10 Megapixel SLRs Compared (continued)
HIGH ISO NOISE: From brief comparisons the Pentax and Canon XTi are the best at controlling noise at high ISO ("film") speeds. However, they approach noise reduction in very different manners. The Pentax retains edge sharpness, dynamic range and contrast at high ISO but allows the background to become grainier; the Canon reduces edge sharpness, contrast, and dynamic range to make noise less noticeable at high ISO. Since dynamic range - the range from lightest to darkest - is already a problem with all digital photography we prefer noise control that preserves the already limited dynamic range as much as possible, but some will prefer the Canon approach. Both are followed closely by the Nikon, with the Sony exhibiting the most noise at high ISO. All four are all but identical to ISO 400, but at 800 small differences start to appear. It is worth noting that while the Pentax and the Canon sensors/processors control noise well they are not as "noise-free" as the Canon 6 megapixel and 8 megapixel CMOS sensors. This should not really be a surprise since the size of the sensor is the same APS C size in the 6, 8, and 10 megapixel versions. More pixels in the same area therefore translates into a bit more noise.
KIT LENS: While you can always upgrade to a better lens, the kit lenses that are normally packaged with the SLR are normally very good value for your money. The bare entry level lens for the Canon, Nikon, and Pentax SLRs is an 18-55mm, which is equivalent to a 28mm to 80mm lens on a traditional 35mm camera. The Sony normal lens is 18-70mm, adds the same cost to the kit as the others, but is equivalent to a 28-105mm lens for 35mm. Build quality is usually cheap on kit lenses, but the above picture compares the Sony and Pentax kit lenses. It is worth pointing out that the Pentax 18-55mm is the only kit lens with a metal lens mount as normally seen on "better" lenses - the others all have a plastic lens mount. Nikon actually has two other kit lenses in the 18-70mm and 18-135mm lenses, but these "kit" lenses add as much as $300 to the kit total, compared to an average $100 or less for the other kit lenses.
BUILD QUALITY: By far, the Pentax K10D feels the most solid and it is the heaviest of the four cameras. That can be good (build quality) or bad (increased weight) depending on your desires. The Nikon D80 is a very solid piece of equipment and is the easy number 2, followed closely by the also solid Sony A100. The extra sealing for water/dust resistance pays off in the K10D, which is easily the best quality Pentax since the *ist D, which also had a solid build quality. The Nikon and Sony build quality are about the same, except for the Sony's loud slapping mirror and louder focusing. The Canon is far behind the other three in build quality, but it still has the quietest lenses of the group with the integrated lens focusing motors. The damped mirror sound on the Pentax is very reassuring to most ears.
FLASH: Nikon and Sony (inherited from Minolta) both provide excellent distance integration in their flash offering. With Nikon D and Sony/Maxxum ADI lenses, flash photography is accurate and predictable. Pentax and Canon also have good built-in flashes and external flash units, but they are not quite the equal of the D offerings. Nikon has reasonable pricing for flashes, but Sony decided to make their Sony/Minolta flash units very expensive.
LCD(s): All four 10 megapixel cameras offer large 2.5" color preview screens. The Sony and Canon also use the screen for menus, while the Pentax and Nikon have a separate top-deck LCD that provides info on camera settings.
CONTROL: The Pentax Hyperprogram has been around for quite a while, and Pentax did a really great job with the front/rear dials and new sensitivity program line. The Nikon D80 also has both front and rear control dials, while the Sony and Canon have just one control dial. The ability of the Pentax to shift the program aperture with one dial and the shutter speed with the other while the camera is still in program mode makes shooting like you want a lot easier - the creative control of manual while still in program mode.
AUTO ISO: Both the Pentax and Nikon offer user selectable Auto ISO ranges - a really useful feature where the camera automatically selects "speed" based on program conditions you can manually set. Sony also offers Auto ISO, but it is limited to ISO 400 and it is not user programmable. The K10D capabilities with a manual, non-autofocus K-mount lens are icing on the cake - you can even use effective anti-shake with manual lenses after dialing in the focal length. Newer lenses automatically provide the focal length info to the camera.
