Which Nikon DX body has the very best base ASA image quality???

[dave_weber1]

I am nature photographer who needs a new camera body. My current body is only six megapixels. I can not afford a

full frame body. My style is 100% natural light, and slow and deliberate shooting. High ASA capabilities are not very

important to me. Strictly from an image quality standpoint at the camera's base ASA, would you recommend I

purchase a D2X, D2Xs, D200, D300 or wait a few weeks for that new body to come out?

[Matt Laur]

D300, or wait. Base ISO or not, it's superior to the others in lots of important ways.

[frank_skomial]

On the dynamic range alone, there was some graphs presented showing D50 superior over other Nikon DX cameras.

[frank_skomial]

That would be explainable since in the same sensor s1ze DX as D300 that holds 12 MP there are only 6 MP in D50, thus having much larger size of individual pixel, contributing to lower noise and extended dynamic range.

[Two23]

Give it a month and see if the new Nikon D90 materializes. Should have same sensor and many other components as D300 for 2/3 the price. You don't need fast frames per second. Put the ~$500 you save towards a first class ballhead (AcraTech, BH-55, etc.) and a high quality tripod. You will see a difference in the quality of your shots with that versus spending the $500 on a "bigger" camera. Guarantee it. Not sure "base ISO" means anything as far as image quality. Too many other factors such as lens quality, tripod solidity, etc. that are more important in the real world.

 

 

Kent in SD

[johnw63]

Kent,

 

You did catch this part, right ?

 

"I am nature photographer who needs a new camera body."

 

I'd bet he already HAS the tripod and associated gear. He just wants the best quality he can afford to shoot

things that don't move, so high fps, high ISO ,or quick AF, etc are not important.

 

I think I read somewhere at Thom Hogan's site, that the D200 had one more stop over the D300 before so chromatic

problems would appear. Something like f13 instead of f11. If he shoots stopped down in that range, the D200

might be better for him. Maybe.

[richard_driscoll]

I'm pretty sure that Thom Hogan was referring to diffraction effects. Because the D300 has a higher resolution

sensor than the D200 it means that diffraction effects start to become significant at a wider aperture. At wider

apertures I'd expect the D300 to have higher resolution than the D200 but that the advantage would get less at

smaller apertures. AFAIK there is no evidence that the D200 resolution is better at any aperture.

[elliot1]

"... only six megapixels..."

 

Megapixels do not determine IQ. FWIW, a 6mp file upsized to 12mp will have virtually the same IQ as a 12mp file.

 

There is virtually no difference in image quality in any of the Nikon DSLR cameras released in the past few years. A D40 gives as good image quality as a D3 in good light using low ISO.

 

Your best choice in my opinion "Strictly from an image quality standpoint": Canon 5D and an L series lens.

 

Which body are you using now?

[walterh]

"There is virtually no difference in image quality in any of the Nikon DSLR cameras released in the past few

years. A D40 gives as good image quality as a D3 in good light using low ISO. "

 

How many years are "few years"? Does the D1 qualify under your claim to give the same images as the D3?

 

With all due respect I tend to disagree. Using good lenses the D3 beats the D40 hands down ^^. This even applies

to situations where additional features and ergonomics etc. are not considered - something you probably imply by

your rather general statement. This may be important to realize by the casual reader. If I remember correctly I

see few D40 at TV broadcast from the olympic games. There must be some reason that the D3 is rather popular there

today. Could it be that there was SOME

progress in the last few years?

 

And by the way more megapixel give an advantage if used properly for large print sizes or crops, ESPECIALLY at

lower ISO and good light. I would think this is rather trivial.

[frank]

Used with a sturdy tripod and solid ballhead at lower ISO even an "old" D80 or the newer D60 is an excellent choice. Using the more rugged D200 is more fun but you won't get better IQ.

[elliot1]

Walter, I consider the 'last few years' to be anything released since the D70. I have no experience with any Nikon DSLR cameras prior to the D70.

 

While you would expect the D3 with its 12+mp and FX sensor to be visibly superior to a lowly 6mp D40, at low ISO with good light, there is really no practical difference. I personally tested my D40 against the D3 I owned briefly using the same lens on both (a brand new 24-70mm) and the results were virtually identical.

 

Here is a link to some of the test shots and some crops. Each group of 3 shots has the 5D on the left, D3 in the middle and D40 on the right.

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=789917

 

Walter, if you have different results when you tested the two cameras, please post them.

 

I am not disputing the advantages of the D3. It is a far, far superior camera to just about anything available (as of today). But under the conditions the OP stated, IQ at base ISO and for landscape work, I stand by my statements.

 

And while I agree that more is better when it comes to megapixels, it takes significantly more to get better - 12 is only a bit better than 6. Unless you are making huge posters, you won't see any difference in the prints from normal viewing distance.

[dave_weber1]

Elliot, I found your shoot out photos to be very interesting. I currently am shooting two Fuji S3s. I have a large format printer and regularly make 24 inch by 36 inch prints. I up-size the S3 image files using a software called "Genuine Fractals". This software does a good job, but I have to believe that my large prints would look even better with less computer upsizing if I were to double the mega pixels of my camera. Also, I only shoot RAW on a good tripod etc...

