Image Quality, Continued

It's easy to be fooled when shooting in low-light situations. The image shown on the display on the back of the camera often seems very bright and well exposed, but you'll be very disappointed when you see it on your PC monitor! So beware of appearances and reduce the brightness of your SLR's display when working in low light.

Pentax istDL, 1/25 s, f/11, ISO 1600, Pentax Macro 4/100 (an older lens): The graininess is still at a very acceptable level for ISO 1600!

With performance shots, you can get very good results at ISO 1600 with the Nikon D50 (manual exposure at 1/160s f/2.8, ISO 1600, Sigma 2.8/70-200 at 165 mm, RAW + Nikon Capture 4).

Conclusion

The Nikon D50 seemed to us to be the model with the best overall performance. It was also the easiest to use, since the photos it produced in automatic mode (with no corrections made) were usually directly usable. That was a little less true of the Pentax, but the istDL still offers certain very attractive features, such as depth-of-field preview, and the ability to use all kinds of lenses, including older ones that are available at low prices. That could be a decisive point for many amateur photographers who don't have a lot of money to spend!