PRICE: Amazon and Newegg were used to determine online prices. These prices should be available to any online shopper, but you may find even better prices if you are willing to do more searching. Conversely, local photo specialty retailers normally provide better customer support and return options than etailers, and their prices for the same item will generally be higher due to the extra service they provide. Right now the Sony A100 is the best value available with a price with 18-70mm lens of about $720. The Canon XTi is selling for about $800 with an 18-55mm lens. The moisture and dust sealed Pentax K10D with a quality 18-55 lens is $999, and the Nikon D80 with an 18-55 lens is about $1100.
Recommendations
All-in-all the Nikon D80 and Pentax K10D are the closest in build quality and depth of features. When you consider the K10D has very effective anti-shake built in, effective moisture sealing, and dust removal - and the Nikon has none of these features - the advantage definitely goes to Pentax. If you are a serious photographer you will be very happy with the Pentax K10D. If you are already committed to the Canon or Nikon lens system, then your choice is easier. However, while Canon pioneered the under $1000 digital camera market, the Canon Rebel XTi is by far the worst offering in the 10 megapixel range. It is cheaply built with poor ergonomics compared to other 10 megapixel offerings.
The Sony A100 is by far the best buy in the 10 megapixel group. Sony has reduced the suggested retail price for the kit to $899 - the same as the Canon Rebel XTi with lens. However, you can actually buy the Sony A100 for a lot less. At $720 the A100 offers a longer 18-70 lens, excellent build quality, anti-shake for any lens, compatibility with new Sony lenses and most any Minolta Maxxum lens, enhanced dynamic range, and fast operation.
HIGH ISO NOISE: From brief comparisons the Pentax and Canon XTi are the best at controlling noise at high ISO ("film") speeds. However, they approach noise reduction in very different manners. The Pentax retains edge sharpness, dynamic range and contrast at high ISO but allows the background to become grainier; the Canon reduces edge sharpness, contrast, and dynamic range to make noise less noticeable at high ISO. Since dynamic range - the range from lightest to darkest - is already a problem with all digital photography we prefer noise control that preserves the already limited dynamic range as much as possible, but some will prefer the Canon approach. Both are followed closely by the Nikon, with the Sony exhibiting the most noise at high ISO. All four are all but identical to ISO 400, but at 800 small differences start to appear. It is worth noting that while the Pentax and the Canon sensors/processors control noise well they are not as "noise-free" as the Canon 6 megapixel and 8 megapixel CMOS sensors. This should not really be a surprise since the size of the sensor is the same APS C size in the 6, 8, and 10 megapixel versions. More pixels in the same area therefore translates into a bit more noise.
KIT LENS: While you can always upgrade to a better lens, the kit lenses that are normally packaged with the SLR are normally very good value for your money. The bare entry level lens for the Canon, Nikon, and Pentax SLRs is an 18-55mm, which is equivalent to a 28mm to 80mm lens on a traditional 35mm camera. The Sony normal lens is 18-70mm, adds the same cost to the kit as the others, but is equivalent to a 28-105mm lens for 35mm. Build quality is usually cheap on kit lenses, but the above picture compares the Sony and Pentax kit lenses. It is worth pointing out that the Pentax 18-55mm is the only kit lens with a metal lens mount as normally seen on "better" lenses - the others all have a plastic lens mount. Nikon actually has two other kit lenses in the 18-70mm and 18-135mm lenses, but these "kit" lenses add as much as $300 to the kit total, compared to an average $100 or less for the other kit lenses.
BUILD QUALITY: By far, the Pentax K10D feels the most solid and it is the heaviest of the four cameras. That can be good (build quality) or bad (increased weight) depending on your desires. The Nikon D80 is a very solid piece of equipment and is the easy number 2, followed closely by the also solid Sony A100. The extra sealing for water/dust resistance pays off in the K10D, which is easily the best quality Pentax since the *ist D, which also had a solid build quality. The Nikon and Sony build quality are about the same, except for the Sony's loud slapping mirror and louder focusing. The Canon is far behind the other three in build quality, but it still has the quietest lenses of the group with the integrated lens focusing motors. The damped mirror sound on the Pentax is very reassuring to most ears.
