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Nikon D4, D3 (D700), D800, D7000, D1 and Canon 5D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III and Fuji X-Pro 1 and X100 High ISO Comparison
© 2012 KenRockwell.com. All rights reserved.
Intro Images Analysis Teknik Recommendations
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May 2012 Nikon Reviews Canon LEICA Fuji More
See also:
2012 DSLR Comparison
Canon 1D X vs 5D Mark III High ISO and Resolution Comparison & Sample Images.
The D700
The D700 is the same as the D3. To compare the D700, look at the D3.
Introduction top
Intro Images Analysis Teknik Recommendations
Let's compare the technical performance of the Nikon D4, D800, D3 (same sensor and performance as the D700), D7000 and Canon 5D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III and Fuji X-Pro1 and X100. Since I had an extra spot open in the page design, I threw in the world's first practical DSLR, the Nikon D1, just for fun.
This will show us both the high-ISO performance, as well as the relative definition, resolution, clarity and image cleanliness of each camera.
On most computer monitors at 100 DPI, these are small sections from what would be gallery-sized 74 x 49" (4 x 6 feet, or 190 x 125 cm) prints, if printed in their entirety. At smaller sizes, these differences would be less obvious.
These are highly enlarged crops from same-size prints of the same subject shot from the same place with the same angle-of view, except for the X100, whose fixed lens saw a wider view. These are all cropped the same from each image from the same huge-sized prints, which lets us compare relative resolution as well. These are all big enough so that we can see the resolution advantage of the D800; showing smaller images would hide the D800's resolution, while showing them this big hides nothing.
Because these are all shown at a large enough size to see all of the highest-resolution camera's sharpness, obviously the lower-resolution cameras like the Nikon D4 will appear softer. They are not out-of-focus; they simply have less resolution which leads to less sharpness. This test is intended to show this as well.
You may click any image to get to that camera's detailed review. |
ISO 200 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 400 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 800 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 1,600 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 3,200 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 6,400 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 12,800 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 25,600 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 51,200 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 102,400 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
ISO 204,800 200 400 800 1,600 3,200 6,400 12,800 25,600 51,200 102,400 204,800 top
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Analysis top
Intro Images Analysis Teknik Recommendations
I expected the D800 to win, and it does in spades. At low ISOs it clearly has the highest resolution, and at high ISOs, it has the same noise, and often more sharpness.
The ancient Nikon D1 is hideous, as expected.
The Canon 5D looks fine; the only reason it's at the bottom is because I tried to keep the more current cameras at the top.
The Fuji X-Pro1 looks great, as clean as the D4 and usually sharper. The X-Pro1 is at the bottom of the page just because other cameras needed to go higher, as I suspect more people are curious about them.
Now we know why stupid-high ISOs are called "stupid." The D4 doesn't go to ISO 204,800, that was put in only to help sell cameras. The other cameras would look the same at that ISO, but they don't bother to push it that far, so they don't look as bad.
The D1 looks horrible by comparison to others at the same ISO, but look at the D1 at its highest ISO compared to the D4 at its highest ISO. The D1 looks worlds better! Nikon pushes the ISO so far on the D4 to sell more, not because the quality justifies it. How about that!
Any designer can push any camera to any ISO. The question is how bad will you accept? The D4 at ISO 204,800 looks far worse than any other camera here. The D4 doesn't have a magic sensor, it just has a marketing department behind it that knew pushing it that hard would sell more cameras — even though we all know the D800 is even better at any given ISO.
You always can push any of these cameras to any ISO in Photoshop.
ISO has nothing to do with performance most of the time. If you're shooting in the dark at high ISO with any of these cameras, your photos will be awful. If you want better pictures, add some light!
Teknik top
Intro Images Analysis Teknik Recommendations
These images are shown at the same size, shot from the same place, with lenses of equal angle-of-view, with the same manual exposure at f/5.6. The only setting that varied with ISO was the manual shutter speed.
All were shot in the default color, contrast and sharpening modes, largest resolution, and the lowest JPG setting. I set the D1 to NORMAL. JPG.
FX Nikons were shot with the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 G. DX Nikons were shot with the 35mm f/1.8 DX. Canons were shot with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. The Fuji X-Pro1 was shot with the XR 35mm f/1.4 ASPH, and the X100 with its fixed 23mm f/2 ASPH.
I shot, but didn't bother to show the ISO 100 images from the cameras that do ISO 100.
The D800 images are shown at 100%, while the other cameras were upsampled to the same size in Photoshop CS5 (bicubic) to ensure a fair comparison.
All cameras were shot at their Daylight white balance settings. Nikons were set to Auto or Medium Adaptive Dynamic Range, Canons were set to Automatic Lighting Optimizer AUTO.
Any exposure differences you see among the cameras are variations from the correct ISOs, or differences in calibration between the lenses. Some cameras cheat and don't quite shoot at the actual ISOs at the faster settings, to keep down the noise.
To show each camera fairly, I used actual images directly from each camera. If I had shot raw data instead, I would have needed to process each file with software to turn that data into a visible image, which also would have shown differences in each piece of software's interpretation as well as differences between cameras. Unknown to most casual users is that even if I used the same software, say Adobe Camera Raw, it processes files from different cameras differently. By using real JPGs, we can see exactly what each camera is doing. Feel free to run your own experiments with raw data if you prefer. Sharper renditions will enhance detail, but exaggerate noise, and vice versa. Ditto for differences in letting Adobe or whoever do the noise reduction instead of the cameras themselves in JPG. If you want these results in raw data, shoot it yourself and please share with us the results as I do.
Recommendations top
Intro Images Analysis Teknik Recommendations
At normal print sizes, all these cameras can make swell photos, especially at low ISOs. The enlargements here are what you'd see with a 7-foot (2 meter) wide print seen at the same distance as your computer screen.
All cameras of the same vintage are about as clean as each other at the same ISO. Marketing departments don't want you to know this, but all the cameras are about the same each year if you set up a test with all the variables removed.
The higher-resolution cameras look better because they have more resolution at lower ISOs. At higher ISOs, the cameras' noise-reduction systems are automatically reducing the effective resolutions as they try to wipe-over the noise. Look at the D4 at ISO 204,800; it's down to about 480x640 resolution!
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