RichKenn Loc: Merritt Island, FL

I appreciate all of your comments and suggestions. I ran another quickie test with the sloping cardboard target. This time I used a Nikkor 85 mm, f/1.8 lens at f/1.8. It looks pretty good to me. What say you?

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agillot

the 2 pictures are different , how can you compare ???.when i do such test , i do it with something with sharp writing , like a page of a magazine , then crop the pictures a lot and see which one fall apart first .

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

The test image especially the 2nd one is not FLAT...you can tell from the lighting reflection and glare (another issue). The test pattern needs to be mounted (glued with photo mounting spray adhesive and dried) to a flat stiff board not held with clothespins - the board needs to be held exactly parallel to the film plane. To perform a laboratory grade test down to the pixel level the tests need to be like for like all across including .jpg settings, focus, exposure, WB, lighting, etc. The only variable needs to be the camera with same jpg settings as much as possible. Maybe RAW would be better for comping since there would be minimal camera processing differences.

Some camera tests also include real world objects such as empty mayo or ketchup jars with label printing, dolls, and other 3-D props with sharp edges and a variety of colors (open crayon box).

gmsatty Loc: Chicago IL

jI have a d7000 and upgraded to a d7200. There is no question that the 7200 is "sharper" because of the increased no of pixels, but you do have to blow the picture up to see it in most cases. I also have a 4k monitor and that helps show the difference.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

If you’re checking the autofocus accuracy, the link below leads to a great test and free chart to print and use.
It quickly exposed back focus issues I had with my D7000.

http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart

RichKenn Loc: Merritt Island, FL

Thanks. I downloaded the chart.

rcarol

I agree. These tests were hardly done in a controlled environment. Keep the D7200.

Bill P

I'm confused. Why are you doing this bit of photographic masturbation. Take the camera, and you lenses out and shoot photos. Take them home and print them out to a decent size, depending on your printer 13x19, 17x22, etc. Evaluate the prints. Do you like what you see? Then go out and take more photos as long as it remains operational. If you don't like what you get, get rid or return the 7200 and rent other cameras and shoot photos with them. Pick the one you like best. Wad up and throw away the test patterns. They bear no relationship to real photography.

dandi Loc: near Seattle, WA

RichKenn Loc: Merritt Island, FL

I would not have run the tests if I had been satisfied with the results of the pictures I took.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

You are likely to get far more useful advice from the community to assist you if you post one of the pictures you are not happy with, complete with shooting info and your assessment of what has made you not satisfied with it.

RichKenn Loc: Merritt Island, FL

OK. I live on the eighth floor of an apartment building and I look down on an Osprey nest about 200 yards away. They are nesting now and I want to chronicle the progress. So, I took picture _REK5902 with the D7000 and _REK0025 with the D7200. I cropped them down to 800x1200 pixels for printing 4x6s at 300 ppi. I used a Sigma 100-400 @ 400 mm lens. Not the greatest lens in the world but pretty good and all I can afford. Anyway, I thought the D7200 image was disappointing so I decided to run the tests. I had already run the tests with several lenses a year ago to see if they were as sharp as they were supposed to be. I repeated a couple I had done before with the same lenses only on the refurbished D7200 body. I admit the tests were crude. I was not trying to be definitive but rather trying to compare two camera bodies. I really did not anticipate this outpouring of criticism of my lack of sophistication and expertise. Yes, I used clothespins to secure one of the targets but I did not think that would spoil the test. Mercy me, if I had glued it up, I probably would have used Elmer's glue and I am now sure that would invalidate the test.

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Grahame Loc: Fiji

Observations from the two Osprey images,

Top image : D7200, 400mm, f/6.3, 1/500, ISO200
Bottom image : D7000, 400mm, f/8, 1/1250, ISO800

These images are very severe crops, a 400mm lens on an APS sensor with a subject distance of 200yds gives a horizontal FoV of approx 12yds.

Both cameras have the same sensor size but you have presented two images both taken at 400mm with two different crops. The D7200 image posted is a far greater crop of the full framing, which is an unfair comparison.

For a truer comparison, both nest 'cages' should have taken the same width within the frame. In addition different, speeds, apertures and ISOs does not equate to good equivalency practice.

dandi Loc: near Seattle, WA

I agree the images are heavily cropped. Each size less than 1mp, it’s hard to judge by looking at such small images. Besides settings are different too. ISO 800 vs ISO 200 – 2 stops difference, it could affect sharpness. F-stops are different f/8 vs f/6.3. Also different metering mode and Exposure compensation. I am not sure if metering or exposure value would make a difference in sharpness but 2 stops in ISO and different f-stop can.
I owned D7000 and tried D7200. I didn’t notice a difference enough to make me move to the D7200. The D7200 is great camera, it has more resolution but it does not mean it is sharper. Resolution and sharpness (acutance) are two different things.

RichKenn Loc: Merritt Island, FL

Both were cropped to 1200x1800 pixels which will deliver 300 ppi to a 4x6 print. Of course the D7200 image is larger. You expect more of 8 million more pixels! I certainly would expect the same resolution from the same number of pixels. One of the reasons you purchase more pixels is to either improve resolution for the same picture size or obtain the same resolution from a larger picture. In this case I was looking for the same resolution for a larger image.