When will my noise be visible in print?

Hello everyone:

I've been debating between getting the XT or the XTi and had a question about high ISO noise visibility in printed photos. I've read MANY threads about the differences in noise levels between the XT and XTi, and have obviously read through Phil's review. To me, the XTi seems to have a bit more noise at higher ISO levels, but I'm not sure how relevant it really is when printing.

I plan on doing a lot of low light photography (indoors, dawn, dusk, night scenes, etc.) and will most likely be printing at 5x7 or 8x10, but I definitely want the quality to go higher if I want to (could I go up to 20x30?). That said, will the differences in XT vs. XTi high ISO noise be visible in these sizes of prints when being viewed from a real-world distance? I guess I'm just having a hard time looking at 100% crops on my PC and translating that into what I would see if I actually printed the photo at a specific size. I know the acceptability of noise is a subjective matter and it's tough for one person to judge it for another, but please do you best to think in real-world scenarios (photo hanging on wall in my house, not many people getting closer than 12in. to look at it, but still looks great to a critical eye, etc.)

In a perfect world, I'd just buy a CF card, go to a store with both cameras, take a few shots, and print them myself to see the difference, but I've never owned a dslr and would imagine my lack of skill (and the lack of compelling scenery at Ritz) would have me comparing poor photos and wouldn't really give me a valuable comparison.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Sorry for the long post, but thanks a lot for the help.

axis09 said:

Any comments would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

Ok, so I only have 300D and 350D pictures for reference, but...

I have found prints to be very forgiving compared to 100% viewing on computer screen.

I use a canon i9900 and even for 13x19 inch prints noise issues are minimal.

On the screen you can see a single noisy pixel when viewing at 100%, not so in a print where the ink smooths and blends together from one ink spat to the next.

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The 400d has a little more resolution and a little more noise. If you were to downscale a picture to a more normal viewing resolution (for monitor, not print,) you'd probably find that the extra resolution helps to offset the noise a bit (downscaling images has implicit noise reduction to it if you use a good scaling algorithm.)

In the end, the extra 2 MP don't really matter, unless you're printing huge prints for close viewing or need to do tight crops. Also the extra noise is so minor that it doesn't really matter either. If it's not going to hurt your wallet too bad, and you don't mind not having the monochrome status display, just go for the new one.
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Thanks for the comparison- it's good to hear that prints really are more forgiving. Makes my decision that much easier when i'm able to understand how "real-world" scenarios will play out.

I've been leaning toward the 400D anyway...feels better in my hand and the difference between the LCD's was quite surprising.

Thanks for the perspective.