NO! It applies to base ISO as well, although you wouldn't mind the difference there!
Ah! Slightly different from your remark in your previous post which was:
If you print a large size print from my D7000 and then print THE SAME SIZE from my D700, you will find that the FF is CONSIDERABLY BETTER. Interestingly, this is not so evident if you do the comparison on a monitor,
Nevertheless, whilst I would NOT think it odd that there would be very minor and insignificant differences between the D700 and D7k at base ISO, I do find it odd that such insignificant differences would be more apparent on a print than on the monitor.
My experience is the opposite. I find that subtle differences which are apparent on the monitor, such as slightly greater noise in a particular part of the tonal range than the other image exhibits, tend to get lost in the conversion to print. I presume this is because the degree of enlargement possible on the monitor allows one to pixel peep in great clarity every defect however minor.
As regards some of your other points, you appear to be under a few misapprehensions. (I hope you don't mind my saying that.
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DXO measures sensors converted with their own RAW converter, not with the latest NX2.(...)
This is simply not true. However, it is true that DXO produce their own RAW converter, presumably based upon the measurements they make from the RAW data from various sensors.
Here's what DXO have to say on the issue.
We deliberately chose to perform all DxOMark measurements on RAW images in order to evaluate the intrinsic image quality of lenses and camera sensors.......
Only RAW-based measurements report on the image quality of the photographic hardware irrespective of the RAW converter. Evaluating RAW converters is a significant task in itself that we currently do not address on DxOMark.
In other words, in case there is still confusion, the measurements are based on the RAW
data. When the RAW data is converted to a viewable image, it is no longer RAW.
The method of comparing FF and APS-c performance by equalizing DOF is ridiculous, photographers don't do that to take a picture! They put their cameras to perform at their best, if for instance you shoot a landscape with a 16mm on APS-c and you need infinity in focus and 1/125 to freeze leafs from blur and the rest is f5.6 at 100ISO, a photographer doesn't use his FF with the equivalent 24mm at f11 because at 1/30 the leaves will blur nor he drives the lens towards diffraction at f11, neither he pushes ISO at 400 on daylight!!! He simply uses the same values (1/125, ISO100, f5.6) and refocuses his lens to include infinity in the frame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not this photographer, but each to his own. Shutter speed, DoF, and ISO are parameters I'm frequently juggling to get the best effect.
The differences in the DoF between FF and the cropped format, at any specific F/stop and shutter speed, can be seen as either an advantage or disadvantage between the two formats.
At shallow DoFs, the larger format has the resolution advantage because the lens at the 'less narrow' aperture is likely to be sharper. (For example, F4 with FF compared with F2.5 with the cropped format.)
However, when a large or extensive DoF is desired, the larger format tends to lose that resolution advantage because we may be comparing lens resolution at F5.6 with F9, or F8 with F12 etc. But notice I wrote
tends. There are other factors which affect resolution.
I have find the D700 to be about half a stop better than the D7k in highlight DR (very important) and about a stop better in shadows (not so important, but welcome) for my noise standards in the shadows, both of them are more than a stop behind the Fuji S5pro in the highlights (the later with Hyper Utility and nothing else as a converter of course), in fact the fuji is the only DSLR that can compete (not beat) with a MF-DB in DR.
Sorry! This doesn't make sense to me at all. Both the D7k and the Pentax K5 will outperform many MFDBs in Dynamic Range, but not in terms of noise at 18% grey.
For example, the Nikon D7k has almost one stop greater DR than the P65+ (0.9 EV to be exact). However (and it's a big 'however'), at 18% grey, roughly the luminosity of skin tones, the P65+ has a very significant 7.9dB better SNR, and that would definitely be very noticeable on screen and print.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'highlight dynamic range', but I'm assuming you are referring to SNR in the highlights.
In the attached image from DXOMark you will see the full SNR plots for the D700 and D7k, covering the entire tonal range from highlights to deepest shadows.
At base ISO you should observe that the D700 has a marginal advantage in SNR in parts of the midtones. At 10% grey it's approximately 1.5dB better than the D7k (bearing in mind that 10% grey is a lot lighter than you might think because this is a log scale.)
However, I should add, in case there is some confusion about the significance of 1.5dB in SNR, this could be equivalent to about half an f/stop or EV in the midtones, but not in the highlights, nor in the shadows where such differences would go unnoticed, as I understand. But correct me if I'm wrong.