i certainly dont lose any AF accuracy or image quality with a con attached and i can always take it off and shoot f/2.8, you cant chop a lump off your 300mm and shoot f.1.8 and bear in mind the D3S is at least 1 full stop better high ISO performance and nearer 1.5 stops
Yep, correct. I meant that with the D3s you get a a better AF system and high-ISO when I said "but you lose that AF accuracy and a stop of high ISO"; my fault for not being clear.
Although TBH I think 1.5 stops is a bit hopeful, since your working a 16.7 vs 12 mpixel image. At a 100% crop level your probably right, about one stop, possibly a tad more.
Although, the difference didn't seem notable untill 1600, you could see about 2/3rds of a stop at 3200 till 5000 then a full stop at 6400 and by 12800 it's actually a bit more - at 100% crop.
Anyway, when your thinking about resizing that photo to say 4000px on the long edge to fit your print, your probably only looking at two-thirds of a stop difference since the 1DIV image has thrown away a lot of pixels to resize and thus the image is cleaner (but still not as clean as the D3s).
Say two people are shooting 600mm f/4's with a TC. So they can't get anymore reach from the lens and they still can't quite fill the frame with the action, and of course as with before it's dark. With the canon your already being pulled in 1.3x more. Say your cropping away half of the frame on the D3s to get about a 2000px (long edge) image. On the canon camera you get a 4000 odd pixel image. Compare that, then perhaps when comparing the potential in terms of reach/dark and the canon is better. Although thats one very bizarre scenario, something you would probably never come across.
This is annyoing for us canon users though, canon are packing all these pixels, that 99% of the time we don't really need. The 1DIV has something like 2.5x denser pixels, even the 1DIII had more pixels per cm sq. (excuse the poor english). But I'd guess 90% of users would rather have the high-ISO and full-frame, than these extra pxiels that tend to be discarded anyway). :bonk:
/rant and back on topic!!!
For the record,
if I was shooting the newer bodies I would
prefer to shoot Nikon. But being a student, I can't afford anything newer than the 1DII and the D2's didn't really compare! Perhaps once I've got myself a proper job and hopefully earning enough from photography to live off
:fingers crossed: , I'll be able to afford/justify more expensive bodies, for now I'm just investing in glass.
) or wether to use my 1.4xTC.
and a stop of high ISO handling.