files here to show what my "Good" Paperwhite looks like. FWIW these were all shot on a tripod with an EOS 5D Mark III and a 50mm lens. The exposures were manually set to put the paperwhite screen at exactly the same exposure level in each shot even though the screen brightness of the Kindle actually varies. The Kindle actually varies it's brightness by enough that I was going to introduce color errors if I locked the exposure at exactly the same value for all the photos. (Typically the camera will "blow out" one color channel before the others, introducing a color shift, usually the whites will look reddish.) No flash was used in any of these photos. The first 3 photos (this post) are shot in a totally dark room. The white balance was left up to the camera, no adjustments were made to color, the only adjustments were sharpening and noise. (These are ISO 1600, it was dark enough I didn't feel like waiting forever for super clean ISO 100 shots.) Note in the dark shot, my preference for reading would probably be about 4-5 if I was actually reading in the darkened room. In these the bottom looks reddish to me, the top looks cooler. I think this has to do with angle.. it never looks that way to me when I'm reading. When I'm reading in the dark the top looks more red then the bottom. Attached Thumbnails Last edited by beninma; 10-25-2012 at 10:34 PM.

10-25-2012, 10:19 PM	#154
beninma Enthusiast Posts: 38 Karma: 6638 Join Date: Sep 2012 Device: Various Kindles, iPad	Here are the next 3, shot with the lights on in the room. The room is lit by 2x60w Incandescent bulbs up quite high (10 feet up?) No flash was used. I am not sure what level of sophistication people are at here with respect to photography and imaging. Chrome & Internet Explorer do not use color profiling anywhere near well enough to judge color in photos. You pretty much need to look at these in Firefox or Safari to see them as they are supposed to look, or download them into a color managed application like Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto, etc.. The browser seems to exaggerate the color issues to me compared to Lightroom. In this lit room I would probably have the light set to the middle range. I think my images look suspiciously like Amazon's on their "Kindle in different lighting conditions" page... now the question is, does Amazon doctor photos? Or did they just get someone with a professional quality camera who knew what they were doing to shoot their photos. (Clearly the marketing images are fakes.) Attached Thumbnails Last edited by beninma; 10-25-2012 at 10:26 PM.

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10-25-2012, 09:33 PM	#152
jaxx6166 Wizard Posts: 1,222 Karma: 769316 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Eternal summer Device: 350, iPad, PW	Yup. After checking the wife's, I definitely got a bad one. Talking to "Noel" from Amazon CS on chat now to try and get a replacement...so far it's a hassle For some reason, he can't find the credit card I have on file..but I can find it?

10-26-2012, 09:55 AM	#156
MrsAmandaK Nerdy and I know it ;) Posts: 50 Karma: 693306 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Charlestown, IN USA Device: Better question is what DOESN'T this family have?! Current: Kindle PW	Thank you beninma for posting those pictures! I think those are good reference points for people - a realistic Paperwhite that looks ok! My husband didn't see anything unusual on mine color wise - in fact he noticed ghosting that I didn't catch so really I think it just depends on the reader. I read on mine for a few chapters in a book last night (got tired, comprehension level plummeted) and I was very happy with it. In fact I took my Simpletouch (no light) and held it next to the PW and the ability to read was so clear where as the ST would have caused eye strain. So far I am very happy with it and I figure if the screen goes wonky and green in the future I can always call Amazon

10-26-2012, 01:12 PM	#158
Penforhire Wizard Posts: 2,230 Karma: 7145404 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Southern California Device: Kindle Voyage & iPhone 7+	ben, I can easily imagine Amazon's press release photographer had pro lighting that made the screen look near-perfect. I've got some hot lights (Smith Victors) that I can bounce off my white ceiling to make a soft nearly-shadowless high intensity source. The more you know about photography the more you understand there is no such thing as an "unaltered" digital image, aside from an actual RAW or NEF file (which can't be directly viewed without some form of interpretation). Even my older Nikon bodies allowed a tonal adjustment curve (in the camera body) for JPEG's. Many choices are made in RAW file interpretation -- white balance and exposure at least, often also sharpening, geometric distortion correction (from known lenses), and chromatic aberration reduction (e.g. purple fringing) as well.

