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Over Christmas 2008 I found myself in a somewhat unique situation. I had recently put together a Sony A900 camera system for long term testing, and had also received Canon 5D MKII and Nikon D3x cameras from their respective manufacturers. Both were on one month loans so that I could take them on the Antarctic Expedition / Workshop that I would be leading during the first three weeks of January.

As these three cameras started to ship during November and December there was a lot of sturm und drang online over the image quality (IQ) and high ISO noise characteristics of each of these cameras. Whose was better? Whose was worse? Would the good guys win – whoever the good guys happened to be?
What Are We Measuring?
This comparison is of sensor noise. Overall image quality is comprised of several factors, including sensitivity, dynamic range, noise, and colour fidelity. This test is of noise only.

Dynamic range and colour sensitivity are beyo...