D100 sharpness and prints

Hi

DavidMillier said:

Why don't you send me a typical image and I'll print it out at A4
and see if I think there is visible noise?

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Well, that is an nice offer, but does it help me, if you possibly don't see it?

I will keep this offer in mind...

DavidMillier said:

It's possible that this is an issue about personal perception -

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It seems to be, but I am not really sure...

Maybe I expect too much from current D-SLR's, but a good smooth look of an A4 print is my reference I expect from a D-SLR. I am more critical here as with P&S where A5 is enough for my personal expectation.

DavidMillier said:

presumably some people can see noise easier than others or perhaps
are more irritated by it.

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Might be...

DavidMillier said:

If your D100 seems noisy in prints to you, you may be left with no
option other than selling and getting a D60...

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I still returned my D100, for some defective pixels. I am still thinking wether it is worth giving it another try...

Maybe I have to adjust my printing techniques too. I normally used to do no postprocessing at all with my G2 prints, just setting some printer driver options I liked and it looked ok.

I am currently trying NC3 for noise reduction but I feel that either the options are inefficient or the degration this introduces is to strong to my eyes. Unfortunately printing from NC3 is more than unstable... crash... crash... all the time 8)=

I thought about D60 before D100 was even availiable but I decided to wait and it is no real alternative as it has no N* mount ... 8)= and then the lenses would be the limiting factor in quality...

Regards, A. Schiele

I did both.

richard allan dy said:

Khena said:

Shots were taken at 28mm and 50mm.

When comparing shots we compared every shot against every other
shots. The D60 -1 sharpening was almost identical to the D100 with
high sharpening, though the sharpening on the D100 created
artifacts, noticeable on the bigger prints (13X19).

Both did respond much better to PS sharpening, and I would suggest
setting the D100 and the D60 to no sharpening when shooting. PS
does wonders. Some details did show up on the D60 shots that did
not on the D100, which no amount of sharpening would have helped
(can't sharpen what's not there).

Hope this helps.

richard allan dy said:

What were the respective camera settings? (no or normal
sharpening). Lens used by both of you?
--
Dr. John

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--
Khena
http://www.excaliburphotography.com

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--
Khena
http://www.excaliburphotography.com

Kevin Roczey said:

build of the D100 can't be beat...except by the D1 series. The
Fuji S2 though comes out with a much better image.

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Kevin

I DL the TIFF and RAW pictures from your site. Both at 200 and 800 ISO the D100 has better colors and sharpness according my opinion. I didn't DL the jpeg since I know the D100 isn't strong in there, however my opinion is different from your. It seems that Nikond has a much better camera in these photos.

May be you can explain more about these pictures ar tell me where you disagree.

Regards
Gabriele

Khena said:

I did both.

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Also in RAW the D100 was missing details vs the D60?
How about the lenses, are really comparable in quality?

Gabriele

http://www.photodo.com/nav/prodindex.html

Canon 28-135 IS grade = 3.5
Nikkor 28-105 AF D grade = 3.1

Usually this site is pretty accurate a similar difference although not huge is usually visible if you analizy the photo carefully (is the way they do the rating after all)

The Nikkor 28-105 is definitely not a lens I would use for finding the performance level of a camera. Either the the 50 f1.4 (only $250.00) or the 50 f1.8 (only $100.00) would be excellent standards to campare cameras with. Canon makes and equivalent 50mm of the same low price and excellent performance. Zoom lenses are well known to have lower optical performance than prime lenses and the cheap ones even cost more than the venerable 50mm's. Although the zooms are useful field lenses it never ceases to amaze me when people use them in an attempt to discover the "maximum" performance level of a camera !!

The MTF on both 50mm"s are higher than the zooms used to test here but keep in mind that the MTF reveals only one aspect of the lense performance.

Regards,Charlie

Hi Charlie,

This test was not designed to use the best equipment or to get 'maximum' performance out of either cameras. This was a real world test with 2 of the most popular lenses. We did it to see using average lenses the difference in print. The Nikkor 28-105 should not be used, indeed, to find out the true capabilities of the D100, but then, neither should the 28-135 for the D60. Both of these lenses are pretty good, but far from being the best you can put on these two cameras. They are also 2 of the most popular lenses used.

To answer a previous post, in RAW mode, the differences were much more difficult to see. The D100 does come pretty close in that mode, but you can still see a difference in the larger print.

