Is that even a good thing? What if your trying to do long shutter speeds in bright light?
Yeah unfortunately there's no hack mode to get to iso100, so just add another stop to your ND filter and use a 4-stop rather than a 3. Or double stack a circular polarizer on top of it.
Wouldn't a D80/D40x's noise look similar (if not better) if you reduced a D80/D40x's image down to a D40-sized 6mp pic? And I'm pretty sure a D40 would not look as good as a D40x/D80 when enlarged to a D40x/D80's size.
Noise is definitely worse on the 40x/80, and downsizing photos doesn't make the noise go away. I've printed 3-feet wide from both cameras and they both looked great. Even with your nose in the prints you seriously can't tell which was which. There are people with D2h cameras, Nikon's old 4MP sports camera, and have printed even bigger and gotten great results too. People thinking they need more and more megapixels is nothing but the result of industry brainwashing. If people knew that they could print
3 feet wide with only 6MP and get outstanding results, what do you think that would do for the sales of higher end models with more profit margins? :mrgreen:
I won't argue with that, nice feature to have.
It's the main reason my D80 sits at home while my D40 sees all the action when we take my daughter out to the park.
Why/ how would that be? I doubt there would be a very big difference in sharpness.
The D80 is said to have a stronger anti-aliasing filter, which softens things up a bit. And the higher pixel density on the sensor is more demanding of lens performance. I've noticed that the 18-55 kit lens is noticeably softer on my D80 but looks great on the D40. If you put some hot PRO glass on it like the 17-55DX f/2.8, suddenly it looks fine, but even better on the D40!
D80 files need more post-processing work both in terms of sharpness and noise, whereas a lot of my D40 shots can come straight off the camera and go straight to the web or print. Even at medium ISO the D80 is noticeably noisier than the D40.
I don't understand, you just said a D40 was sharper so wouldn't it show the flaws of a cheaper lens?
No you're backwards. Higher pixel densities and linear resolutions tear up lenses more, and show their flaws better. If you have a high pixel density and a lesser lens, you'll end up getting a lot of pixels that really aren't showing additional detail and are just splitting hairs that the lens can't resolve anyways. Backing off the number of pixels means lower linear resolution on the sensor, and thus it's not out-resolving lesser lenses and
every pixel is now showing actual detail, thus giving sharper results.
Sure it is, but of course a 10 mp image size would be more desirable.
I had that mentality when I bought my D80, not wanting a "lowly" 6MP D50 or D70 at the time because a lot of point and shoots out there had more MP's than that and I was still infected by the "
more is always better" mantra. And I thought that "surely" the 10MP files would look superior when printed 3-feet wide vs the 6MP. Nope, both look great. Then you learn about how stuffing more and more pixels into the same sized sensor actually
degrades sensitivity and high ISO performance, and how the bigger sensor is also far more demanding of lens performance, thus requiring even more expensive lenses, and then suddenly that 6MP sensor looks really nice. I use high ISO all the time and there's just no comparison between the 10MP and 6MP sensors. The 6MP has much lower noise, maintains better color and contrast and dynamic range whereas the 10MP is pretty gritty. I don't like shooting my D80 at anything above iso800, but have no problems at all shooting my D40 at 1600 if I need to.
That's a big reason, that's why if I had to choose between a D40 or D40x, I'd get a D40.
Deposit the $200 you save into your pro glass fund. :mrgreen: But since the D40 gives better results with cheaper lenses, you might not feel the need to.
I agree, 6 mp files are plenty if your not a guy who prints large or crops a lot.
I
do print large. Here's another way to look at things.
At 3 feet wide, the D80's 3872 pixels wide comes out to: 107 dpi
At 3 feet wide, the D40's 3008 pixels wide comes out to: 83 dpi
Big whoop. The marketers will claim a 66% increase in "resolution" just based on the megapixel increase, and "10" is a nice even number which makes it a great selling feature. You're really only getting a 29% increase in linear resolution. 83 or 107 dpi is still roughly in the same ballpark as a typical computer screen resolution (72 dpi is the standard, but a lot are around 100 dpi these days), but you're never going to look at a 3 foot wide print as closely as you will your computer screen.
Human eyes can resolve at about 1 minute of arc, or 1/60th of a degree. Viewing a 3 foot wide print at a typical distance of 6 feet, your eyes are still not going to come anywhere close to out-resolving even a 6MP photo. At 6 feet away from a 3 foot wide photo you're looking at about a 27-degree viewing angle. That comes out to 1620 pixels you can resolve. Nowhere close to 6MP, and this is why you can even get away with larger prints on 3MP cameras as long as you're viewing them from appropriate distances. Yes, as you get even closer (closer than 3 feet) eventually you might be able to tell the difference. But actual photographs are a lot different than test patterns. With my nose into 3 foot wide prints of 6MP and 10MP
photos I couldn't tell. Changes in tone from one pixel to the next are much more gradual in photos than they are in test charts. I bet you could tell the difference fairly easily between 6MP and 10MP 3 foot wide test chart prints at 2-3 feet away, but it'd be irrelevant since photos are very different from test charts.
Sorry for pickin your post apart, just wondering how you will back your statements up.
No problem.
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