Compared to the Canon EOS-D30 contd.

Higher ISO sensitivities comparison

Using the samples shot for the D1H ISO test as a base I also shot the same scene with the EOS-D30 at sensitivities between ISO 200 and 1600. The EOS-D30 also offers an even cleaner ISO 100 and the D1H offers higher sensitivities ISO 3200 and 6400.

Some crops below are of an 120 x 90 area of the image magnified 200%, the last one is a 240 x 180 crop. Lighting - 2 x 800W studio lights with dichroic daylight filters bounced off a white overhead reflector (about as close as you can get to "indoor daylight").

Lenses used:

• Nikon D1H - Nikkor 28-105mm F3.5-4.5D
• Canon EOS-D30 - Canon EF 28-135mm F3.5-5.6

Nikon D1H sRGB, F13, Auto WB, JPEG FINE	Canon EOS-D30 F13, Auto WB, JPEG LARGE FINE
ISO 200
ISO 400
Nikon D1H sRGB, F13, Auto WB, JPEG FINE	Canon EOS-D30 F13, Auto WB, JPEG LARGE FINE
ISO 800
ISO 1600

Up to ISO 400 it's hard to tell the difference, both cameras showing almost no visible noise (the D30 being just very slightly smoother), a very clean performance from both. At ISO 800 it becomes clear that the D1H takes the lead, a cleaner image with not much noticeable noise. At ISO 1600 the D1H performs extremely well with approximately the same noise as the D30 at ISO 800.

Measured noise

We measure noise by taking an identical crop of a plain gray area of each image (same position in each) and using the Photoshop histogram tool to retrieve the 'standard deviation' of that patch, in theory this should be as close to zero (or in reality as low) as possible.

As you can see, the measurements reflect the observation, noise levels up to ISO 400 are very similar, at ISO 800 and 1600 the D1H keeps noise levels below that of the D30 at ISO 800.