These cameras are close, with the Nikon being slightly better then
the 300D, and prolly about equal with the 350D. From Phils review
of the D70.
About noise:
"Visually a very similar performance, although looking at the split
out RGB crops you can see that the pattern of noise is quite
different at higher ISO's. At ISO 1600 the 300D's noise pattern is
quite large and blotchy, the D70 with much finer more granular
noise."
"It's clear that there really is very little visible difference
between the noise levels of these two cameras. At ISO 1600 the D70
perhaps a little better than the 300D by keeping color noise to a
minimum (its noise being more monochromatic). The other thing to
consider is that both of these cameras in their default state have
slightly different tone curves, the 300D being more contrasty. It's
fair to say that both cameras are completely usable up to their
highest sensitivity (ISO 1600) and are cleanest from ISO 400
downwards, the 300D with its silky smooth ISO 100 would perhaps be
able to produce cleaner images in good light."
Compared to 300 d Color:
The first thing you notice is the difference in color balance
between the two cameras, in this respect the D70 is more accurate,
the EOS 300D's image looking warmer than it did in real life, the
D70's greys are almost perfectly grey. The D70's colors also look
slightly more saturated than the 300D. For absolute resolution it's
very close, although there are definitely some areas of the image
where the D70 has resolved more detail (and appears sharper) than
the EOS 300D. To counter that we do have a little moiré appearing
in the D70 image (although really nothing that spoils the
appearance of the image).
One notable difference is that the D70's sharpening algorithm
appears to be better than that of the EOS 300D, there are almost no
visible sharpening halos in the D70 image, there are some in the
EOS 300D image.
Lastly there does appear to be some noise visible in the sky of the
D70 image (approx. 1.75 std dev), less so in the EOS 300D image
(approx. 1.10 std dev) this is consistent with our ISO noise
measurements presented earlier in this review. Remember that the
EOS 300D does offer ISO 100 which will deliver even cleaner images
with virtually no visible noise.
Sharpness:
at iso 200:
As you look down each of the crops it's very much a tit for tat
situation, in some crops the D70 appears to produce more detail and
sharpness and the next the EOS 300D does a better job. It is very
close, overall and considering the 300D's vertical resolution
advantage (48 more vertical pixels) I would say that the D70 is
slightly sharper. It also has a better sharpening algorithm (as
mentioned on the previous page) which leads to a cleaner image with
fewer halo type artifacts. To counter that however the EOS 300D
image looks cleaner with less visible noise on the ruler and watch
face crops. The EOS 300D's darker blacks do give the impression of
a 'punchier' image but this is simply a difference in tone curve
and could easily be achieved with a different parameter setting on
the D70.
At 1600 ISO
At this high sensitivity it's fairly clear to see that both cameras
automatically decrease their sharpening to an attempt to keep
visible noise down. Again its very close, both cameras performing
fairly similarly, if anything I would say that the D70's images are
more preferable because its noise is more even throughout the color
channels and appears as monochromatic 'grain' rather than the color
blotches seen in the EOS 300D image (which is also more difficult
to remove later). Kudos to Nikon then.
.....but sharpness depends on "the optical and software sharpness"