To measure electronic noise levels we photographed the standard Gretag Macbeth ColorChecker at each of the camera’s ISO settings under daylight conditions.
The crops below are taken from the originals, saved as High Quality JPEGs in Photoshop CS2 and presented here at 100%. To compare typical noise in skies and dark shadows the crops were taken from patches 3 and 24 respectively.
Noise levels on the Nikon D200 are very usable up to 800 ISO and slightly better than the Nikon D2X, presumably due to the D200’s larger pixel pitch. The results from the Canon 5D and 1Ds Mark II though clearly illustrate the benefit of a physically larger sensor with a subsequently greater pixel pitch. Noise levels from these bodies are much lower throughout, although especially so at 800 ISO and above.
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