Tests taken at ISO 1600.                                        

D2x at 160 pixels wide                 D70 at 160 pixels wide

As you can plainly see, the D2x has much less noise than the D70 at ISO 1600, pixel for pixel. These pictures came from Phil Askey's site, www.dpreview.com. My own informal tests confirm this.

Here is another test done by Phil. It compares the luminance noise levels of various cameras. Notice the low noise level of the S2. It is an old test, but still valid.

Here is a photograph I took last week with the D2x. Hand held with Nikon f2.8 70-200. It was shot at ISO 320. (It was overcast and I needed a little speed to freeze the elk movement). These elk were at the 12,000' level at Rocky Mountain National Park. Even at ISO 320 the D2x takes amazingly sharp pictures. The first photo is highly cropped - and I had to resample down to get it to fit on the monitor!  Image size is 20" x 14" at 72 dpi (for monitor).  The full frame image size  is almost 5 FEET wide.

The second image shows the full frame, It will easily print 2' x 3'.

D2X TESTS at ISO 100 to 3200

Conditions of the test:

1- High noon

2- Hand held with Nikon 17-35 set at 35mm. The house is roughly 1/3 to 1/2 mile away!

3- All photos shot in raw and converted in Adobe Camera Raw

4- Raw Conversion settings were done with ACR defaults. Nothing was added or changed.

5- A section was cut out of the center so a 100% view would be available.

6- Here is a full frame shot of the first photo.  The originals all had some sharpening as provided by the default settings of ACR.

Click to open larger version.

Conclusions and caviats:

1- All print well on 8.5 x 11.

2- Use NR as provided by Nikon or Adobe when opening ISO 1600 or 3200. I did not for the examples shown. It does make a difference! When I ran Adobe Color Noise Reduction during 1600 and 3200 conversion and used maximum setting, I saw a large difference - for the better.

3- Be careful NOT to under expose when shooting at 1600 or especially 3200. A one stop under exposure at 3200 can produce pretty ugly results!