According to respected international image quality measurements and ratings organisation DxOMark, Nikon is currently dominating the industry in manufacturing camera bodies with superior image quality.
The DxOMark camera sensor ratings table has Nikon DSLR cameras holding six of the top 10 spots in Overall Score ‘based on all characteristics of a camera sensor, independent of the camera lens, and for a general purpose use.’ Sony takes three of the remaining spots – two with its advanced digital compacts – with the Phase One IQ180 digital back coming in in 9th spot.
The full listing from 1 to 10 is: Nikon D810 (97 out of 100), Nikon D800E (96), Sony A7R (95), Nikon D800 (95), Nikon D600 (94), Nikon D610 (94), Nikon D750 (93), Sony CyberShot RX1 (93), Phase One IQ180 (91) and Sony RX1R (91). These are followed by the Sony A7 and the Nikon Df.
The elephant absent from the room is Canon, which doesn’t have a camera in the top 30. The Canon EOS 1Dx slips into 31st spot, sharing a score of 82 with, among others, the entry-level Nikon D3300.
DxO also looked at sensor performance on specific application criteria: Portrait (Colour Depth), Landscape (Dynamic Range) and Sports (Low Light).
Once again, Nikon garnered the lion’s share of acccolades while Canon was conspicuous by its absence. For portraiture, it was all Nikon plus a few large and medium format digital backs in the top 10, with Canon out of the top 20. For Landscape, Nikon shared the honours with Pentax and Sony. Only in Low Light performance did Canon move up the rankings, with the aforementioed EOS 1Dx taking 12th spot. The top spot went to the Sony A7S – followed by 10 Nikons.
That’s it. I’m buying a Nikon!