FLASH: Nikon and Sony (inherited from Minolta) both provide excellent distance integration in their flash offering. With Nikon D and Sony/Maxxum ADI lenses, flash photography is accurate and predictable. Pentax and Canon also have good built-in flashes and external flash units, but they are not quite the equal of the D offerings. Nikon has reasonable pricing for flashes, but Sony decided to make their Sony/Minolta flash units very expensive.
LCD(s): All four 10 megapixel cameras offer large 2.5" color preview screens. The Sony and Canon also use the screen for menus, while the Pentax and Nikon have a separate top-deck LCD that provides info on camera settings.
CONTROL: The Pentax Hyperprogram has been around for quite a while, and Pentax did a really great job with the front/rear dials and new sensitivity program line. The Nikon D80 also has both front and rear control dials, while the Sony and Canon have just one control dial. The ability of the Pentax to shift the program aperture with one dial and the shutter speed with the other while the camera is still in program mode makes shooting like you want a lot easier - the creative control of manual while still in program mode.
AUTO ISO: Both the Pentax and Nikon offer user selectable Auto ISO ranges - a really useful feature where the camera automatically selects "speed" based on program conditions you can manually set. Sony also offers Auto ISO, but it is limited to ISO 400 and it is not user programmable. The K10D capabilities with a manual, non-autofocus K-mount lens are icing on the cake - you can even use effective anti-shake with manual lenses after dialing in the focal length. Newer lenses automatically provide the focal length info to the camera.
PRICE: Amazon and Newegg were used to determine online prices. These prices should be available to any online shopper, but you may find even better prices if you are willing to do more searching. Conversely, local photo specialty retailers normally provide better customer support and return options than etailers, and their prices for the same item will generally be higher due to the extra service they provide. Right now the Sony A100 is the best value available with a price with 18-70mm lens of about $720. The Canon XTi is selling for about $800 with an 18-55mm lens. The moisture and dust sealed Pentax K10D with a quality 18-55 lens is $999, and the Nikon D80 with an 18-55 lens is about $1100.
Recommendations
All-in-all the Nikon D80 and Pentax K10D are the closest in build quality and depth of features. When you consider the K10D has very effective anti-shake built in, effective moisture sealing, and dust removal - and the Nikon has none of these features - the advantage definitely goes to Pentax. If you are a serious photographer you will be very happy with the Pentax K10D. If you are already committed to the Canon or Nikon lens system, then your choice is easier. However, while Canon pioneered the under $1000 digital camera market, the Canon Rebel XTi is by far the worst offering in the 10 megapixel range. It is cheaply built with poor ergonomics compared to other 10 megapixel offerings.
The Sony A100 is by far the best buy in the 10 megapixel group. Sony has reduced the suggested retail price for the kit to $899 - the same as the Canon Rebel XTi with lens. However, you can actually buy the Sony A100 for a lot less. At $720 the A100 offers a longer 18-70 lens, excellent build quality, anti-shake for any lens, compatibility with new Sony lenses and most any Minolta Maxxum lens, enhanced dynamic range, and fast operation.
