Does something strike you regarding what CNET says about the XT, D80 and XTi re: IQ ? :
Regarding the Rebel XT (Michael Shapiro):
The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT makes gloriously detailed 8-megapixel images and offers unsurpassed image quality for a consumer dSLR.
But even with the shortcomings of the kit lens, image quality is impressive. Colors are saturated and generally natural, although the automatic white balance tends toward warm and yellowish in some situations. We recommend shooting raw files for the best quality and so that you can make white-balance adjustments after shooting if necessary. Noise levels are remarkably low and barely noticeable at ISO settings less than 1,600. Even at 1,600, we found the noise to be very manageable. If you shoot long exposures, you can also turn on Canon's noise-reduction filter through the custom settings.
Regarding the Nikon D80 (Philip Ryan):
Image quality from the Nikon D80 is quite impressive. Colors were accurate and neutral and the camera's meter did an excellent job of reading the scene and providing an accurate exposure. At times, mostly in extreme cases when the scene was dominated by darkness, the Matrix metering tended to preserve detail in the shadows at the expense of highlights, though typically, this is what one would've intended in that situation. Plus, switching to selectable zone metering or using the camera's massive plus or minus 5EV exposure compensation should help in those situations.
Images from the D80 showed very little noise in our tests. At ISO 100, ISO 200, and ISO 400 noise was practically nonexistent, with only an extremely fine grain beginning to become apparent at ISO 400. Even at ISO 800, noise was a little more noticeable but still no more than a fine grain. At ISO 1,600, noise became noticeable but lacked the many off-color speckles that characterize many cameras' noise profile, and was similar to what we've come to expect at ISO 800 on some other dSLRs. At ISO 3,200--Nikon calls it H1.0--noise was obvious, resembling a coating of fine, snowy grain. A fair amount of detail was obscured by the grain but plenty still remained, and prints as large as letter size--and possibly even larger--should be acceptable, though far from perfect.
Regarding the XTi (Lori Grunin):
Despite my few complaints, the Canon EOS Rebel XTi still shoots some very nice photos, with good color rendition, broad dynamic range (when there's sufficient illumination), and accurate automatic white balance. Shots taken at ISO 100 and ISO 200 were very clean, but beyond that, the photos couldn't take much retouching without drawing attention to the noise.
