Hi,
Thanks for the test, but...
To me this way of testing has a lot of issues.
1) Having a live subject it is very hard to compare between images
2) A lot of discussion about color rendition but how much of that is just a white balance issue? Why not shoot a Whibal or Color Checker Passport.
3) Lot of discussion about sharpening, but D300s image is very soft, is it incorrectly focused or is "uprezzed"?
4) How we do now that proper focus has been achieved?
5) If we discuss sharpening I'd suggest that as much sharpening is done in ACR as possible as capture sharpening in ACR is quite advanced and "unsharp mask" is quite crude.
6) I cannot see the banding in the Nikon samples? Can anyone else?
7) In a sense I don't understand the discussion related to the crop factor. You would choose lenses for the camera not the other way around. Some normal zooms like the 16-85 Nikkor have a better range than a 24-70 on full frame, having one lens instead of two can be nice, of course.
I'm most thankful for all published tests, and my opinion on this test may be a bit harsh, but the idea is that this would be a professional review site so I guess that they would take some criticism.
Best regards
Erik
Thanks Erik, and yes, I have no problem taking criticism...
I think it's important to point out that this is not intended as a complete "review" in any sense... it's a different slant on evaluating the cameras, and this along with all the other info out there, including our own lab testing, should give you a better picture. Of the cameras. Ouch. Too early in the AM for bad puns...
Yes, certainly a live subject makes comparison difficult- see my comments earlier- I think the thing to do next time would be to cut the cameras down to a smaller group- but we had them all available, it was hard to hold back.
The WB was set to daylight on all the cameras. The point was to see what they do, at this default, by themselves... and how different processors handle that setting. See above, again, for my take on the processing issues involved, and the idea of processing for best effect etc... same comments on the sharpening. However, processing all the files from all the cameras, I did find it was just difficult, if not impossible, to get them all to look 100% identical (and I do know my way around ACR and all...) It's not just WB, it's the mapping of the colors around that WB, too. All of them.
As far as the focus goes, no, you really have no way to check my focus- I guess you gotta just trust me. But, again, we do intensive resolution tests using LensAlign in the other review areas on the site.
Don't know what to say on the banding, maybe a web/screen issue, but it's definitely there...
On the lens factor, I really don't understand the comments here, I maybe need another cuppa and to reread them. Maybe I didn't state it well in the story, but here's what actually happened. I shot the model with the smaller chips, got a nice tele effect that I liked. When I switched to the bigger chip, I couldn't get that effect without switching lenses. If I'd switched lenses, I'd have had a slower lens, it would have been bigger, like that.
In the case of the shoot, it was more important to keep the same lens, since we wanted to compare resolution to some degree, you know what I mean... The smaller, faster lens gave me the visual effect I wanted. Same thing you get when shooting 35mm/120/4x5 film. To the extreme, shooting a 200mm lens with 4x5 film doesn't give you that great tele of 35mm with 200, and to move to the same effect with the larger format, you're sure not going get f4.
Your comment: "You would choose lenses for the camera not the other way around.", actually, that's the point. If you like shooting short tele, then you may want to consider choosing the camera with the smaller sensor as a start.
It's really a simple point... if you're looking for a short tele effect, (or macro), you get closer out of the gate with the smaller chip.
Thanks again, to all, for the discussion. It's a great help.