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soydios - Tuesday, December 26, 2006 - link
IMHO, this is a rather important fact that isn't in the article: the Nikon D40 (unlike every other Nikon DSLR) does not have an in-camera autofocus motor. This means that only Nikon AF-S lenses, which have the autofocus motor in the lens and are not nearly as prolific as the rest of the Nikon F-mount AF lens family, fully function on the D40. Older Nikon AF lenses, which are the entire reason that I purchased my D50 six months ago, do not autofocus on the D40.Awax - Tuesday, December 26, 2006 - link
Except for the 3 point autofocus and the lack of integrated lens autofocus engine, everything is better on the D40. The D40 will in 90% be associated with the kit lens only: this is an entry-level D-SLR and as it, is better than the D50. If you already own a D50, you'll better go for the D80. If you own an argentic SLR <ith many lenses, you'll probably buy new lens since the new generation digital only lenses are much better than the old/classical argentic lenses.PCHPlayer - Tuesday, December 26, 2006 - link
Did anyone else get the feeling that the author was a Pentax fanboy and the conclusion was going to be in favor of the Pentax line? Unfortunately I found the article quite shallow. I would highly recommend going to dpreview.com to get a real in-depth analysis of these cameras.Justin Case - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
Personally, I just got the feeling the author is completely clueless. Take this paragraph, for example:"Sony continued the then-unique in-camera image stabilization pioneered by Minolta, which allowed any lens mounted on the camera to take sharper pictures at slower shutter speeds."
Image stabilization simply helps reduce blur caused by camera vibration. It won't do anything to make pictures "sharper". At slow shutter speeds, if the subject moves, the picture is going to be blurry, no matter what. Image stabilisation makes no difference to that. And if the subject doesn't move, then most of the time you can simply use a tripod (or rest the camera on top of a table, or whatever).
And to mention Sony and Minolta (and Pentax) as examples of image stabilization is ridiculous. Nikon's VR is 10x better than anything those three have ever done and Canon's IS is 5x better than Nikon's VR.
Then there's that amazing paragraph titled "COMPATABILITY" (sic), which basically reads as a love letter to Pentax. They've made 25 million lenses! Whoa! Leica have only made around 2 million, so I guess that makes them crap. Maybe I should sell my Summilux and "invest" in some K-mount glass? Sigh...
When someone considers that Pentax beats Canon and Nikon in terms of lens quality and selection, I think it's clearly time to call for the paramedics.
fass mut - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
do you have link to the comparison between in body and lens stabilization? as far as i know, there is a slight benefit (.5 stop to maybe 1 stop) to in lens stabilization but that benefit is greatly off set by the price.buying a full range of lens with built in stabilization i.e. lenses that cover say 28 mm to 300 mm would cost a small fortune (~$2500-$4000 maybe more even). for me, that money saved could be plowed into better accessories like tripod, bag, flashes, heck even a faster computer or wide screen monitor to post process...but that's just my opinion.
Justin Case - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
No amount of post-processing is going to recover detail that your lens didn't capture in the first place. When you invest in an SLR system, the main element are the lenses. That's the main difference between SLRs and compact cameras, and what some people don't seem to understand.If you can't afford good lenses, then use a compact camera instead. It's easier to use, cheaper, lighter, etc.., and can also take great pictures. Lots of great photographers use them. In some situations they're not just "as good" as an SLR, they're actually better.
And you don't need a full lens range with image stabilization. In fact, many great photographers managed to go through their entire careers without ever using ONE. But if you're going to use (and possibly rely on) image stabilization, you need it to actually be good, not just a marketing gimmick.
Lots of lenses aren't available in stabilized versions anyway. Lenses above 400mm are usually quite heavy, and used on a tripod, and below 70mm or so, vibration isn't a big problem. So a lot of photographers have only a couple of stabilized lenses, or even none at all (I have one, I might get one more, and I doubt I'll get any after that). Stabilized lenses are useful when you need to "track" subjects a lot, at long distances (ex., wildlife).
The only way you can really see the difference between proper optical image stabilization (ex., Canon IS or Nikon VR) and sensor stabilization (which has been used for a long time in video camcorders, BTW, namely Sony's) is by trying it.
It's not a matter of "how many stops" it gets you (that's just an over-simplification). It won't do anything for subject movement, and if you are using a tripod it won't make any difference. The effect depends on the vibration, and the vibration depends on each situation. If you are shooting a still subject under low light with no tripod, yes, maybe you can talk about gaining 2-3 stops with Canon IS. But that's just one specific situation.