10-26-2012, 01:43 PM	#159
beninma Enthusiast Posts: 38 Karma: 6638 Join Date: Sep 2012 Device: Various Kindles, iPad	We know Amazon's "what it looks like in the dark" pictures weren't using any fancy lighting though.. as the rest of the room is dark and it shows the uneven lighting at the bottom of the screen. If you give the PW screen any external illumination it almost immediately erases all the screen defects. The marketing one of the woman reading in the dark may have been as well. I have umbrellas, etc.. but I wouldn't be able to shoot those "dark" shots with flash to make the screen look better without also lighting up the background. FWIW my pictures were processed in lightroom with the "Adobe Standard" calibration. That actually puts a decent amount of saturation/contrast into the images for my camera. If I was trying to fool someone I would have used the "Camera Neutral" calibration which would go a long way to making even a bad PW look perfect I expect. My main point is you take a camera phone shot in the dark and it's going to add a lot of red & green chroma noise, and then the JPG processing is going to pump the saturation up a ton and exaggerate the noise and/or the screen defects.

10-26-2012, 03:48 PM	#160
Penforhire Wizard Posts: 2,230 Karma: 7145404 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Southern California Device: Kindle Voyage & iPhone 7+	I just looked again at the main Amazon Paperwhite product page. The "perfect for bed" photo clearly has additional lighting. The woman's hand has backlit "rim" lighting and the shadow on the blanket or shawl (along with a highlight on the PW edges) suggests some overhead light. I agree the dark room examples in the "see more" section do not appear to have any additional lighting, but then again it seems they did that entire section to lower peoples' expectations.

10-26-2012, 05:03 PM	#161
beninma Enthusiast Posts: 38 Karma: 6638 Join Date: Sep 2012 Device: Various Kindles, iPad	Yah Sorry I was unclear. I definitely think the "marketing" photo of the woman reading in the dark was set up very carefully, professionally lit, and possibly had the screen photoshopped in... (as it would be way easier than putting a spot or grid light right on the screen.)

10-27-2012, 11:12 AM	#163
MrsAmandaK Nerdy and I know it ;) Posts: 50 Karma: 693306 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Charlestown, IN USA Device: Better question is what DOESN'T this family have?! Current: Kindle PW	Absolutely camera can affect the appearance. I suspect Amazon used hot lights/Light Boxes/additional lighting to light their PW and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they doctored it in Photoshop - even if it was just curves

10-28-2012, 07:36 PM	#164
NNolan Compulsive Gadget Geek Posts: 407 Karma: 4219324 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: South Central Virginia Device: One of each, and two in some cases	The Staples store in my neighborhood got their PWs in today, so I went out and picked one up to see if these later batches are any better. My original PW had one bright spot on the left towards the bottom of the screen, this one has one in about the same spot and 3 others on the right side. The LED on the far left is brighter and sits up higher than the other 3, in fact it looks like the LEDS are on a slant from left to right. Because the two LEDS towards the right aren't as bright the right side of the screen is kind of shadowed, but I haven't seen the pink and green blobs that my original PW had....at least not yet. Although this one seems a bit better blob-wise than my first one, it's still not as good in the dark as my Nook Glowlight. Go figure. I'm hoping my Kobo shows up before I have to make a decision about returning this to Staples so I can compare them.

10-28-2012, 08:39 PM	#165
sirmaru Wizard Posts: 2,426 Karma: 6561538 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: Kindle PW 2013, HDX 2013, Galaxy S5 2014	All the PW photos shown in this Forum were taken by amateurs. I'm sure Amazon uses high paid professioals with very expensive cameras and supplemental software similar to Photoshop. They also were probably allowed to shoot hundreds of sample units before choosing the final cut. Thus, none of our photos will ever come up to the promos on the Amazon site. Again, our personal perceptions and preferences come into play. What is acceptable and even great for one customer may be a disaster for another customer. Remember, one man's garbage is another man's gem. EBay capitalizes on that every day where amateur users try and market their garbage to others who will be well satisfied with what they get. My Paperwhite looks fine to me but the photos I posted here turned lots of other folks off. Either my photo work was defective, the real life unit was better than the photo, or what pleases me may not please others.

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