need help with nikon/olympus decision

[ssra30]

The lack of funds is what helps me.

Dive Safe

Lack of fund is not a huge problem but for me unfortunately lack of talents seems to be the limiting factor

 

[ReyeR]

ReyeR, I thought by now you would already be a proud owner of Oly Evolt or something like that by now. If not, its not too late to move to Nikon camp

Ha ha ha - Every man has a price, if you wanted to fling your old D70 and Sea and Sea housing my way downunder I will be more than happy to switch to the 'N' camp!

I can't believe you have moved on to a Nikon D2X with a Subal housing. Mate, I must be doing something wrong here :06: .

After seeing Richard's (Tio, digitaldiver.net) stunning photos with the E-1, the E300 was looked at verrry verrry seriously (nearly ordered from Yuzo in Dec, 2004), with great hopes of Oly to produce a reasonably priced housing (as they have been with the PT/Cx0x0 series). The first look at the housing looked good but the recommended retail price made no sense. Current lack of an affordable wide-angle lens and no relevations of a dome port put the project on hold completely. If the housing was priced at about AU$800 (US$600) including a flat port for the 14-45, I tell you, the E300 would be in my hands right now.

 

[ssra30]

Ha ha ha - Every man has a price, if you wanted to fling your old D70 and Sea and Sea housing my way downunder I will be more than happy to switch to the 'N' camp!

I can't believe you have moved on to a Nikon D2X with a Subal housing. Mate, I must be doing something wrong here :06: .

Sorry, my D70 Sea and Sea housing was sold as soon as I ordered the Subal housing pretty much. I was going to keep the D70 but once I saw how much it was going to cost me to get all the ports and GS Viewfinder, D70 was turned into much needed cash as well!
When adding price of the Oly/housing/wide angle lens, I guess it is not that much cheaper than D70/D70s either and seeing prices of camera in Australia, I am glad I am in Thailand
Now I am completely broke but shall be very happy when I go diving.

In under 3 years, I went from C4040 to C5050 to D70 and now D2X. If this is not a hobby getting out of hand, I don't know what is.

Island Hoppa, I apologize again for thread hi-jacking but hopefully we did answer some of your questions in the process

 

[normantr]

seriously look at an affordable DSLR instead.

Is this even possible

 

[f3nikon]

I read and understood the purpose of his test - did you?

Peter's noise test wasn't a comparison between a C5050 and a D70, as summarised by his recommendation: "Use the lowest ISO settings for both cameras unless you have specific reasons for increasing the ISO. And if you must increase ISO, try to limit it to no more than 100 for the C-5050 and 400 for the D70". Read and understand it - he has made a recommedation for individual cameras, not compared the two. The discussion here is about different noise characteristics exhibited between a prosumer camera and DSLR and their effects on the image captured, in case you have forgotten.


I was going to ask you myself if you worked for press? You seem to have the knack of picking on words and phrases and presenting them in an out-of-context manner, instead of sticking to the point and presenting facts relevant to the discussion.

How did the author come to his conclusion if he did not compare the noise data from both cameras?

From the wetpixel article:

“Conclusions - The C-5050 and the D70 both produce low noise results at their lowest ISO settings. And both have slight, but noticeable noise when the ISO is increased to the next logical level e.g. from 64 to 100 for the C-5050 and from 200 to 400 for the D70. At higher ISO levels, the noise is obvious and in my opinion, objectionable.”
Can we agree that BOTH cameras “produce low noise results at their lowest ISO settings.”?

The author did not say anything about one camera having more noise over the other!

So here comes your comment (that you present as fact):

“Compare the noise from an ISO 64 prosumer image and one shot at ISO 200 using a DSLR and you will understand why. You can throw as much strobe light at it as you want, it'll make no difference - the fact is that, currently, the smaller sensor packed with more pixels exhibits a lot more noise, even at lower ISOs.”
And another: “I read and understood the purpose of his test - did you?”

So you did not PERFORM actual test on digital noise, relevant digital cameras yet you come a CONCULSION that is totally OPPOSITE of the author!

I sure hope you are not here just to waste my time! LOL

 

[f3nikon]

Actually ReyeR, I take back that wasting my time part, even your incoherent comments made think about why there is an ISO difference in the 8080 and D70, 50 and 200 respectively.

And I’ll need some input from the experienced film shooters on this, with 35mm and 6x6 or medium format film the difference in the two types is the physical size of the film. The 6x6 is more than 2 times bigger than the 35mm in surface area. The ISO standard applies two both types of film.

I had mostly shot with 35mm ISO 50 film (Velvia) another photographer would use the 6x6 format at ISO 200 film. We happen to large some of the same subjects that we were shooting a found no noticeable difference in grain (noise in digital) between the two cameras.

The real advantage the 6x6 had over the 35mm was that the 6x6 could use faster film (ISO 200) and gets the same result (picture enlargements) as the 35mm, using a much lower ISO.

