A
asabet
Guest
Thanks Greg! This will be very interesting to see. Regards, Amin
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D300 vs D3?
- Thread starter robmac
- Start date
woodyspedden
New member
Gregg
Thanks for the posts.......very helpful.
It may have been a bit more meaningful if you had used the 70-200 on both bodies. I find that different lens brands show different contrast, both micro and macro, and different colors as well. The comparison would be easier if the same glass were used on both bodies. Anyway thanks for the effort to bring the data to the entire forum. Great stuff
Woody
Greg Seitz
New member
Hi Woody,
I agree, I just happened to have these two examples lying around that I took a few days ago. When processing in ACR if you match the white balance on both they are remarkably close though.
Thanks,
Greg
Steen
Senior Subscriber Member
For some reason I can't download NEF files with my "Internet Explorer 7".
And robmac told me that "Safari" has a similar problem with NEF downloads, and that one possible solution is to install and use "Firefox" for the purpose. This browser gives you the choice to save (download) the NEF file to disk instead of just trying to open the file.
And robmac told me that "Safari" has a similar problem with NEF downloads, and that one possible solution is to install and use "Firefox" for the purpose. This browser gives you the choice to save (download) the NEF file to disk instead of just trying to open the file.
Steen
Senior Subscriber Member
Hi Greg, I have now looked at your nice D300 and D3 sample files. As a first step I put White Balance to Daylight in both of them for equalizing them in this regard. What I found was the following.
I think the D3 file shows better Dynamic Range, which is of course to be expected from the larger photosites.
And the D3 file has a more narrow Depth Of Field at the identical Aperture which is again to be expected due to the larger focal length for identical framing with the larger sensor (105mm on D3 vs. 75mm on D300 acc. to Exif).
A bit more surprising is the difference in colors.
The D3 file has more sparkling, warm and saturated colors but I don't know how much of this is due to the different glass ? Do you use identical in-camera settings ?
All in all I like the D3 file better, it has a nicer glow, but with equalized White Balance the D300 file holds up rather well. It would be interesting to see a similar comparison with identical glass (and identical in-camera settings as well).
Thanks a lot Greg, very interesting test :thumbup:
I think the D3 file shows better Dynamic Range, which is of course to be expected from the larger photosites.
And the D3 file has a more narrow Depth Of Field at the identical Aperture which is again to be expected due to the larger focal length for identical framing with the larger sensor (105mm on D3 vs. 75mm on D300 acc. to Exif).
A bit more surprising is the difference in colors.
The D3 file has more sparkling, warm and saturated colors but I don't know how much of this is due to the different glass ? Do you use identical in-camera settings ?
All in all I like the D3 file better, it has a nicer glow, but with equalized White Balance the D300 file holds up rather well. It would be interesting to see a similar comparison with identical glass (and identical in-camera settings as well).
Thanks a lot Greg, very interesting test :thumbup:
Like the way this thread is shaping up. Had some issues with our wireless high-speed connection yesterday, so busy catching up on posts.
Safari does seem to have some issues with sites (or other way around). They come down as txt files. FireFox seems to work very well. Sometimes in Safari a right click and 'download linked file' will work, but... Firefox is free, so what the hell.
Ok, time to page back and catch up...
Safari does seem to have some issues with sites (or other way around). They come down as txt files. FireFox seems to work very well. Sometimes in Safari a right click and 'download linked file' will work, but... Firefox is free, so what the hell.
Ok, time to page back and catch up...
Greg Seitz
New member
Hi Steen,
Are you developing them with Nikon Capture NX? If so, I believe the saturation was set to Neutral +1 on the D3 vs +0 on the D300 so that would explain the saturation difference - you can change this under Camera adjustments/Picture control so they match between the two. If you are using Adobe Raw, the in camera settings don't matter of course.
One difference I noted was the noise in the D300 vs the D3. The D3 is very clean but the D300 shows a bit of noise (check out some of the background elements and view the RGB channels separately in Photoshop) even at ISO 200. Of course as we up the ISO the D3 would pull away by a wide margin.
Regarding dynamic range, I did a test where I shot a set of 9 bracketed frames on each from -4 to +4 and then played around with pulling up the exposure on the under exposed shots and pulling back the exposure on the over exposed shots using Adobe Camera Raw and the D3 showed only a very slight gain overall which surprised me quite a bit as I'd expected to see much more of a difference.
On both cameras I was able to pull back the +2 shot so it looked pretty much identical to the +0 shot. The extreme highlights couldn't quite be fully recovered so I'm guessing you could pull back a 1.5 overexposed highlight fully. Between the D3 and D300 I'd say the D3 had maybe a 1/3 stop advantage overall on the highlight side.
On the underexposed side they were even closer in terms of recovering any detail in the shadows with the D300 showing a bit more noise overall. What was astounding was that I was able to recover a -4EV shot to nearly match the +0 shot. Of course the -4EV shot was noisier than the +0 shot but not as bad as I would have guessed and the D300 held on very closely to the D3.
Thanks,
Greg
Jorgen Udvang
Subscriber Member
Firefox runs circles around IE and Safari, but for downloads, nothing beats Opera. So I use Firefox for surfing and Opera for downloads.
Greg
Really appreciate the input. Ignoring the slight difference in color cast which could easily be due to the different lens coatings, the files are close. I tend to prefer nice fat photo cells, but the cameras are close than I expected.
Hate to impose, but if you ever get the chance to shoot with the same glass - and maybe toss in a gray card ? Remember the old military adage - NEVER volunteer for anything.. ;>
My NX trial ran out, so sadly can't really pull that extra out of the files that I think NX would give. Think I'll try them thru RD and C4 next.
Really appreciate the input. Ignoring the slight difference in color cast which could easily be due to the different lens coatings, the files are close. I tend to prefer nice fat photo cells, but the cameras are close than I expected.
Hate to impose, but if you ever get the chance to shoot with the same glass - and maybe toss in a gray card ? Remember the old military adage - NEVER volunteer for anything.. ;>
My NX trial ran out, so sadly can't really pull that extra out of the files that I think NX would give. Think I'll try them thru RD and C4 next.
Greg Seitz
New member
No problem, it's interesting to get a handle on the differences. I just took some outdoor shots with the 70-200 on both bracketed over -4 to +4. I have to run at the moment but I'll package them up in a zip file and post them in a few hours. I think I'm going to start a new thread showing the dynamic range differences between the two when I post them. Haven't had a chance to scrutinize the files yet so it should be interesting.
Thanks,
Greg