D7100 vs D7200 at ISO 6400

<p>And here is the D7200. The angle is slightly different from the shots yesterday since I didn't save those raw files as I thought.</p><div></div>

<p>- earlier, the RAW converted to JPEG without pother processing was fine ... thanks again.<br>

Tony</p>

<p>Looks pretty good. I'm toying (no pun intended) with the idea of getting a DX sensor body. However I'll wait and see if the D7200 throws up any nasty surprises after it's been Beta Tested in the real world for a few months, and also to let the price settle a bit.</p>

<p>But those high ISO shots really do look smooth, especially considering the pixel density is equivalent to an 80 megapixel Full-frame sensor. So I look forward to the technology translating to an FX sensor. MF backs had better improve a <em> lot</em> in short order to keep their market. Or grow up to be truly medium format sized.</p>

<p>Barry, could you please take your D7200 and use ISO 6400 or higher to photograph some birds in the shade? ;-)</p>

Good job Barry, nice comparisons. I think my two 7100s are extremely good, but these 72 shots you posted certainly

seem to tick out the 71 sample you're using by a few steps. So I'm not sure I got this straight yet, the sensor is a different

model or just same but improved. I will re read also to get clearer in my head.

<p>the upper right-hand corner from the 6400 d7200 shot is clearly less noisy than the d7100. how much less nosier is difficult to discern. the real-world test would be to shoot a live subject with a significant amount of shadow area. it's one thing to shoot at high-ISO in a trick mode and another to make a usable/publishable photograph.</p>

<p>the ability of the D3s to shoot virtually noiseless shadow areas at high-ISO is a huge reason why i got one and continue to use it. if a DX camera ever gets to the point where it can match that, i will likely be one of the first in line for one.</p>

<p>just for comparison's sake, here's an ISO 6400 shot (at +1 EV and 2.8) with the D3s/70-200VRII combo. notice how colorfast the blacks are.</p><div></div>

<p>Noreen, although I believe you are having some fun, I do in fact have the D7200 mounted on my 600mm lens and plan to get some shots of birds over the next week weather permitting. Not sure I will be shooting at ISO 6400 though. :)</p>

<p>Eric, great shot! I agree about the D3s and use one for all of my high school sports photography. The lighting at most of those stadiums are not up to NFL lighting standards by any stretch. When the D4 came out I decided to just keep my D3s for two reasons. First I just didn't see enough improvement in the low light shots to warrant it, and second I didn't want to have to add a third type of memory card to my bag.</p>

<p>Okay Noreen, so the shot below is not in shade but it was a very overcast day and it was shot at ISO 400 and not 6400 using the D7200. It is also cropped slightly. Still pretty good details I think.</p><div></div>

<p>Well, hello, Mr. Duck!</p>

<p>I am not the only one having fun, Barry--though you have the advantage of having fun with the D7200. I hope weather permits, indeed! :) Thank you for posting these. I've been hoping to see sample images of the sort that Nikon has not (to my knowledge) provided thus far to compare with my own results from the D7100.</p>

<p>What I am seeing so far tempts me. Not in the next few months, perhaps, but soon enough.</p>

<p>Barry, yeah the D3s has actually held its own a generation and a half later. im starting to want more resolution, but i dont want to give up any performance metrics. if i dont specifically need low-light performance, though, DX is fine. i have a question for you, though: is the d7200's AF significantly better than the d7100?</p>

<p>I haven't tried the focus in low light yet vs the D7100, but it does seem to focus a little quicker than the D7100. That is just subjective though on my part since I don't have any way to measure it.</p>

<p>For what it's worth, I'd expect an appreciable autofocus improvement between the D7100 and D7200: as far as I know, the 7100 is of the D800 generation, and one reason I replaced my D800 is not trusting the autofocus. The D7200 should gain from the advances made for the D4s/D810 and then D750. I've not used a D750, but my D810 got shots of people dancing in low light at a wedding last Saturday which I would not have trusted my D800 to achieve. It's not magic - I'm sure the hardware isn't hugely different - but it's not nothing.</p>

<p>My guess is that when you look at the RAWs, there will be very little difference between them. Even with these images, to my eye, the D7100 looks better with better DR and slightly more details. The D7200 just suppresses the noise more at the expense of DR and detail, although these compromises are small. I would not buy D7200 with the expectation that its high ISO performance is better than the D7100. </p>

<p>I appreciate Barry's effort to post some many image samples. As I mentioned earlier, it is a bit surprising that the D7200 shows so much high-ISO improvement over the D7100 in Barry's images. However, I would wait for more test samples from other people to see whether they also confirm Barry's findings. Different lighting situations can make a difference.</p>

<p>Personally, I am not too concerned about the D7200 high-ISO results. If I want high ISO, I use FX. More sensor area is going to collect more light and yield better results at high ISO. That is simple physics. However, if Nikon manages to further improve high ISO results on DX, it is also going to show up in future FX bodies.</p>

<p>It would be very interesting to see the D7000 results included along with the 7100 and 7200, if for no other reason that to see the improvement with each newer successor. Maybe with no crop added.</p>

I would interested in seeing a low light comparison between the D7100, D7200, and the D750. Yes, I know that would be comparing

cropped and full frame, but I'd like to see just how close the D7200 is getting to FF in that respect.