It would be perfectly possible to add great image stabilization to cameras, but:
- It would make the cameras bigger
- It would make the cameras heavier
- It would make the cameras more expensive
And it's more or less useless when shooting at wide angles, and worse than useless when shooting on a tripod. 95% of people would never pay for it, or pick the heavier, bulkier camera. So some brands just use this "sensor stabilization" as a marketing gimmick, to make buyers think that, for an extra $75 or so they're getting image stabilization similar to what they'd get from a $1500 lens. They're not, of course.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's simply on a different league from lens stabilization, just as those MiniDV camcorder "stabilizers" are on a different league from a full SteadyCam harness.
The way the article's author dismisses VR / IS as if they were just an "overpriced version" of the same thing suggests that he never actually used it.
And I found it funny (though not surprising) that this AT article's "demonstration" of sensor stabilization was actually an unrealistic mock-up taken from an ad, not a real test image. In fact, it's funny how a review of four cameras manages to have so few pictures taken with those cameras and such poor pictures of the cameras themselves.
Photographers have a term for people who judge cameras by looking at their specifications (instead of at the images they produce): measurebation.
mongrelchild - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
Get the hell out of here, Ken Rockwell.No one cares for your misinformation.
mongrelchild - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
That was a reply for Justin Case, who by his preferring the K100's PQ to the K10s demonstrates that he has used neither of the products.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
I have owned many Nikon and Canon film and digital cameras over the years - as well as a current Fuji S3 (Nikon lenses) and a D80. The Fuji S3 is well-suited to our work which is mostly "still-life" where the S3 excels. It would be a horrible camera for action photography. My last Canon Digital was a 20D. I have also owned both VR and IS lenses from Nikon and Canon, and have a fair amount of Nikon glass.There is definitely a place for lens-based VR/IS, but most of the VR/IS that I see being sold is for $200 Nikon/Canon entry zoom lenses that now cost $400 to $600 with lens integral anti-shake. It is easy to defend pro glass with IS, but most users who read this Buyers Guide will not spend $1500 to $2000 or more on the lenses you talk about, they will buy the $400 to $600 overpriced VR/IS zooms that are f4.0-F5.6 and not that great to start with. For most users, body-integral AS is a much better and cost-effective solution that works with any lens mounted - and yes it is more effective on some lenses than others.
Modern DSLR cameras communicate lens info to the processor, so it is possible for AS to be customized in processing for the lens in use. Under $1000 is still entry-level and this article is not aimed at Pro's. The entry kit lens for both are also pretty awful - both the Pentax kit and Sony kit are actually better lenses. At least Nikon offers a kit lens upgrade option, but it brings the price of the upgrade D80 kit to $1300.
Pentax and Minolta have made some superb AF lenses over the years. If you doubt that compare some lens qulaity ratings at www.photodo.com. Canon learned Pros want more than glass - they want the service and hand-holding that Nikon has provided to Pros for many years. Don't project the Pro orientation of Canon and Nikon into beliefs that their glass is superior, because it isn't. All four companies have some wonderful lenses and some dogs. Sony/Minolta, Pentax/Hoya, Canon and Nikon all have some pretty mediocre low cost lenses these days - aimed at low cost buyers. All four also have some superb glass. If you're a Pro who needs a long super-fast telephoto for a sports assignment - cost be damned - then you will find it at Canon or Nikon. However, for the photo enthusiast or hobbyist that is the intended audience for this guide, Pentax and Sony can give the buyer excellent selection and value.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
Since you seem the most vocal in calling me clueless I ask if you can please share your experiences when you tested the Pentax K10D and some of the new lenses like the 31mm f1.8 or 43 f1.9 or the pancake 21mm f3.2. Can you comment on the handling, build-quality, and lens line based on real hands-on experience? Or are your comments based on intuitive knowledge since everyone knows Canon and Nikon are the best?We tested ALL FOUR cameras in this review and we bought the cameras with kit lenses and 50mm F1.4 lenses. No manufacturer supplied samples for testing. We did borrow some lenses from friends for testing. Opinions are always welcomed, but you have turned your commenst into a personal vendetta. Since you have so much to say please share the basis of YOUR opinions. We would all like to hear you own personal testing experiences with the Pentax K10D.