What my camera sensor can deliver?
There is a company named DXO Labs that does very thorough tests of like in this case, the quality of what the sensor can deliver.
We really would like to point out how DXO Labs is working and what they measure:
1. The color depth in portrait pictures (the skin tones is really, really hard to reproduce);
2. The dynamic range in Landscape pictures (dynamic range = the greatest possible amplitude between light and dark details a given sensor can record picture information);
3. Sports, low light ISO (Low-Light ISO indicates the highest ISO sensitivity to which your camera can be set while maintaining a high quality).
So how does the top list in the world look like? Here it is:
| Nr | Camera | Mpix | Sensor format | Price EUR | Overall Score | Portrait (Color Depth) (Bits) |
Landscape (Dynamic Depth) (Bits) |
Sports (Low Light ISO) |
| 1 | Nikon D800E | 36 | Full Format | 2999 | 96 | 25,6 | 14,3 | 2979 |
| 2 | Nikon D800 | 36 | Full Format | 2599 | 95 | 25,3 | 14,4 | 2853 |
| 3 | Nikon D600 | 24 | Full Format | 2190 | 94 | 25,1 | 14,2 | 2980 |
| 4 | Phase One IQ180 Digital Back | 81 | Medium Format | 32999 | 91 | 26,5 | 13,6 | 966 |
| 5 | Nikon D4 | 16 | Full Format | 4999 | 89 | 24,7 | 13,1 | 2965 |
| 6 | Phase One P65 Plus | 60 | Medium Format | 30999 | 89 | 26 | 13 | 1158 |
| 7 | Nikon D3X | 24 | Full Format | 6689 | 88 | 24,7 | 13,7 | 1992 |
| 8 | Phase One P40 Plus | 40 | Medium Format | 15499 | 87 | 25,3 | 13 | 1307 |
| 9 | Pentax 645D | 41 | Medium Format | 7499 | 82 | 24,6 | 12,6 | 1262 |
| 10 | Nikon D3s | 12 | Full Format | 3495 | 82 | 23,5 | 12 | 3253 |
| 11 | Pentax K5 | 16 | APS-C | 799 | 82 | 23,7 | 14,1 | 1162 |
| 12 | Nikon D3200 | 24 | APS-C | 549 | 81 | 24,1 | 13,2 | 1131 |
| 13 | Canon EOS 5D Mark III | 23 | Full Format | 2990 | 81 | 24 | 11,7 | 2293 |
| 14 | Sony NEX-7 | 24 | APS-C | 999 | 81 | 24,1 | 13,4 | 1016 |
* Prices are approximate, you need to contact the dealer to find out final price.
As we see 50% of the cameras within Top 14 are NIKON! Please also look on the Phase One and Pentax price tags compared with Nikon.
One thing that is worth to mention about the Canon 5D MKIII (place 13th), they have an maximum ISO of 102.400, while e.g. the D600 “only” has up to ISO 25.600 – looks like a clean win for Canon when looking on the bragging tech specs. But when DXO really test the sensors highest ISO sensitivity to which your camera can be set while maintaining a high quality the D600 scores a 30% better result.
So, what do we learn from this? The specification on a paper is the same as assuming that the car with the speedometer that goes the highest, is the fastest….
You may read more details about the test: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Camera-Sensor-Ratings