The parameters that I think of that make up the tussle in photography are shutter speed, ISO, dynamic range, and color.
The holy grail is a camera that delivers good color and dynamic range with low noise at high ISO.
Nikon D200
In good light at low ISO my D200 delivered good color (by which I mean subtle gradations of color and tone) and dynamic range. But at ISO 400 the color was washed out and the noise was starting to intrude.
I liked to shoot portraits at 800 ISO because they produced a kind of sketchy look. It doesn’t matter for portraits – the individual bits that fill the frame are so big that the overall effect can be good.
But for a landscape or a street shot, the poor color was really obvious.
Nikon D60
This camera with a 35mm f1.8 AF-S lens has been my walkabout lens for several months. The color is good and the noise is pretty good – better than the D200. But the dynamic range is a monster. It is a constant struggle to adjust exposure compensation to get the highlights, knowing that it was putting the shadows into bad territory.
It a scene with low contrast range, it is fine.
Nikon D700
People sometimes talk about the benefit of high ISO in poor light. Which is true, but my first thought is of shooting at high ISO in good light and stopping action dead and without hitting the dynamic range ‘wall’.
In this case it was leaves fluttering about in the breeze.
This is a casual shot out of our bedroom window. The details were 1/800 second at f4 and 1600 ISO 50mm lens Auto white balance, and sRGB color space.
Shot RAW and converted in Photoshop CS3 with no sharpening.
I really cannot see how I could want for better quality.
I gave up street photography because it was frustrating balancing between a sharp but noisy shot and a clean but blurred one.
Now I can go back to street shooting.
For more shots, take a look at the article on RAW files versus JPEGS in the Nikon D700 at Quillcards, which makes distinctive ecards. You can find the specific article in the Quillcards Blog.
