This is an extreme adjustment, using Highlight Recovery and Fill Light controls, plus some NR. I've lost the exact final settings for the above controls but both were above 50 (around 50 for Highlight Recovery and around 85 for Fill Light - enough to bring out the small group of old folk in the doorway of the sheltered housing scheme). This is an award-winning municipal, not private, housing complex right in the heart of Kelso. Scotland, unlike England and Wales, retains full social responsibility for the elderly and the state provides personal care. How long this will last no-one can be sure. OT, the NR was set to 20 Luminance and 50 Chroma, and sharpening was set to 25 Radius 1, 0 for all other parameters, to tackle the increase in noise - mainly chroma - caused by the Fill Light adjustment.

The unusual sharpening/edge artefacts in this result are due to the excess use of Highlight Recovery and are not the camera's fault! They are the penalty for going to extremes.

I conclude that Extra Fine JPEG on the A700 has nearly all the potential of a raw file at this ISO setting, and the result actually looks better than an ACR conversion. ACR will, we all hope, be 'fixed' in the next release so it no longer messes up files from the A700, Canon 40D and certain other new DSLRs so badly.