Please note that this is a 6 megapixel file enlarged to 5120 pixels wide, equal to a 17 megapixel image, from the Dynax 7D. Exactly the same process has been applied to all four of the ISO 1600 noise tests shown here. They have been shot at around 1/25-1/30th of a second, since this is the kind of shutter speed where 1600 is most likely to be used, the limits of freezing candid or stage, concert shots etc and not using a tripod or relying on image stabilisation. The lenses used have been set as close to 28mm as the scales permitted, and stopped down to f10, to even out differences in lens performance. Each camera was mounted in turn on the tripod, and auto exposure used, with the central focus spot aimed at the edge of the monitor top surround. The Dynax 7D required -0.7 exposure adjustment to be vaguely in line with the others - minus 1 would have been more appropriate in some ways. The Canon 400D gave the least exposure, the Nikon D80 gave the most, in terms of file density. All were either 1/25 or 1/30 at f10.

To process these files, Adobe Lightroom Beta 4 was used with the Lightroom 'Default curve', no auto settings used, and 'Detail' set for zero sharpening and zero noise reduction. Lightroom is one of the few apps which would process all four file types identically, and export them all resized to 5120 pixels. I would emphasise that these image do not show the 100 per cent view of a normal processed file. They are scaled up in output to a fixed size to reveal the noise and sharpness differences present in a RAW file at a fixed output magnification, the true difference in detail recording capacity between the cameras. They are saved as Level 12 sRGB Photoshop JPEGs.