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Nikon D600 vs Nikon D800 (downsampled) noiseResults here using in-camera JPEG files. If you prefer, check out my D600 vs D800 RAW noise results.
A common criticism of camera tests online is the presentation of results at 100% or 1:1. This involves taking crops at fixed pixel dimensions, such as 367x367 pixels as seen on my results pages here. Crops from higher resolution images therefore show a smaller portion of the total frame. The counter-argument is images should be compared at the same physical size - that is to say the crops should show the same portion of the frame, which means the higher resolution image will have a higher pixel density per inch. It also means any artefacts, such as noise, will appear smaller. This is the argument you'll hear for presenting fair results from the D800 against lower resolution bodies like the D600. When the images are viewed at 1:1 without scaling, the D800 inevitably looks noisier due to its higher pixel density, but if images from both models were reproduced at the same size, then the D800's noise would appear more discreet and could in fact place them on a more level playing field. There's pros and cons to each approach. If you're comparing printed images, then scaling is definitely the right approach. If the print is sufficiently large, or the process sufficiently fine, then the higher resolution image should benefit from finer details and smaller noise artefacts. But if you're presenting images online as I do, then scaling suffers from a number of issues. First is the fixed pixel density of monitors which means if I were to scale D800 images to the same physical size as D600 images, you wouldn't see any detail advantage of the former - and surely that's unfair. I could of course print the results, but then how could I share them online? If I scanned them, we'd have all manner of additional artefacts to deal with. I realise this isn't to everyone's tastes which is why I also always provide original images to download in my sample images gallery. This means you can download and print or rescale as desired. That said, I know many of you want to see how the D800 compares to the D600 when both are delivering 24 Megapixel images, so in the spirit of fairness that's what I've done on this page. Below you'll find the same D600 crops as before, direct from the in-camera JPEGs, but this time the D800 images have been down-sampled to 24 Megapixels using Photoshop's Bicubic Sharper algorithm which Adobe recommends for reductions. As you'd expect, the degree of real-life detail is now essentially matched between both cameras, although the D800 reduction has benefitted from the sharpening applied by Photoshop to bring out a little extra fine detail. Apply a little sharpening to the D600 images though and you'll achieve a similar result. In terms of noise levels, the reduction has certainly brought the D800 closer in line to the D600. The noise artefacts you see below on the D800 may remain a little more apparent than the D600, but again this can be attributed to the extra sharpening applied by Photoshop. As such in terms of in-camera JPEGs I'd say the D600 shares a very similar style to the D800 and when the latter is shooting at the same resolution, they deliver essentially the same quality. But what's happening under the hood? Now it's time to check out their RAW files with noise reduction turned off in my D600 vs D800 RAW noise results!
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Nikon D600 results : Quality / RAW / Noise / D600 vs D800
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