Hope this helps

charlie gast said:

The Nikkor 28-105 is definitely not a lens I would use for finding
the performance level of a camera. Either the the 50 f1.4 (only
$250.00) or the 50 f1.8 (only $100.00) would be excellent
standards to campare cameras with. Canon makes and equivalent 50mm
of the same low price and excellent performance. Zoom lenses are
well known to have lower optical performance than prime lenses and
the cheap ones even cost more than the venerable 50mm's. Although
the zooms are useful field lenses it never ceases to amaze me when
people use them in an attempt to discover the "maximum" performance
level of a camera !!
The MTF on both 50mm"s are higher than the zooms used to test here
but keep in mind that the MTF reveals only one aspect of the lense
performance.

Regards,Charlie

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--
Khena
http://www.excaliburphotography.com

see my opinion here :
http://www.pbase.com/dominique/flowers__test_frontierprints
hope this will help you...

What do you think of Phil's comparisons of the two, Gabriele, in RAW mode?

Best Regards.

Gabriele Sartori said:

Kevin Roczey said:

build of the D100 can't be beat...except by the D1 series. The
Fuji S2 though comes out with a much better image.

Click to expand...

Kevin

I DL the TIFF and RAW pictures from your site. Both at 200 and 800
ISO the D100 has better colors and sharpness according my opinion.
I didn't DL the jpeg since I know the D100 isn't strong in there,
however my opinion is different from your. It seems that Nikond has
a much better camera in these photos.

May be you can explain more about these pictures ar tell me where
you disagree.

Regards
Gabriele

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Cribbage said:

What do you think of Phil's comparisons of the two, Gabriele, in
RAW mode?

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It seems pretty fair to me. All the review seems fair to me. In NEF I don't have problems with this machine, it matches my requirements and I'm very happy. It is very difficult to compare machines with such a small difference in quality I hate the moiree of the S2 and I don't like Fuji as brand in general, I don't like a few choices they did for this machine. No doubts that in jpeg the fuji is sharper and for P&S in jpeg is a better camera.

I consider the D100 very fast, I like the 3fps and to me they have priority over the number of RAW that you can store in continuos mode (I use the feature mainly only for car racing and 3fps is very important here, 3 frames total are fine. The lag of the S2 is also higher than the D100 (I saw on a different review), also very important for sport action.

The only thing left that upset me is the SW NEF compression but even this, it's more a cosmetic thing that anything else, in real life I don't take 500 photos in one hour.

Regars
Gabri

Khena said:

Hi Charlie,
This test was not designed to use the best equipment or to get
'maximum' performance out of either cameras. This was a real world
test with 2 of the most popular lenses. We did it to see using
average lenses the difference in print. The Nikkor 28-105 should
not be used, indeed, to find out the true capabilities of the D100,
but then, neither should the 28-135 for the D60. Both of these
lenses are pretty good, but far from being the best you can put on
these two cameras. They are also 2 of the most popular lenses used.

To answer a previous post, in RAW mode, the differences were much
more difficult to see. The D100 does come pretty close in that
mode, but you can still see a difference in the larger print.

Click to expand...

Disagree, if the 28-105 is inferior you have your difference right there. You can't make a statement like that unless you use a state of the art lens for both cameras. In Phil chart test in RAW mode is hard to see a difference.

Agree that in jpeg is no contest for the D60

Gabriele

I have also 28-105 on my D100,,, I believe this lens is not really sharp!!
18-35 is more sharper...
70-300 G is also fast and sharp..

Khena said:

To answer a previous post, in RAW mode, the differences were much
more difficult to see. The D100 does come pretty close in that
mode, but you can still see a difference in the larger print.

Hope this helps

charlie gast said:

The Nikkor 28-105 is definitely not a lens I would use for finding
the performance level of a camera. Either the the 50 f1.4 (only
$250.00) or the 50 f1.8 (only $100.00) would be excellent
standards to campare cameras with. Canon makes and equivalent 50mm
of the same low price and excellent performance. Zoom lenses are
well known to have lower optical performance than prime lenses and
the cheap ones even cost more than the venerable 50mm's. Although
the zooms are useful field lenses it never ceases to amaze me when
people use them in an attempt to discover the "maximum" performance
level of a camera !!
The MTF on both 50mm"s are higher than the zooms used to test here
but keep in mind that the MTF reveals only one aspect of the lense
performance.

Regards,Charlie

Click to expand...

--
Khena
http://www.excaliburphotography.com

Click to expand...