>>296579I'm going to address your points in reverse order.
>And hell, I'm not one to shy away from ISO800 or ISO1600, as those who've lurked sufficiently will know. But with a D700, I could shoot at that same level of noisiness at ISO3200 or 6400, which would be nice.Yeah, it would be nice, I absolutely agree. What I'm arguing is that the viewfinder is more important than cleaner files at high ISOs for most users.
Have you ever taken a shot at a high sensitivity that would've been great if it was clean but wasn't? On the other hand, have you ever taken a shot where you noticed in retrospect you could've composed it better?
>Especially in the shadows, where digital starts giving you banding and shit like that.First, while this obviously constricts your processing choice, shadow noise can easily be dealt with just by moving the blacks slider (or at least that's what it's called in ACR, don't know what they call in it whatever raw converter you use with GIMP) up or the lower part of the curve down and just losing detail and depth into the shadows.
Second, this isn't meant to be a brand slight at all, but I've just noticed looking at files from different sensor brands that the Canons you're used to tend to have (well, up until this sensor generation) less noise overall but are more prone to banding in the shadows than other brands' sensors, like the Sony sensors in these Nikons.
