With all the talks about the Dynamic Range and Shadow detail recovery capabilities of the new Nikon D800E, I decided to do a few test myself to and compare between my newly arrived D800E and my old 5D2 to see what's the big deal about it.

And here is what i got, if you look closely first you will find with the exact same exposure value, the Canon image is a touch brighter than the Nikon image, which is perfectly common different camera have different actual sensitivities even with the same theoretical value on paper, in this particular case with the darker final image with the same exposure value, meaning the Nikon is actually "more under exposed" than the Canon, but still manage to come out much cleaner after the same 2 full stop of exposure lifting, not to forget the D800E has higher pixel density and smaller pixel size too, so on paper everything is going against it but the result proves it to be a much much more capable camera in terms shadow recovery and Dynamic Range. Pay special attention to the lower right hand corner, the wall behind the chair, the difference is pretty huge, the D800E image is almost noise free there and the 5D2 image has crap load of noise, and of course the "classic Canon low ISO vertical banding" as well, which is some nasty stuff you can find on pretty much all Canon DSLR made after 2008, sorry to report that, Canon fanboys, the clean Canon sensor is now officially a history of the past, if you want a high Dynamic range and clean sensor, looks elsewhere. You are looking at the reduced size jpeg image here, on the full size image which is too big to post here, the difference is much much greater.

i will upload a few from my 8 year old 1Ds MK II and even a crop sensor Sony NEX7 taken at the same scene with exact same lighting but shows less noise and almost free of banding, just do it for those keep on denying how far Canon sensor got left behind the competition these days and how much more superior those old Canon FF sensor compare to the new crap they put out recently.

I will have some high ISO sample comparison and a lot more "real life" landscape example to post to show how that capability will translate in real world picture.