On 4/03/2015 10:06 a.m., Eric Stevens wrote:


To see the way the capabilities of the cameras have improved, see
http://home.comcast.net/~NikonD70/Charts/PDR.htm#D70,D300,D750
which shows the way that the dynamic range of the D70, D300 and D750
have improved over the years. From D300 to D750 is a bigger step than
from D70 to D300.
There's an option to view the chart for D750 in "DX crop mode".
As well as reduction in read noise, QE has improved from about 25% (D70)
to 35% (D300) to over 50% (from about D7000/D800).
Canon has similar QE, but higher read noise, hence high ISO performance
is comparable.
So from the Nikon D70, actual improvement to the latest generation
sensors is about 2 1/2 stops.
If you believed what you read on the internet, then in "generations" of
cameras, the D50 was "at least a stop better than the D70", the D300 at
least a stop better than the D50, the D90 better than, the D7000, D7100,
probably now the D7200 "massively improved sensor performance" will be
raved on about by morons on DPReview forums etc.
Look closer at Bill Claff's data, and it's clear that the big
improvements aren't happening any more, except in cases where some
dishonest makers (Fuji and Olympus) "cook" noise reduction in to high
ISO raw files, irreversibly losing image data - if better noise
reduction programs are available in future, then those raw files can't
be re-processed, as the image data has already been lost.