D700 or Sony A900 (same price)?

[F5user]

omg... enough already.

wanna compare? go shoot & PRINT with both the bodies using whatever lenses you want.

and for those comparing CZ to Nikon to Panda/Kaka brand lenses, chances are, you won't be seeing much difference from your CRTs/LCDs/bla bla monitors from the FF sensors......

 

[bigpond]

i twiddled with three ZF lenses before i sold them all actually... as for the FF sensor, the corners for at least the ZF 50mm f1.4 are still terrible wide open, that i thought that some how my voiglander did better. if centre resolution is all that matters, i think an AP-C camera, i.e. a700/d300 etc would give good performance.

Wah, wish I have the good fortune to own 3 ZF lenses... I can only afford one (a ZF 25mm) and so far it has exceeded my expectations. Yes, one needs to stop down 1-2 stops to get excellent corners. But I think there is more to lens quality than "resolution" -- I've printed many 12 x 18 from the Zeiss and it is able to produce a certain freshness and impact that even the best of my Nikkor primes cannot do. It is not a huge difference, but it's there. Some call it microcontrast. The superior IQ of the ZF (the colour response is also fantastic, esp when coupled with the S5) is evident on-screen as well. My own (unscientific) tests suggest that the ZF 25 clearly outresolves the Nikon 50mm 1.4 in the centre at all apertures.

As for the ZF 50 having soft corners at f1.4, well, I guess that cannot be *the* reason why you don't like Zeiss lenses. Is there ever a 50 1.4 lens that is not soft wide open? I don't mean to be rude, but for the same reason, one cannot slam all Nikon lenses just because the Nikkor 50 f1.4 is soft wide open.

But anyway, this thread is not a discussion about Zeiss lenses. We can agree to disagree. However, it is an important consideration (for some) due to the fact that Zeiss lenses can only autofocus with Sony DSLRs.

 

[marios_pittas]

However, it is an important consideration (for some) due to the fact that Zeiss lenses can only autofocus with Sony DSLRs.

Yes.. but they are huge.. heavy.. make you stand out.. not the kind of lens to be walking the streets with IMHO.. thus unsuitable for what I do..

-- Marios

 

[GENO]

Seriously, who is the fanboy here? even in the Canon section of this forum, the same opinion is being dished out and you weren't even bother (read post #97 onwards http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4337510&postcount=97)
so why only this Nikon section?

You can give your views or disagreement but I would suggest you stop coming in to the Nikon section of this forum and calling the members here Nikon fanboy and start a flame.

its just a tool from what i see it, no matter which brand, theres no prefect camera leh..do we get to learn anything from the comment you just made?:dunno:

 

[lsisaxon]

Just curious, what happens if a 24MP sensor, contains pixels of different sizes. Smaller pixels will congregated at the centre, while the corners and sides have larger pixels. In total, they add up to 24MP. Is that feasible? It's like dedicating sharpness to the centre and capture less 'fuzziness' at the corners...

Can try to patent it. ;p But anyway, I think image uniformity would suffer once you start to mix different pixel size on a single sensor. So that's going to be a tough problem to solve... Imagine the centre portion of the image more noisy than the periphery? :dunno: Next, an innovative method would be required for the readout. I think it's simpler to make the entire sensor the same resolution.

The only advantage I see now for 24MP is for cropping. Then it's going to be like the age old question, shoot slides or shoot prints? For slides, you'll need to compose the image properly before you shoot it, for prints, you could shoot a little bit more and then later crop in the darkroom. It boils down to shooting preference.

Of course, everyone would desire a higher resolution sensor, including myself... provided the optics are up to par. I already find editing 12MP images to be quite slow on my machines, so the resolution really has to be there before I would feel the need to sacrifice my disk space for it. My Fuji F100fd shoots 12MP, but I've set it to only 6MP because there is almost no difference in the amount of details I could dig out of it with the advantage of a smaller filesize.

 

[lsisaxon]

surprising to see some of the scathing scarcastic remarks from some of the senior guys here.
without having actual hand on on the A900 itself.

The noise had been grossly over exaggerated and the fanboys just conveniently picking on the most negative aspect of the review..unlike someone here over at the depreview who did a test on both A900 and D700
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=29263876
Had a look for yrself and yes, i would like to see a 140% of a resampling of the so call high iso someone taunting abt

I was tempted to show it using these 2 images.
A900- http://a.img-dpreview.com/gallery/sony_a900preview_samples/originals/dsc01990_dw.jpg
D3- http://a.img-dpreview.com/gallery/nikond3_samples/originals/dsc_1405-lr.jpg

However, I thought it wasn't fair to the A900 because it's using a 24-70 and the D3 one is shot using the 70-200.