Could this be the case with DIGITAL????

The D70 is a higher ISO at 200 and the 8080 is a lower ISO at 50. From what I read, the D70 has less of a shutter lag (in low light) than the 8080, so the D70 is a faster camera.

The D70’s CCD chip is also larger than the 8080, like the case with film.

My guess is that Nikon had made a wise marketing move by sacrificing a little more noise in exchange for speed… Now the D2X is a totally different animal!

 

[ssra30]

F3Nikon, I think the way I read the article on wetpixel basically is that at lower ISO eg ISO 64, C5050 produces less noise than C5050 at ISO 100, 200 etc and same applies to D70, lower noise level at ISO 200 than at 400. This is generally true of all digital camera. However I don't think the author ever stated that C5050 at ISO 64 has the same noise level or better or worse than D70 at ISO200 ie he compares Oly at various ISO level and then he compares D70 at various ISO level but not Oly vs Nikon. That was my impression anyhow. I own both C5050 and D70 but never really shot anything side by side for true comparison test but for land use, I believe (very subjective and non scientific and probably has a good dose of bias since I spent the money to upgrade), the picture quality of the C5050 is certainly not comparable to D70. I can't comment on the C8080 since I don't own one. When I first got D70, I did post some comparison pictures of D70 vs C5050 on this forum. I was very happy with the difference while other people weren't as impressed, certainly not with the amount of money needed to upgrade.

Smaller CCD with more pixels will certainly create more noise since there is some physical limitation on what you can do. D2X is excellent from ISO100-400 but I am not as impress as some other people at ISO800 performence.
It will be interesting to see what Nikon will do with the next generaion D2Y? D3X as they will have to go higher on the number of pixels to keep up with canon, it won't be easy to do it on the 1.5x cropped CMOS but I hope somehow they can still keep the DX format going.

Since we are off the topic anyhow, recently you made some inquiry about Ikelite 8 inch domeport for the 10.5mm which did not work. Ikelite redid the mounting for the 8" domeport, supposedly it will now work with the 10.5mm. You might want to confirm this with Ikelite though.

 

[f3nikon]

That's correct, I had the same impression as well, that is why I wrote: The author did not say anything about one camera having more noise over the other!

And since you actually own both cameras, gives me more reason to respect your comments on this subject.

Thanks for the input on the D2X and dome port, I'll look in to that with Ikelite.

Dive Safe

PS. I sure hope you take the Subal housing only, down on the maiden dive, and leave the DX2 on the boat until the housing checked out for leaks.

 

[f3nikon]

Rewrite:

Actually ReyeR, I take back that "wasting my time part", even your incoherent comments made me think about why there is an ISO difference in the 8080 and D70, 50 and 200 respectively.

And I’ll need some input from the experienced film shooters on this, with 35mm and 6x6 or medium format film the difference in the two types is the physical size of the film. The 6x6 is more than 2 times larger than the 35mm in surface area. The ISO standard applies to both types of film.

I had mostly shot with 35mm ISO 50 film (Velvia) another photographer would use the 6x6 format at ISO 200 film. We happen to blow up (enlarge) some of the same subjects that we were shooting and found no noticeable difference in grain (noise in digital) between the two films.

The real advantage the 6x6 had over the 35mm was that the 6x6 could use faster film (ISO 200) and gets the same result (picture enlargements) as the 35mm, using a much lower ISO.

Could this be the case with DIGITAL????

The D70 has a higher ISO at 200 and the 8080 has a lower ISO at 50. From what I read, the D70 has less of a shutter lag (in low light) than the 8080, so the D70 is a faster camera (note I said low light, UW photography with strobes and wider apertures, this not a factor).

The D70’s CCD sensor is larger than the 8080, like the case with film. The image size on the D70 is much larger than the 8080, but with the D70 @ ISO200, more noise (grain) than the 8080 @ ISO 50.

Until we start blowing up both of the images...the D70 has the advantage since it does not need as much Magnification or blowing up as the 8080 because of its larger size to start with.

Then the D70 gives up the advantage because it started at a high ISO of 200 and the 8080 started at ISO 50. The 8080 would have to go through two image sizes in order to catch up with the D70 in image size, giving up it's lower ISO advantage of ISO 50, 100 and 200 along the way.

To sum it up, and this is just my comments, The D70 and the 8080 may (note I said may) have the same level of noise when enlarged or blown up to an 8 x 10 for example.

Note: from the specs. the 8080 @ 8mp has a physically larger CCD sensor size than that of the 5050 @ 5mp

 

[f3nikon]

CCD sensor sizes for a 5050, 8080 and D70

5050 = 1/1.8 or 7.2mm x 5.35mm ISO 64 / 5mp

8080 = 2/3 or 8.8mm x 6.6mm ISO 50 / 8mp

D70 = 23.7mm x 15.5mm ISO 200 / 6mp