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05/08/2011 03:24:56 PM · #1 |
I just did some controlled noise tests of my D90 versus my D7000. The D7000 did not perform better. In fact, though they have different resolutions, I'd say it performed slightly worse.
I did an earlier test comparing the D80, D90, and D7000. The D90 was pretty clearly superior to the D80, as expected. But why didn't the D7000 perform better? Did I do something wrong? Did they give me the wrong sensor?
Don't get me wrong...the D7000 peforms very well when you are not pixel peeping like this. But I just felt I was getting more noise than I expected, so I ran this test.
Test:
I used the same lens on both cameras. The shots were taken minutes apart, on a cloudy day, with consistent light.
I was set to spot meter, aperture priority, and as you can see the exposures are the same.
Shot RAW.
Note, I selected an area at the bottom center of the shot for comparison. It was not the focus point...but I thought it was the best area of comparison for the size we'd be showing.
Imported into Lightroom, no settings changes (default LR settings, no noise reduction, sharpening was at 25 by default). Then I compared using the compare function pair by pair, and did a screen capture to produce the results set. I captured at both 100 and 200%, the latter to emphasize any noise.
The results gallery is here:
//nrshapiro.com/isocompare
Does anyone else have both a D90 and D7000? I'd like to see a similar test. Maybe something is wrong with mine?
Message edited by author 2011-05-08 15:26:38. |
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05/08/2011 03:55:06 PM · #2 |
I did something similar--found that it was difficult to apples to apples since the resolution is so much higher on the d7000. When I compared at normal size, without pixel peeping (cuz the pixels themselves are very different between cameras) I found I got about a stop better performance out of the d7000. So, it seemed about the same as the results on DPreview, when you compare their test shots. The d7000 sensor is more linear than the d90, you have 14 bit data, etc. There are a LOT of advantages that the d7000 offers over the d90, but extreme difference in ISO capability is not one of them. The d80 used ccd sensor, d90 switched to cmos, so there was a fundamental and huge difference with respect to ISO there, but not so much with the d90/d7000.
I compared reviews and test shots online, knew it was not a huge improvement, but approximately a stop. worth. So I struggled with spending twice (or more) money on a d700, waiting for the d800, or getting a D7000 with all the other advantages (and it has some better features than the d700, actually). No regrets. But if the Need is for truly low noise high ISO work, then the leap to the d700/d800 series or better is the way to go.
But I have used the d7000 at ISO 1600-2500 without much degradation of the image at all. By 3200 it becomes more of an issue, depending on the intended usage of the image. I recently shot a runway show where only speedlights were allowed--the look wasn't good, the speedlight wasn't really helping much, so I just went to ambient with auto iso and let the iso range as needed. Got a lot of perfectly acceptable shots using the same level of noise reduction I normally apply anyway.
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05/08/2011 04:44:26 PM · #3 |
As I look at those comparisons, I don't see worse noise. I see much deeper, richer colors in the D7000 which is why it would appear to be worse noise, but I think that in fact the noise level is the same.
That said, I too am surprised it wouldn't be heads and tails better. |
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05/08/2011 05:43:57 PM · #4 |
| I also noticed, when I pixel peeped, that the d7000 had more fine detail as the iso went up. |
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