Let me relate: I have just shot a proof of concept ad campaign for a national tequila brand which was detailed and clean enough it made everyone involved go with those images shot on D300 with 50mm f1.8 lens at L1.0 (100 ISO equiv.). This instead of final reshoot (which was planned with a Hasselblad, but then canceled based on how good the D300 images came out IN PRACTICAL TERMS). I am not saying these two cameras are in any way interchangeable of course, rather that your statement is missing the mark by a very long chalk (or “long lens”, to be topical), even if scientifically substantiable in many other ways.

I will admit it all came our cleaner than I expected too. Look for magazine ads and billboards near you soon.

Zooming in anywhere on the D300 image was just delightful for what it was, and moreover: PRACTICALLY acceptable, and, I have compared to D80 in my hands, me shooting (owned one for 18 mo.), and at low ISO too. What I notice are not the fine measurements of noise, but how the picture looks. My impression is cleaner from D300 over D80, D200, Xti, D5 even.

Get camera and take great pics. Enjoy life. That’s the way to measure.

Oh, I thought I’d share one of the images here: http://www.nykfry.com/luna/bottleandglass.jpg Even though, yes, a lowly jpeg I think it will show detail enough to sway the opinion back to a more measured median, rather than the rash “no point at all” zone. Noise floor is not the only factor in image quality, but please you be the judge even of that even in the image. Indeed, the whole NR switchability is an interesting point. I turn mine off anyway, because it affects the FINE details negatively. I assume Nikon don’t impose NR at lower ISOs for actual clarity and where it is PRACTICALLY not necessary. Surely otherwise it would be like driving around with one’s safety airbag deployed? You may wish to do this, of course.

Interestingly, this image was eventually rejected for the campaign because it was TOO CLEAN. The client chose more grainy, and moody images from another series shot, again on on D300, which I took as an alternate and added grain later in PS.

In closing. Bear in mind another very impotant factor. The D300 is also capable of this performance at up to 6 fps for $1700, or just under $2000 for 8 fps (with battery pack/grip) at full 12MP res. You could add to that the humble $120 50mm f1.8 lens if you didn’t already have one. How do you like them apples?

To someone viewing at 100% on a well-corrected monitor, or in print, there is much more noise visible at base ISO in the D300 images. It is why , in the A700, Sony use in-camera NR. Nikon D300 images have one overriding problem for those who habitually use RAW to get the best quality.

As Tom Hogan pointed out on a Dpreview posting. Nikon D300 lacks any admitted or settable noise reduction at all for every image made below 800 ISO. Dave Etchell’s even queried, in his Imaging Resource review, whether shooting at less than 800 was worth it because of this!!

This means that to achieve a detailed image noise reduction MUST be INDIVIDUALLY applied to each image made at 100, 200, 320, 400, 500, 640 etc ISOs!!!

You CANNOT get the best result using batch processing, as even the slightest subject/exposure variation greatly affects the amount of noise in the image, so what “works” in one wont do in a neighbouring file in all probability.

Now, that said, it has to be admitted that WITHOUT noise reduction ALL files have noise that is visible in an average exposure, not the case withy the D200.

Users must therefore waste valuable time (your life is time- not money!) trying to eradicate noise WITHOUT eradicating detail.

Well, in an average scene, perfectly exposed, this is, at the moment, using NX, Bibble, Lightroom Elements and CS3 with the plug-in, IMPOSSIBLE.

Once fine detail is smaller than the biggest noise clumps, what do you do? For example, well-lit fine detailed textured cloth in an image that has visible graduated large areas of tone on walls and shelves that gets daker as you move away from the light source.

Even at 200 the noise floor rapidly rises IN PRACTICE such that midtone and shadow noise exceeds in intensity and dimension, the size of the fine details mentioned.

Reducing the noise a bit allows the details to remain, but progressively more reduction moves the blurred smeared areas NR brings with it more and more into the picture, and the fine detail and texture of the shot is the first to go ! Shadow noise can still be present and very visible, but all the great detail the sensor can record has gone, and that is that.

This is WHY Nikon didnt apply ANY in-camera NR at low isos.

What does this say to the user. It says, put up and shut up, or buy another camera, because, at the moment, there’s nothing we can do about it unless, of course you want a D3.

At high ISOs its a great machine, but at 200 iso and under the D2X, D2Xs, D200, D80, and D40x and D40 ALL have lower noise levels , not as instruments measure them, but as our eyes see them.

As Dave Etchells hinted no point at less than 800 iso then! Which means that all fine detail is lost. There is just a limit to what this size sensor can do for Nikon and Sony at the present time…

The way I see it, today, the most important aspect of a new camera it the math of its algorithms.

Thanks.