DxOMark.com continues its cruel exposure (so to speak) of Canon’s image quality weakness relative to Nikon and Sony.
Their direct comparison of sensor performance among three entry-level SLRs shows that Nikon crushes Canon in dynamic range, color sensitivity, and low-light performance.
Two questions: 1) I thought Nikon was using Sony’s sensors anyway(?) and 2) This is a fairly long-running trend. Should we expect Canon R&D to make some come-from-behind release in the next year or so, or is it time for Canon faithful to cut and run?
That’s why when it was time to upgrade my old 5D I bought a D600 over a 6D, along with the Sigma 35/1.4 and 85/1.4. I had already sold most of my lenses and only had a 24-105L and 35L, and mostly used the 35L, so the switch was fairly painless.
At least in the mid-high end where I was shopping, you just seem to get more for your money with Nikon.
TimB: Nikon apparently uses Toshiba sensors as well as Sony. http://nikonrumors.com/2012/06/22/the-sensor-inside-the-d3200-is-made-by-nikon.aspx/ says that at least some Nikon sensors are “made by Nikon” (does that mean they fab them themselves? I don’t think so. http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2012/10/chipworks-reviews-full-frame-dslr.html says that Nikon uses Renasas as a fab)
See http://nikonrumors.com/2013/01/08/surprise-the-sensor-inside-the-nikon-d5200-is-made-by-toshiba.aspx/ for a discussion of the Toshiba sensor in one Nikon body.
As for whether or not Canon is going to invest in competing with Nikon it is unclear. So far Canon sales do not seem to have been affected by their inferior image quality, unless maybe you look at the failure of the Canon M compared to the Sony NEX system and other mirrorless systems. Check out
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/japan-2013-overall-sales-numbers-sony-dslrslt-presence-shrinks-mirrorless-share-increases/
where it shows that in the Japanese market Canon’s market share is pretty steady despite the Nikon D600 and D800 having been introduced.
Funny you mention this, because yesterday we filmed a review of the D3300 and compared it to the similar entry-level Canon cameras. According to DXOMark (who I do trust), the D3300’s APS-C sensor even has better image quality than my full-frame 5D Mark III.
But I can’t recommend it to most who might buy an entry-level camera, because the D3300 ships with a kit lens that DXOMark rated at 9 megapixels. And, in my tests, the D3300 kit pictures don’t show more detail than the $389 Canon T3 kit.
But, those millions of D3300 kit users will be burdened with 24 megapixel files, even though they contain only 9 megapixels of detail. That means they’ll burn through memory cards faster, disks faster, and Lightroom will run slower.
I highly recommend the D3300 to those who have ambitions and might buy some nice, sharp prime lenses to take advantage of that sensor (and I did test it with a sharp prime and loved it). But the vast majority of people will just use their kit lens.
So, to me, Nikon’s sensor advantages are more important on the higher-end bodies, because more serious photographers will be grabbing those.
Tony: Thanks for the info, but (a) isn’t dynamic range at least as important as resolution?, and (b) doesn’t the D3300 have the ability to generate lower resolution JPEGs and/or RAWs?
When I was in Antarctica I found that the superior ability of the Sony RX100 to deal with contrast (due presumably to a sensor with higher dynamic range) meant that its JPEGs were often better than the images from my EOS 5D Mark III. The lower resolution of the RX100 (both in pixels and presumably total since I don’t think the lightweight lens on the RX100 is the equal of a Canon L lens) wasn’t relevant to the visual comparison.