Following Up On Image Quality

Some friends have been trying to convince me that my decision to switch back to Canon may not be the best one I could make. Of course, they are acting in my best interest — trying to save me from spending more money than I have to. And, I appreciate that.

One has suggested that I examine my workflow once the images are in the computer. Another, who is having similar problems to mine, indicated that using Nikon’s Capture instead of Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) helped to cure his problem. So, I thought I might spend some time investigating these aspects to see if I could improve the situation. I selected a range of images, processed each as similarly as possible, and printed.

Here’s what I noticed …

Images that were processed using Nikon Capture were very slightly sharper than those processed with ACR. Those that were taken under bright, outdoor, sunny day lighting conditions with very wide dynamic range — meaning lots of shadow area, as well as bright highlights — showed a visible difference between the two RAW processors as well, again with Nikon Capture coming out on top, exhibiting very slightly lower noise in the shadows.

However, images that were taken indoors, low light and with no flash — in other words, the images that had to be “pushed” to ISO 800 or ISO 1600 actually looked a little worse processed with Nikon Capture, simply because they seem to be inherently sharper, making the noise patterns more pronounced.

Of course, I don’t have a Canon in hand to test myself. I have to rely on images on the review sites. But, based upon what I’m seeing, I still believe that Canon has an advantage over Nikon in situations requiring use of the higher ISO settings.