Digital BW, The Print

In a message dated 8/23/2005 4:27:28 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com writes:

Will be  interesting to see what the new Canon specs. are, as Nikon blew 
them away  with the D2x.
regards,
Peter.



"Blew away!!??" Please...........Nikon is 1-2 years late with this  camera.
 
I have owned 30 different digital cameras in the last 10 years, starting  
with Kodaks in Nikon and Canon bodies in the nineties, $50,000 Foveon Prism  
camera (as a consultant to them) in 1999. So I was one of maybe 10 people in  the 
world to have advanced CMOS technology in 1999. The Foveon with the  Canon L 
zooms caused me to sell all my Hasselblads (4 bodies, 6 backs and 9  Zeiss 
lenses) by 2000, leaving me with just the SWC (which I sold in 2001) and  my Sinar 
4x5 as the only remaining film camera (used once since). In the new  
millenium, Ihave owned all the Fuji's (save the S3), Nikons and Canons. The  Canon 
D-30 came closest to Foveon color performance (the gold standard). I hated  the 
consistent chalked out highlights from the Nikon CCD cameras. I could spot  an 
Nikon image from a mile away. This is their first CMOS offering while Canon  
is on their 5th generation.
 
The Canon 1D Mark II's (2 bodies) have been all-around the best cameras I  
have ever owned. I can do full res. family portraits to 24x36 on a 7600, shoot  
Weddings at only 4 megapixels, or crank 2 Megapixel Little League JPG shots at 
 8.5 frames per second. I can also knock out an attacking animal with  the 
solid body, flip the camera around,  and shoot 10 frames of  it before it hits 
the ground.
 
I can photograph Weddings in luxuious hotels, hand-held at ISO 1600 or  3200, 
and with the ExpoDisc for custom white balancing the tungsten  illumination, 
render the entire room as though it was daylight. Or, I can go to  an exotic 
location with a 50mm lens, and bring home jepegs that make incredible  12x18 BO 
prints on my 4000 with very minor tweaking.
 
With the 8.2 Micron well sites, the 1Dm2's CMOS chip has the highest signal  
to noise of all the Canons (over 12 stops). 
 
It looks like they have just made full frame version of the same  technology, 
with the improved, multi-stage noise reduction of the 20d. This  means that 
1600 ISO will have better S/N than Velvia 100 film with 645 MF  resolution or 
ISO 800 on the 1D mkII, and 1600 on the 20d. I can guarantee you  that it is 
Canon that will "blow away" the D2x in the real world. With superior  optics to 
start with and a well site pitch that demands a much lower LPMM  perfmance 
from the lens, the image quality will be just fine. Does that make  Nikon's D2x 
bad? Of course not, but just because Nikon has just scored another  goal, let's 
not forget who the champs are.
 
Nikon, with it's Sony-made, 5.3 Micron well site pitch cannot possibly  
compete with that on the signal to noise front. It's just plain physics and  
material properties. I have seen ISO 800 files from the D2X (I also used to own  the 
D1, D1x, and D1H for a brief time). They are MUCH noisier than the Canon 1D  
MkII, the 20d or the Digital Rebel.
 
Let's face it. Sony's BS marketing campaign about their "fourth color" in  
their 8 Mpx prosumer cameras is their way of stealing some signal from the green 
 channel in order to compensate for the fact that blue wavelengths won't  
penetrate a silicon well that is less than 3 microns and those chips are at  2.7!!
 
So as a guy who has tested every major camera in the last 10 years, I  
respectfully disagree about your emotional assesment concerning Nikon's D2x  
performance vs. anything Canon. I own Canon and Nikon glass, so my choice of  bodies 
has nothing to do with brand loyalty, only pure performance, and I assure  you 
that Canon didn't get their 70% market share in all major portrait studios  
in America along with about 90% in the Sports Illustrated wannabe market by  
being second best at ANYTHING they have done in the last 4 years.
 
And here's a kicker for you. I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that Canon  will 
announce, within a year, a 1Ds Mk III that has a full frame 24 megapixel  
perfmance equal to the 20d.
 
Claude


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