Nikon is NOT on crack - Initial D3x image quality is AMAZING!

[Ray]

You could also get both bodies. Thinking of yourself as a high end consultant, you should be able to make 1500 US$ per day easily, considering the time you are spending at LL, you should be able to buy a D3 and a D3x within 2 weeks.

Cheers,
Bernard

Yeah! Sure! Happy New Year to you too, Bernard  .

[jing q]

ok it is kind of crazy how many people keep looking at noise levels only.
I'm using the 5D MKII right now and the noise control is great of course but I'm more interested in a few things:
Tonal range
Quality of noise (does it distract or degrade the rendering of the objects in the photograph)
Sharpness of the overall image

I've seen a lot of cameras that have great noise control but which also manage to turn the picture into some sort of softer mush instead of maintaining the integrity of the tones.

That said I noticed my 5DmkII does soften up abit beyond 400ISO and I'm interested in seeing if the D3x has better image quality in that aspect ( I don't care if there's noise or not)

[Ray]

That said I noticed my 5DmkII does soften up abit beyond 400ISO and I'm interested in seeing if the D3x has better image quality in that aspect ( I don't care if there's noise or not)

Michael's review of the big three, A900, 5D2 and D3X demonstrates there's no significant difference between the 5D2 and D3X up to ISO 6400. As I understand, it's the noise and in-camera processes to reduce it that have the effect of softening the image. I would also prefer to use ISO 3200 instead of ISO 1600 if doing so means I can use either a faster shutter speed or a sharper aperture. A sharp but noisy image is often preferrable to an image which is less noisy but also less sharp.

I always remember my first impressions of the tremendous sense of value I considered my 20D was, when I upgraded from the D60. With the D60 I tried to avoid using ISO 400 and would very rarely go above that. However, using the Canon 100-400 IS with the D60, there were many occasions when I needed to either stop up to full aperture or use ISO 800 at F8 to get a sufficiently fast shutter speed for a sharp hand-held shot at 400mm. Neither option produced good results, technically. However, the 20D could produce images at ISO 1600 that are on a par with D60 images at ISO 400. It was like my lens had been upgraded from a soft maximum aperture of F5.6 to a sharp maximum aperture of F4. Such lenses are very expensive. Consider the Canon 400 F4 DO IS, and I'm not at all sure just how sharp that lens is at F4. Is it as sharp at F4 as the 100-400 at F8?

[Panopeeper]

But you already know, Gabor, that I would never be so foolish as to compare different size images when addressing specific issues such as noise and resolution

1. I don't see any foolishnes in comparing the noise characteristics of images of different sizes; I am not an downsizing maniac.

2. I see foolishnes in downsizing presharpened JPEG images (probably after noise reduction) for comparison.

The question still remains, why does the processing that Imaging Resource has applied to images in their 'Comparator', favour the D3X over the D3 when the D3X image is downsized?

Does it? I don't know about that.

[Ray]

I am not an downsizing maniac.

Nor am I. I generally upsample more frequently than I downsample when making prints, but recently I've been doing a lot of downsampling in order to display jpeg images on my plasma TV. I would say that it is very rare that I would display any image at its native resolution, whether on monitor or print, although in practice I frequently hand the resampling job to Qimage.

I see foolishnes in downsizing presharpened JPEG images (probably after noise reduction) for comparison.

Well, that's where you and I differ. It might be regrettable that the only images available for comparison are in jpeg format with an unknown processing and sharpening already applied. However, to refuse to equalise the size of both images on the grounds that they are jpegs, makes no sense at all to me.

You should either discard the images on the grounds they are not suitable at all for comparison (in which case it raises the question as to what IR is doing in providing images on their Comparator which are not suitable for comparison) or you do the best you can, despite the fact that the source images may not be ideal.

Does it? I don't know about that.

Yes. The downsampled D3X image is clearly sharper and more detailed than the D3 image, whether standard bicubic is used or bicubic sharper. The situation might change with different processing of the RAW images, but I suspect the bottom line will be the same, ie. the D3 has no IQ advantage over the D3X in respect of resolution or noise when comparing equal size images.