D300 D700 image quality !!

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tazio

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A few weeks ago i posted a question about getting a D700 to replace my D300 so i can use a PCE lens for architecture , anyway the question i asked was whether i would see an increase in IQ with the D700 ! . Well most of the replys said i would not , but having bought a D700 i did some rough a ready tests .... well with my 50mm prime there is a visable difference in IQ with the D700 much sharper and the image much smoother ( the settings in camera were the same ). the 50mm always looked quite good on the D300 but comparing the two there really is a noticable differnce i was surprised ! Has anyone else compared these two cameras ? or should i expect to see a noticable difference ?.
 
D700 is a marked and noticeable improvement on the D300 images, and that is not meant as a slur on the D300, just an observation as to how much better the D700 is.
 
Why would a 50mm lens look "much sharper" on a D700 than a D300?

The only thing I can think of is that the D300 (12MP on a DX sensor) is more demanding than the D700 (12MP on an FX sensor) in terms of resolution, and the lens struggles to deliver pixel-perfect images at the higher resolution. I bet if you used a higher-quality lens you wouldn't see this difference.
 
A couple of years ago I went from D300 to D700. There was a decent improvement at high ISO and more RAW headroom (you cal pull out shadows more without getting shadow noise). I noticed no improvement in sharpness or anything at low at ISO or when the image was properly exposed.

The comparisons with the same lens and same settings are tricky as you obviously don't get the same frame due to FX vs DX thing.

Back in 2009-2010 it made a sense to upgrade. However, now that we have cameras with next gen sensors like D800/D800E/D610/D3x I would probably get one of these. They have twice as many pixels or more and fantastic dynamic range which is more than welcome for architecture.

Please bear in mind that the 24 PC-E doesn't play very well with the D700 as the large knob is hitting the flash housing. It does work but it is just not that convenient.
 
EspressoJunkie said:
I found that my 50mm 1.4 in particular was a much better lens on the D700.
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This depends on the lens design. The D300 has same amount of pixels on a smaller sensor (therefore it has a higher pixel density). That makes it somewhat more demanding for the lens resolution than the D700. On the other hand the D700 is more demanding for various off-axis aberrations and flatness of the field.

If you have a well corrected older lens design (like many lenses originally designed for film cameras) there is a chance, it'll perform better on the D700. Especially if you look in the centre of the frame. On the other hand many lenses perform better in the corners on smaller sensors as the sharpness rapidly falls in the corner of the frame.

However, if you use a high quality lens you should get much better resolution on the D300 than on the D700 due to higher pixel density on the D300 (unless you are at high ISO).

I had an old lens - Nikkor 35mm f/2D that was awful on my D300 but worked very well on the D700. Once I upgraded to higher res FX body it became awful again.
 
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basically you've experienced what everybody does when they go full frame.
the forums are chock full of people saying things like "well you might see a modest boost in high ISO performance" etc and how "on paper.... blah blah blah.."
but the reality is once you see the difference in the images on your monitor you will be pleasantly surprised :banana:

its a game changer ;)

most of us probably kept some of our crop sensor gear for those times when we need the mythical "reach :rolleyes:" but lets be honest.... do we ever really use it anymore? i know i don't :tumbleweed:
 
Tirpitz said:
basically you've experienced what everybody does when they go full frame.
the forums are chock full of people saying things like "well you might see a modest boost in high ISO performance" etc and how "on paper.... blah blah blah.."
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I'm one of the people who did not see a big jump in IQ when going FF.

I went from a 20D to a 5D and really only saw an improvement at the higher ISO's and when pixel peeping at very high magnification but for screen viewing and reasonably sized prints I find it difficult to tell FF images from APS-C or MFT images and other people I show images to also find it difficult to impossible too. I found the same when I bought into MFT and compared my Panasonic cameras to my 5D and I find the same now with my current cameras, Sony A7 (FF) and Panasonic G1 (MFT.) The Sony does give better image quality but other than at higher ISO's you have to look really closely to see it and really, that's how it should be.

One possible reason is that I shoot raw and process each shot for best effect. If relying on SOOC JPEG's I suppose you're relying more on the camera and its JPEG engine.

YMMV, of course.
 
I went from a d200 to a d700, then back to a d90 then a d700 again. Also when I had the second d700 I also had a d300. Going from the d700 files to the d300 files was a bit like when I went from the d200 to the d700.
I couldn't believe how much better the d700 files were over the d300, especially in low light.
 
I have previously owned both D300 and 2x D700 and the D700 is a huge improvement from the D300 giving you much better IQ and overall sharper to me and the FX just helps a amazing amount with the High ISO and RAW shadows recovery IMHO :)
 
But all this improvement, is it because the D700 is Fx, or because of the sensor technology?
I've got a D700, had a D300s, but because the lenses were not the same, unable to directly compare.
 
I've always found the D700 to be sharper particularly with RAW files - the DX RAW files always seem to have a mushy look about them whereas FX RAW files seem much cleaner.

