D1H image quality?

I am interested in purchasing either a D1H or D1X within the next few weeks. However, I just wanted to get everyone's opinion on the D1H's image quality. How does it stack up against the D1X? I know the D1X has twice the resolution power, but since I never print anything over 8x10, the D1H's 2.74 works just fine. But, one thing that I have not been able to find out is the differences in image quality between the two. I do remember visiting a website which compared the two side by side, which actually gave the D1H an edge in some aspects, but that is the only reference I can locate.

I only shoot wildlife, so the speed of the D1H would be nice. But, I would sacrifice speed for overall image quality.

Thanks!

How often do you fill the frame with your subjects and the lenses you usually use? I ask because the extra pixels on the D1x get you finer detail at distance or on subjects which fill only a smaller portion of the frame, allowing a crop to a higher size and still maintaining detail. I hope that makes sense...

If you can get close to a small subject, or make use of subject size, shooting distance and focal length to fill the frame, either image size offers excellent quality. From the little I have shot the D1h, it strikes me as a greatly improved version of the original D1 result, with the color character and menu control as the D1x, with the expected greater high-ISO performance due to the larger pixel size.

I'd consider this: if you shoot fast to cover action and need a large number of frames, and can fill those frames most of the time, the D1h will do the job. It will shoot in lower light in the forest or whatever and still allow you to maintain higher shutter speeds into lower light while keeping noise levels down. Higher ISO can be reached with the D1h while keeping noise levels low.

If what you shoot has small, fine detail, you can handle the 2/3 stop loss in sensitivity (correspondingly greater noise at a given ISO due to increase of gain necessary to run the D1x at the same ISO), and can get by with fewer shots in sequences, the extra detail offered by the D1x will come in handy. It does best under ISO 400 though, and you'll want to shoot ISO 125-250 as often as possible to keep noise levels down (the noise is rather random and benign... to a certain level).

Sometimes, I miss the ability to rip off a sequence of over 6 RAW shots, but quite often I can space the shots in bursts of three or four, and the faster write speed and quick media get the camera ready rapidly enough that I don't hit the buffer-limit all that often even when shooting flight sequences.

It's a tough call. I have to say that I jumped at the ability to get more pixels on hummingbirds and other small subjects, and have found that the images are often far more detailed than I was getting with the original D1. Even if I have to resize down 50% to increase pixel density for some images, the level of detail is superior.

If I had to do it again, I think I'd still go for the D1x. I hope this helped a bit on what is a difficult decision.

Ron

Joseph Wilson said:

I am interested in purchasing either a D1H or D1X within the next
few weeks. However, I just wanted to get everyone's opinion on the
D1H's image quality. How does it stack up against the D1X? I know
the D1X has twice the resolution power, but since I never print
anything over 8x10, the D1H's 2.74 works just fine. But, one thing
that I have not been able to find out is the differences in image
quality between the two. I do remember visiting a website which
compared the two side by side, which actually gave the D1H an edge
in some aspects, but that is the only reference I can locate.

I only shoot wildlife, so the speed of the D1H would be nice. But,
I would sacrifice speed for overall image quality.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

--Ron Reznick http://digital-images.nethttp://trapagon.com

Joseph, D1h's never gonna stack up against D1x in terms of number of pixels. But then again image quality is really not determined entirely by the number of pixels. if your prints don't really go beyond 8x10, I feel then the image quality is really more of a function of the lens you use than the pixel counts. I own the h, and do some brids photography occassionally, mostly for use on the web. A fast, responsive AF fixed focal length lens is what really matters. Of course, when complimented by a fast, bursty D1h you'd have even higher success rate in getting quality shots against fast moving wildlife objects.

I'd save the $ on camera and spend it on a good prime telephoto lens that'd get you as close as possible to the objects.

Joseph Wilson said:

I am interested in purchasing either a D1H or D1X within the next
few weeks. However, I just wanted to get everyone's opinion on the
D1H's image quality. How does it stack up against the D1X? I know
the D1X has twice the resolution power, but since I never print
anything over 8x10, the D1H's 2.74 works just fine. But, one thing
that I have not been able to find out is the differences in image
quality between the two. I do remember visiting a website which
compared the two side by side, which actually gave the D1H an edge
in some aspects, but that is the only reference I can locate.

I only shoot wildlife, so the speed of the D1H would be nice. But,
I would sacrifice speed for overall image quality.

Thanks!

Click to expand...