<p> The reason I keep buying DX SLRs is to use for sports and wildlife, for me they are specifically for birding. A true comparison for me would be a D7X00 versus the D750, but with the D750 using a 1.4x multiplier, it would need that to keep up. That would get me almost as close but of course that's halving the light at the D750 sensor. Considering the D750 sensor is 2.4 times bigger, it should still show some small advantage, about 1.2x.<br>

If there was a full frame Nikon with a similar pixel pitch, 57 Mpixels, I'd go for that.<br>

By the way the DxO ISO rating for the D750 (with a sensor 2.4 times the size of a DX) is 2.35 times higher than the D7100, makes sense right?<br>

Some people claim the D7XXX cameras are small compared a professional model, I don't want a large heave camera dangling off the back of my lens. I'm usually holding one hand on a large heavy lens, the other hand is just spinning dials and snapping the shutter.</p>

 

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<p>By the way the DxO ISO rating for the D750 (with a sensor 2.4 times the size of a DX) is 2.35 times higher than the D7100, makes sense right?</p>

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<p>and what does this metric tell you, exactly? does it tell you the highest ISO you can shoot a d7100 at before noise become unacceptable? does it tell you how noisy each camera is at base ISO? does it measure comparative performance across the ISO range? does it take into account variable such as shutter speed and aperture which affect the final exposure? no, it doesn't. it merely assigns a numeric value to one shooting parameter, and takes the best recorded number as an example of overall performance. what it doesnt do is give you a useful way of evaluating ISO in incremental steps, which is how ISO tends to be used. but if i know that both cameras will give me similar results across a given range, and, more importantly, at what point the larger sensor becomes advantageous, i might make a more informed decision about what im buying or shooting. That's the problem with quoting statistics: they dont always give you enough context, in and of themselves. A lot of times when i see DXOmark ratings, i have questions about how their tests were conducted and what exactly are the real-world implications of those tests.</p>

<p>Regarding the 7100/7200 differences, where can the lower Nikon tier (the D5300 and the new D5500), be expected place in relation to the D7100 and D7200?</p>

<p>Eric, <br>

Sorry I quoted a single test point (not a statistic, that's for politicians and sales), but not sorry you commented. In the DxO measurement area there are sets of full SNR plots for 9 or 10 different ISO values. As it turns out, the D750 is roughly a bit over 3 db most samples for each location on each of the 9 graphs. 3db would be 2x, a bit over 3db is somewhat over 2x. You correct, it tells me nothing about how this holds at different shutter speeds but is does tell me that the D750 will give me better noise performance at any given ISO. I am willing to believe that a greater than 2X value in DxO's test results have noticeable results in the real world. Since they don't fully disclose their test setup and testing procedure, you should of course remain skeptical.<br>

Personally, I am willing to trade a higher resolution shot for some ISO. This causes me to carry a lens with a larger aperture or settling for a slower shutter speed; I usually carry a monopod to help the slower shutter If quality telephoto lenses were made for crop sensor cameras, they could be faster at the same size and weight, then there would be much less reason to even consider a full frame.<br>

Tony D</p>

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<p>is does tell me that the D750 will give me better noise performance at any given ISO.</p>

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<p> <br>

i could have told you that, and i dont own either camera! i dont think anyone is expecting a d7100 to top or even match a d750. my point was that sometimes scientific tests dont always translate well to real-world experiences. not suggesting DXO is wrong, just that in practical use, the real question is, how far can i push a d7100/d7200 in terms of ISO in low-light situations? if 3200 is the upper limit, for certain applications (cough shooting live music cough) that's going to force me to shoot at 2.8 with zooms or switch to faster primes.<br>

<br>

the DXO test wont tell me, however the impacts of aperture + high ISO with certain lenses, you're limited to their test lens. better to have data than not have it but its about how you apply what the data tells you.<br>

<br>

i shoot a lot of live music, but i rarely shoot low-light stuff with a DX camera. so, it's not that i dont believe in FX's superiority, more like, i want to know exactly how close can i come to FX performance with an APS-C body? so to me, its less about the size of the differential and more about how usable the d7100 is at every sequential step on the ISO ladder. i would also add that sharpness at high ISO makes a difference, so that's where shutter and lens selection comes in. cheers!</p>

<p>In Bill Claff's measurements of Photographic Dynamic Range (a different limit is used than by DXOMark, PDR is a more realistic measure of DR for imaging purposes)</p>

<p>http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70/Charts/PDR.htm</p>

<p>there are data for the D5300, D5500, D7100 and D7200 as well as other cameras; select the ones to compare on the right. These four 24MP DX cameras are all fairly close to each other and the difference between D7100 and D7200 is very slight; basically it seems the base ISO dynamic range is slightly better in the new model, and more linear (while the D7100 being a bit ahead at the highest ISO). Bill Claff notes in a dpreview discussion thread that the banding experienced in D7100 shadows is to practical purposes eliminated in the D7200. Hopefully other users will provide more data. I think the general response to the D7200 has been initially somewhat negative on discussion forums but actual user comments (once the camera became available) that I've read have been very positive.</p>

 

<p>So if I am reading Bill Claff's graph correctly, the D600 outperforms the D810 in PDR. Seriously?</p>

The D810 does not quite have the DR of the D800(E) at equal ISO settings, either, but it does have ISO 64 that does make it "catch up". My guess is that this is the downside of the electronic shutter. Additional features on the chip lead to compromises. Another difference is that the D810's shadow data is less cooked than that of the D800(E) where the darkest shadows are clipped. However these differences are in the real world very small. Other sites such as DXOMark also report the reduced DR at equal ISO for the D810.