Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

For the past couple of years my camera of choice for reach has been the Nikon J1 with the FT-1 autofocus adapter and the Nikkor AFS VR 55-300mm zoom, giving an equivalent focal length of 810mm. I tested this against my Nikon D7000 with the same lens and found the J1 with the greater equivalent focal length outresolved the D7000 at full zoom when looking at full resolution crops.

I recently got the Coolpix B700 with the 1440mm equivlent focal length at full zoom (actual focal lenght 310mm) and 20MP.

Today I decided to test the cameras against each other. I took about a half dozen handheld pics with the J1 and the B700 of the small led clock on my coffee maker at a distance of 30 ft. using just indoor lighting. I picked the best pic from each camera.

I set both cameras to iso-800, 1/60 sec. and similar apertures (f8.2 for the B700 and f8 for the J1). I used the fine jpg setting and applied the same PS cropping and shadow/highlights effects to each picture. Finally I downsized the B700 picture to 1084x439 pixels, to match the 1084x 430 pixels of the J1 photo.

I have always believed focal length trumps everything else, but was surprised to see the B700 outresolved J1.

Nikon Coolpix B700 Bridge camera at full zoom (1440 mm equiv focal length).

(Download)

Nikon 1 J1 10MP dslr with Nikkor 55-300mm zoom at full zoom (810mm equiv focal length).

(Download)

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

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Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

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BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Frames left?

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Sorry, I don't know what you mean. What is frames left?

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

The numbers on the screens.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

BHC, that's an lcd clock. The numbers are the time of day, 4:37PM and 4:40PM. Did you read the post? It's a test of a CX sensor dslr with a 300mm lens compared to a bridge camera with a 310mm lens. Your bio says you have lots of technical knowledge.
I don't understand your confusion.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Sorry, I missed that paragraph for some reason.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

No Problem.

JPL

This is quite normal, you are downsizing the B700 picture so you are actually using a lot more pixels from the B700 to make the final comparison picture if I understand you correctly. And of course that will give you sharper picture.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Correct. Bear in mind, both cameras have roughly 300mm lenses, but different equivalent focal lengths due to the crop factors. Both final pictures are the roughly the same size and number of pixels, but you are getting the sharper picture from the smaller sensor with the higher equivalent focal length.