The recent talk of Nikon models and comparing them has me confused.
I though I'd read enough posts to put the Nikon sensors into a
hierarchy. I thought the D50 had the newest sensor technology and
was considered to give the best IQ, no banding issues, lowest
noise, etc.
The D50 has a very good sensor, and is quite capable of making great images, but what in the world has given you the impression that it is superior to the sensors of the D200, D2x?
First of all, IQ comes mainly from how you use the sensor, not the sensor by itself. This includes both the skills of the operator (that would be you
, and how data from the sensor is handled after it is lifted from the sensor.
The pro cameras (and I do include D200 in that group) and their sensors have a lot of properties that give them an edge. In my humble opinion, there are two main differences:
1. Sheer image size is one argument, others will fiercly deny this, and make elaborate arguments that image size really does not matter. But the simple truth is this: more pixels give you more oppurtunities to crop and work with images not originally well composed. I do own a D2H, and love it, but there are always images here and there where I did not work well and need to crop afterwards. Then I would love to have the 10 megapixels of the D200.
2. The D200 and D2X sensors does not have the same helpful built-in image processing around them. They give you much more unprocessed images out of the camera, meaning you are supposed to work with them, while the D50 is built to deliver images where as little after processing as possible is required. With the D50 you let the camera make much more desicions for you, where the D200/D2X let you (or force you) to make your own decisions.
Is there any consensus, if image quality is the only priority and
other features are ignored, which camera's sensor is best?
This is a strange reasoning -- You simply cannot ignore "other features" when discussing image quality because the sensor would be useless without all those "other features" surrounding it. Walking around with an insanely great but bare digital sensor in you hand will get you nowhere.
Take the shutter as an example. A D200 shutter wil by all likelyhood outlast a D50 shutter by a few houndred thousand accutations (give or take a few). You might argue that you do not plan to use it for several hundreds of thousands images, but there are people that will, and for them a D200 sensor will do a better job then the D50 sensor -- because a sensor behind a shutter that has broken down is pretty useless.
Or take speed, my D2H sensor might look inferior to a D50 sensor, but when you have clicked away four raw images and stand there waiting for the camera to finish writing on the card, I am still shooting another burst. And another. And another to my card is full. A sensor that cannot take pictures beacuse "the other features" are not up to the task is actually not a very useful sensor for that particular situation.
I practically ruled out buying a D200 or D2X but based on past
posts, I didn't want to pay more and step down in image quality. Is
this just something D50 owners delude ourselves with?
The D50 is a great camera, and gives a tremendous value per dollar spent. You can take great images with it. But to think it is superior to the D200 and D2X, yes, that is most definately self delusion ...
