Which would be a good old low-cost body?

Erik Baumgartner wrote:

dwalme wrote:

io_bg wrote

How much better is the high ISO on the X-T20? Is it more than 1/3 of a stop?

The X-T3 sensor series retains more detail at higher ISOs and you get a bit more noise. The 2 series seems to have a bit a noise reduction cooked into the raws (and a bit less detail).

Absolutely not. I’ve used both side by side and the older sensor definitely has an edge at very high ISOs, both in detail (especially color detail) and noise (especially color noise). The X-Trans sensor is cleaner, but slower. The X-Trans III sensor does not have extra NR baked in, it’s just less noisy.

We will have to agree to disagree.

If you use noise reduction on the 3 series you’ll be in the same place. With AI based noise reduction algorithms you will be ahead.

Overall image noise is determined by sensor size so these two are more similar than different. It’s splitting hairs really.

It is also determined by sensor readout speed, slower (older) is worse for AF and video, but better for noise.

The 3 series sensor is more color accurate among other benefits of the newer cameras. Hard to go back to the 2 series after having used the 3 series or newer.

That’s just not true at all.

Definitely true.

It's been many years and I haven't kept references for most of this stuff for old camera models as I have moved on from them. But Google found this in seconds.

https://pdnonline.com/gear/cameras/the-best-cameras-for-color-reproduction-ranked/

This is just one quick reference but I've seen many others. It is also a hell of a lot easier to get good results when creating your own camera profiles with the X-Trans IV sensor cameras than the X-Trans III sensor cameras.

Of course YMMV and it seems it does. I contributed my experience and if that helps io_bg or anyone else reading then great.    Not here to debate infinitely how or why our experiences differ with cameras I no longer own or use.