Prakash's Photography Musings: D700 vs 5DmkII

Canon shooter Prakash bit the bullet and bought both a Canon 5D Mk II and a Nikon D700, with the option of returning one within two weeks.  He has posted a very well-written and thoughtful comparison of the two:

Now I had the option of returning either one since I was within the 2 week period. My plan was to keep one and return the other after identifying which one suited me better for my purposes. I dabble a bit in nature, birds, portrait, kids and events.

First off the 5d2 that I used had a discrepancy with D700 in that 5D2 was always 1/3 to 1/4 of stop lower than the D700 based on shutter speeds set by the camera. What I mean is ISO 3200 in 5D2 is actually 2000 or so. So when I take this into account there is a 2/3rd to 1 stop advantage to D700 but compared directly with just looking at the in camera ISO D700 has a 1/2 stop advantage. I did not downsize the images in the monitor. But actual prints also showed this advantage especially at high ISO. Moreover the D700 noise is mostly luminous noise that I found easy to remove but the 5D2 had a lot of chroma noise that was more difficult to remove.

So, which one was kept and which one was returned? Hit the read link to find out...[ Read ]