But since you mentioned, I'll just put that up.

Here are the resized original images taken from DP review just to show where the crops are taken from.
NikonD3

Sony A900

 

[lsisaxon]

I was tempted to show it using these 2 images.
A900- http://a.img-dpreview.com/gallery/sony_a900preview_samples/originals/dsc01990_dw.jpg
D3- http://a.img-dpreview.com/gallery/nikond3_samples/originals/dsc_1405-lr.jpg

However, I thought it wasn't fair to the A900 because it's using a 24-70 and the D3 one is shot using the 70-200.

But since you mentioned, I'll just put that up.

Here are the resized original images taken from DP review just to show where the crops are taken from.
NikonD3
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g241/lsisaxon/NikonD3s.jpg

Sony A900
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g241/lsisaxon/SonyA900s.jpg

100% crop of Nikon's image

140% resampled Nikon

100% crop of Sony right tower

100% crop of Sony left tower

The left tower is closer to the centre and that is where the details shows up on the 24MP sensor. The tower in the D3 image is at the extreme left edge where the 70-200 is known to be a bit soft. Comparing that to the right tower in the Sony image, the optics starts to degrade towards the top right edge and it is clearly seen that 24MP has no real advantage in this aspect.

 

[lsisaxon]

surprising to see some of the scathing scarcastic remarks from some of the senior guys here.
without having actual hand on on the A900 itself.

The noise had been grossly over exaggerated and the fanboys just conveniently picking on the most negative aspect of the review..unlike someone here over at the depreview who did a test on both A900 and D700
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=29263876
Had a look for yrself and yes, i would like to see a 140% of a resampling of the so call high iso someone taunting abt

To answer the part about the noise, yes, it does seem pretty good but we do not know if it's a fair test. Many of the images we see in the DPReview samples are noisier than that. For one, the lens used on the D700 is already an inferior one and the image resolution is already optically limited rather than sensor limited. Secondly, there seems to be more dynamic details in the D700 image than the A900, so I don't know if the settings used for the RAW decoding is the same although the same software was used.

 

[lsisaxon]

I think the concern that a 24MP sensor is beyond the resolving power of a lot of lenses may be a little exaggerated. I was just reading a dpreview test of the Nikon 50mm f1.4 and according to them, "The results of our studio tests demonstrate that in this region it is wholly untroubled by the 12Mp sensor of the D3, and has plenty in reserve for the inevitable arrival of FX cameras with double the resolution; indeed it is sufficiently sharp in the centre to out-resolve the D300's 12Mp DX sensor, which would be equivalent to 28Mp on FX." At f5.6-f8, the 50 1.4 is sharp over the entire frame on FX. Of course, zooms may not reach that level of performance, yet.

And IMHO most ZF lenses (primes) outresolve Nikkors. So if you take care to use good lenses at their sweet spot, I think a 24MP sensor will take you to a whole new level of resolution, corner to corner.

Yes, that means you can only use the lenses at the sweet spot. I find that D300's sensor has already outresolved the lens, so the lens is not even good enough at the centre. Zeiss may be better but I think we got to wait for the new series of lenses which I think will make >24MP possible. At this point in time, just have to wait and see, by the time these lenses comes out, there will be newer bodies or 24MP FX bodies will be priced in the region of today's D80 and D90. ;p My rationale is that I buy fast lenses to make use of the fast apertures, if I have to stop it down to f/8 to get sharp corner to corner on FX, then it has defeated the purpose. But since I don't print that big anyway, I can live with having a lower resolution sensor to match that lens and many other lenses.

I've got bitten once (the existing lenses I have are not up to par even on a 12MP D3), so I don't wish for anyone else to get bitten by this FX craze. I'd adopt a wait and see attitude for now.

 

[yokechye]

as clearly as you can see that this image is taken at different direction of the bridge. when coparing quality or anything, to be "fair", they have to be taken at the same time and same angle. After studying years in architecture, the enviroment affects the image quality, the sun angle and some other factors. that has to be considered when taking such shots. just my 2cents

I was tempted to show it using these 2 images.
A900- http://a.img-dpreview.com/gallery/sony_a900preview_samples/originals/dsc01990_dw.jpg
D3- http://a.img-dpreview.com/gallery/nikond3_samples/originals/dsc_1405-lr.jpg

However, I thought it wasn't fair to the A900 because it's using a 24-70 and the D3 one is shot using the 70-200.

But since you mentioned, I'll just put that up.

