I had a close look at the pictures taken with the Nikon D1...and have been really amazed by their sharpness, far better than anything else I have seen so far (talking digital, although they even look sharper than the originals!). Given the number of pixels slighly lower than that of the coolpix990 or canon S20, what is this due to: the larger Nikon D1 pixel size, a better pixels' quality, SLR lenses of better resolution??? Thanks for your thoughts.

-- Paul Benoit (benoit@stavanger.anadrill.slb.com), April 24, 2000

Answers

Well my guess is that your looking primarily at better quality control and better built components. The 950 and other consumer cameras get the "Nissan V6" where the D1 "$5000+" crowd get the "Mercedes V6". I'm sure the tolerances of the D1 are more tightly controlled (I'm on my 3rd 950! ) and you get all the cool stuff like firewire that would cost Nikon almost nothing to put on the 990, BUT you want some bragging rights for 5 grand right? Honestly, I can't share your enthusiasm for the D1, the image quality is still far below a F100 or EOS with slide film. Sure its handy and if I worked for a newspaper or was a journalist I'd give my leg for one. Actually even the Mamiya Light Phase system I shot in Orlando was a let-down. Very disappointing image for around $30,000, Medium format film will smoke it for way less money and you won't get killed when your $23,000 digital back (without the $6000 camera+lenses) is worth $1500 in two years. The D1 is nice but from what I understand its not upgradable to a larger CCD so it's days are numbered.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), April 24, 2000.

I haven't had a chance to use a D1 yet, but I've been researching it for the last two weeks because I'm thinking of buying one. However, digital is digital and there are a couple of reasons the D1 would have better image quality than lower priced digital cameras, even though the lower prices cameras have better published specs.

As you guessed, using better lenses will help. You'll get a better image on film with pro caliber SLR lenses than with the zooms built into consumer digital cameras, so it follows that you'll get better digital photos with them too.

The pixel quality guess is also on target, but maybe for a reason you hadn't thought about. Take a careful look at the specs on a digital camera. See anything missing? Look at the specs on any home audio gear. See where they list the signal to noise ratio? You won't see that listed on any digital photo gear, but it is a very important spec.

Consider scanners for a moment. If you look at the published specs of the Imacon Flextight and compare them with the published specs of the Tango drum scanner you'll scratch your head and wonder why the Tango is 5x the price of the Flextight. The published specs are almost identical. What the specs don't tell you is the noise you can see in Flextight scans, versus the cleaner scans you'll get out of a Tango.

My money says the D1 has a far better S/N ratio than the Coolpix 990. Combine that with better lenses and you get better prints.

-- Darron Spohn (dspohn@photobitstream.com), April 24, 2000.

I've had a D1 for about a week know. Its the 4th digital camera I have owned and it will stop my buying for a while. Image quality is very good due to a larger CCD, lower S/N ratio and much better quality lenses. Nikon also has a special low-pass filter infront of the CCD that helps with image sharpness. I do a lot of macro work and I was astounded at the quality and colour that I got from the D1.

I don't need to be able to print out images bigger than 8x10 and the D1 handles that perfectly.

True manual focus and sophisticated auto-focus makes a big difference in the sharpness of images which is one thing that the consumer digital cameras don't offer. I can reuse all the lenses and the accessories on future Nikon products.

On the downside, its hellishly expensive and very heavy. If you are going to get into one, expect to spend between $4500-$6500 for the body. You will then need lenses, flash cards, extra battery, flash. All in I was close to $10k.

-- Jacques Giraud (jrg@total.net), April 28, 2000.

I am also amazed at the film-like quality of the D1 but at the same time disappointed that the resolution is not as high as the coolpix990. I would be more content with 2400 to 3000 ppi resolution (like the S1) and would not worry about spending more for the next greatest for awhile.

-- Bert C. (bert@longlivethemac.com), May 01, 2000.

I made several tests myself with Nikon D1. It does give much better results than my expectations. You easily can print 8x10 inch pictures. Details from portrets are "too sharp". You have to be carefull not every spot in the face is seen. The qualities for advertising product photography (retail) are enormously. With Nikon capture software there is no need for using expensive Leaf digital backs anymore. You can work fast too. The reviews download pictures of e.g. Nikon Coolpix 990 -which has a 3.3 million resolution chip- instead of 2.7 for the D1 are less sharp than D1. Besides the lens of Coolpix is much more bad than of normal Nikon lenses. It is not really the quality of the lens itself, but you have to take into account that the chip of a D1 is 4 times bigger (2x linear) in dimension than that of Coolpix. So lenses have to be more good in quality (4 times) to get the same result if the chip itself should be the same quality for both camera's. (Still the D1 chip is better).

I was intend to buy a consumer camera for the time being, and when everything is set up for a business I am starting invest in Nikon D1.

Looking what you get for "consumer" digital camera's I could not find the best combination. - New SonyDSC-S70 3.3 million resolution chip have best quality image (Zeiss lens) in the consumer range when I look to the images. But the camera you could not use in manual mode. So no use with studio-flash equipement. (You can not set appature (?) / diaphragm and shutterspeed manual). - Coolpix 990 has most individual settings etc. (nearly the same as Nikon D1 if you don't capture immediately to PC), but lens has much remain errors. - Olympus C3030, only 2 values for diaphragm - Casio QV3000EX, not sharp for a 3.3 million resolution chip (some 2.5 million resolution chips are as sharp).

So less to choose. The D1 is another range of quality you cannot reach with consumer camera's.

As of the new S1 Fuji, in another tread. It is ***NOT*** a 6 million chip. Only interpolation of about a 3 million chip. Results from test I already have seen are not better as normal 2.5 - 3 million pixel chip camera's. (Not as sharp as Nikon D1, but better results with noise when using high asa values).

-- Leon Obers (Leon.Obers@iae.nl), June 04, 2000.