[elliot1]

Dave, you are somewhat correct. More 'native' resolution is obviously better - there is no question about this. But a doubling of the megapixels, from 6 to 12, for example, only gives a 25% increase in resolution. Not that 25% isn't significant, but since you can upsize a file easily by 15%, the increase in resolution/image quality is minimal, and truly only visible when printing posters or pixel peeping. And even when printing posters, you would not see any difference from normal viewing distances.

 

I recently printed a 30 x 40 poster at a lab from a D300 JPG Basic file and it looked as good as the 13 x 19 inkjet print I made of it. Aside from cropping it a bit, all I did was upsize it in Photoshop.

[tachion]

Eliot,

 

Sorry to be so critical, but posting a comparison like this asks for a response. I am surprised by your comparison shots for several reasons:

 

1) Small web pictures are nearly useless for comparing image quality of high end cameras, since no details are really visible. So you show a test that would not show any differences between a 12 megapixel or a 1 megapixel camera, since your photos are too small.

 

2) Given #1, I am really surprised you still state "Canon 5D with L lens" as a top recommendation. You have visible dust on the top right corner. The 5D seems to have less shadow detail. On the photo of the palm tree and water there is a lens or sensor artifact (rainbow) on the grass area. Some of the shots where the D3 performs poorly look like photographer rather than camera issues.

 

So why is this comparison relevant?

[ellis_vener_photography]

D200 at ISO 200<div></div>

[ellis_vener_photography]

D300 @ iso 100<div></div>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Sorry about that I choose the wrong D200 files. The one used for my first post were actually shot with the 17-55mm f/2,8G not the 24-70mm f/2.8G Nikkor.

[ellis_vener_photography]

D3 @ ISO200, 24-70mm f/2.8G AF-S at 70mm and f/16<div></div>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark 2 @ iso 100, Canon EF 85mm f/2 @ f/11<div></div>

[michael_bradtke]

Ellis

 

I have to wonder why you used a shot from the D300 using the Low-1 setting instead of its native base ISO of 200?

[studor13]

Dave, unless a D400 comes out in the next few weeks I think it is a no brainer that the D300 is the best Nikon DX

camera.

 

I went from a D70 to the D300, and the latter is clearly better at base ISO.

 

And FWIW, I also contemplated the 5D. In the end I stayed with Nikon since I have a lot of glass invested.

 

Whatever anyone claims about the superior image quality that the 5D may have, I can assure you that great light

will out trump every other factor.

 

Oh, did I mention the AF on the D300? I have the 18-70mm DX lens that has a broken AF motor. The D70 hardly

drives it but the D300 still locks on in near darkness. I won't even mention how good the metering is -

especially with those fabulous MF lenses.<div></div>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Canon EOS 1Dmk3 + 85mm f/2 @ f/11<div></div>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Nikon D300 @ ISO 200 , 24-70mm f/2.8G AF-S Nikkor @ 70mm f/16<div></div>

[elliot1]

Tachion,

 

The image quality and resolution question can and will be debated forever. And results are purely subjective most of the time. Having been in the fortunate position and having and testing the various cameras in question and using all of them on a regular basis, I am sharing my own experiences.

 

The bottom line from my own experiences and from many others who have posted similar results is that at base ISO, there really is no difference in IQ between modern DSLR cameras and I will even expand that statement to include most P&S cameras (with a good lens). Keep in mind that IQ has nothing to do with camera features.

 

A few weeks ago my familay visited the Valley of Fire State Park near Las Vegas. I was shooting with my 5D. On the trip, my wife found an inexpensive Canon P&S camera (probably a $200 camera). She took some shots. Overall, they looked pretty much the same as mine. There was one shot in particular that we took that was of the same subject matter. Color and clarity wise, the shots look pretty much the same, and you could not pick one out over the other as being far superior.

 

The bottom line, again, referring to the OP is that in my opinion, all modern digital cameras will produce equivalent results (and with PP can be made to look pretty much identical). And that the differences, in general, are not visible unless pixel peeping.

 

Perhaps there is a 5D user out there who also owns Nikon that will disagree with my 5D comments. I have been on Photo.net for years and I have yet to read one instance of this though.

[ellis_vener_photography]

All of these images were shot in the same lighting conditions ( indirect daylight) from the same distance. Each one was shot as either a NEF (Nikon) or .cr2 (Canon) raw file and all photos were processed the same way in Lightroom 2.0:

 

A custom white balance was made for each frame, using the third lightest gray square, to eliminate color bias. All photos had Lr 2.0 capture sharpening, set to Sharpen Landscapes, and Clarity set to 10. No further manipulation was done beyond Lightoom's default settings. Each full size original was then exported as a full size 100% (meaning minimal) compression) JPEG , using sRGB as the color space. During Export Lr 2.0 was set to apply output sharpening for on screen viewing for cropping,resizing, compositing, and captioning in Photoshop CS3. The cropped views are 700 pixels x 700 pixels and represent a 100% view of the processed photos. The composites were saved as level 10 JPEGS.