Here are the resized original images taken from DP review just to show where the crops are taken from.
NikonD3

Sony A900

 

[yokechye]

Seriously, who is the fanboy here? even in the Canon section of this forum, the same opinion is being dished out and you weren't even bother (read post #97 onwards http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4337510&postcount=97)
so why only this Nikon section?

You can give your views or disagreement but I would suggest you stop coming in to the Nikon section of this forum and calling the members here Nikon fanboy and start a flame.

i guess the way it is describing on #97 doesn't bother me at all when the way it is put in is more on a non-bias position. Frankly, Nikon d3 do perform impressively that i always had a awe to it. same to canon. There is no way every manufacturer comes out with a body that satisfy all aspect.

 

[lsisaxon]

i twiddled with three ZF lenses before i sold them all actually. to my horror at least, a couple of nikkor zooms and primes resolves as well as the ZF, unfortunately the ZF gives a wider aperture advantage by 1 stop at that resolution though.

as for the FF sensor, the corners for at least the ZF 50mm f1.4 are still terrible wide open, that i thought that some how my voiglander did better. if centre resolution is all that matters, i think an AP-C camera, i.e. a700/d300 etc would give good performance.

You sold all your ZFs? So I guess I shouldn't plan to buy any then.. ;p

 

[lsisaxon]

You'll be surprised ;p

Hmm... Interesting.. I think I should make Photography my job instead of a hobby then I can make the investments break even faster. ;p

 

[lsisaxon]

as clearly as you can see that this image is taken at different direction of the bridge. when coparing quality or anything, to be "fair", they have to be taken at the same time and same angle. After studying years in architecture, the enviroment affects the image quality, the sun angle and some other factors. that has to be considered when taking such shots. just my 2cents

Yes it definitely does but these are the closest objects I can find in the samples gallery that makes sense. Plus they are shot with different lenses, so the A900 is already disadvantaged in this case because it's using a 24-70 while the D3 was using 70-200.

But the point I'm trying to bring across is that if the entire frame is important, ie people swearing by FF because they claim DX could not give them wide enough an angle, then corner to corner performance should be a criteria when evaluation FF bodies. Certainly 24MP is definitely welcome, but to shoot more MP at the expense of storage space is just burning money if the optics are not giving that kind of resolution anyway.

Of course if optics gets better, like what Nikon is doing now, redesigning optics to meets the demands of high resolution FX sensors, then it will make sense. But it's definitely going to be expensive. For me, I'll wait and see before blowing any more money.

 

[lsisaxon]

There're a lot of former Konica and Minolta users waiting for FF to use their old lens.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Sony A900 is priced correctly, it's going to sell like hotcakes.

Don't have to wait.. I've been bitten. I don't think Minolta lenses are any better or worse than Nikon's, so with my experience on the 12MP D3, I think some people are going to be disappointed with the corner performance if they are expecting the lenses they have to be sharp corner to corner.

Just dig my thread on the comparison of 4 renowned f/1.4 primes on D3 vs the 17-55DX on D300 and you'll know the verdict.

 

[bigpond]

You sold all your ZFs? So I guess I shouldn't plan to buy any then.. ;p

Not so fast... he later clarified that he sold them because they are big and bulky...

 

[lsisaxon]

Not so fast... he later clarified that he sold them because they are big and bulky...

Oh... Hmm.. I'm still hesitating because, 1) they are not cheap, 2) I am still not very convinced that they are way better than the Nikkors I have for the money, 3) they are manual. :dunno:

 

[lsisaxon]

i guess the way it is describing on #97 doesn't bother me at all when the way it is put in is more on a non-bias position. Frankly, Nikon d3 do perform impressively that i always had a awe to it. same to canon. There is no way every manufacturer comes out with a body that satisfy all aspect.

They don't need to. They just need to drive the prices down for the system you're interested in. ;p Nikon and Sony just decided that Canon has made people pay enough for their FF bodies.

 

[bigpond]

Do check out these very large images from Sony Japan -- I can't find anything wrong with them. Now, when is Fuji going to come out with a FF 24MP Super CCD???

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1037&thread=29274444

Rgds,

 

[yokechye]

They don't need to. They just need to drive the prices down for the system you're interested in. ;p Nikon and Sony just decided that Canon has made people pay enough for their FF bodies.

Do check out these very large images from Sony Japan -- I can't find anything wrong with them. Now, when is Fuji going to come out with a FF 24MP Super CCD???

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1037&thread=29274444

Rgds,

it is just a matter of time. as mp gets higher, lens gets better. and sony is also trying to do its best to progressively coming out with new lenses. and already a few are designed with the A900 in mind