I find the older AF-D primes perform much better on my D700 than my D90/D7100. The 135mm f/2 DC is amazing wide open on my D700, but on my D7100 it's appalling - way too soft with very bad CA that it's unusable. Same for my 85mm f1.8D. I think it's maybe because a lot of the older D type lenses were designed for film cameras. All my other lenses are AF-S and produce virtually identical IQ on DX & FX in good light.
 
Thegreatroberto said:
But all this improvement, is it because the D700 is Fx, or because of the sensor technology?
I've got a D700, had a D300s, but because the lenses were not the same, unable to directly compare.
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Full-frame is sharper than crop format because it is physically larger. This is simply a fact of physics - it has always been the case, with film or digital, and it will always remain so. ISO performance is also better on full-frame, for the same reason. While technology progresses and we get better sensors and lenses, the same advances apply to all formats and while standards rise, the differential remains the same. It does rather beg the question though of where to draw the line, and when 'good enough' is good enough. But that's a subjective point, and one person's slight improvement is another person's night and day difference. Another judgement call is the extra cost/size/weight of full-frame vs the benefits.

The reason is this (and it has very little to do with pixel counts). Crop-format is smaller, so the image requires more enlargement for a given size of output/print. It therefore requires higher lens resolution for the same level of detail (1.5x less with Nikon, the crop factor) and when lens resolution is increased, image contrast goes down. Image contrast contributes most to perceived sharpness, and resolution vs contrast is the basis of Modulation Transfer Function lens performance analysis - the tool lens designers use, eg those wiggly graphs that Nikon and Canon produce. Look at any MTF graph and the higher the resolution standard (expressed in lines-per-mm), the lower the contrast level will be (shown as % MTF). It's inevitable.

Think of it like this: if a car accelerates from 0-60 in six seconds, you wouldn't expect it to go from 60-120 in the same time. It takes much longer, because the more you ask, the harder it gets. Lenses are the same, and the higher the resolution demands, the less clearly the detail is shown, ie contrast is reduced.

Full-frame has better ISO performance because it collects more light over the larger sensor area. More light (more photons captured) needs less amplification to generate a viewable image, and less amplification means less noise.
 
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I own both, and can confirm the D700 files are much better IQ than the D300.... I wouldn't expect it to be any different. Also, going back to the 50mm images, before I bought the 50mm F1.4, I borroed one from a member here for the day while we were out shooting. he used a D300, but he was shocked how much better it was on my D700. I bought one some time later, and same again, I get better sharper images.
Most of this is, I assume, the fact that both cameras have the same number of pixels, but on the D700 they are on a bigger sensor, so the 'buckets of information' that are the pixels are bigger, therefore better quality because they hold more information. That is how it was explained to me anyway.
 
Yv said:
I own both, and can confirm the D700 files are much better IQ than the D300.... I wouldn't expect it to be any different. Also, going back to the 50mm images, before I bought the 50mm F1.4, I borroed one from a member here for the day while we were out shooting. he used a D300, but he was shocked how much better it was on my D700. I bought one some time later, and same again, I get better sharper images.
Most of this is, I assume, the fact that both cameras have the same number of pixels, but on the D700 they are on a bigger sensor, so the 'buckets of information' that are the pixels are bigger, therefore better quality because they hold more information. That is how it was explained to me anyway.
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Erm, kind of...

Short answer - larger formats are sharper because they allow lenses to perform better (forget pixels, within reason). And larger formats collect more light, so ISO performance is improved.
 
HoppyUK said:
The reason is this (and it has very little to do with pixel counts). Crop-format is smaller, so the image requires more enlargement for a given size of output/print. It therefore requires higher lens resolution for the same level of detail (1.5x less with Nikon, the crop factor) and when lens resolution is increased, image contrast goes down. Image contrast contributes most to perceived sharpness, and resolution vs contrast is the basis of Modulation Transfer Function lens performance analysis - the tool lens designers use, eg those wiggly graphs that Nikon and Canon produce. Look at any MTF graph and the higher the resolution standard (expressed in lines-per-mm), the lower the contrast level will be (shown as % MTF). It's inevitable.
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This is indeed true but I do wonder how much of this translates into real world images when viewed normally as whole or reasonable crops either on screen or in reasonably sized prints. My own experience is that the theory although true doesn't translate into a significant IQ difference at low to medium ISO's in most shots as things like contrast, colour and saturation can be optimised for best effect from shot to shot as there's no reason why you should use the same processing presets for different cameras let alone different formats and even smaller formats are easily capable of producing a reasonably large and good image even with a full frame lens.

Personally I think that much of the difference people see could be equalised by processing images for best effect and personal taste. Camera to subject distance and DoF may well be different from format to format and these things may no doubt affect how IQ is perceived and of course it's very difficult to avoid pixel peeping.

If people see a big difference then fair enough but personally I don't see it in final processed images other than at higher ISO's and when looking reeeeeeaaaaaly close.
 
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