bigshot
Headphoneus Supremus
I have a D200 and an SD880. The resolution on the two is identical, so they print out as big as I want regardless of which one I use. The Canon has beautiful color- actually better right out of the camera than the D200. The optics of the Canon are great too. The main reason to use the D200 over the Canon is for low light (better high ISO, better flash), action (better focus tracking, better speed), more flexibility (opportunity to use lenses for specific purposes) and to a lesser degree, the advantage of shooting RAW for flexibility in post processing (wider dynamic range).
But I could shoot an image of a few people standing on the street in daylight with both cameras at a midrange focal length and stopped down to f/8 and you would be hard pressed to see any difference at all in image quality.
The only image quality advantage a D700 would give over these two cameras in practical application would be better low light performance.
The major difference between digital cameras in my experience is speed and flexibility- not the ability to print large. I did a portrait shoot years ago on a 3 mp Olympus P&S that ended up being printed on 18x24 posters. It looked totally sharp. The trick was that the Olympus had really good optics. The lens is what makes the difference, not the camera.
Here are a couple of examples of the SD880 operating at the absolute outer edge of its ability. These are super high ISO, extremely low light, high contrast images in a very non standard white balance setting. These were handheld at more than one second (braced against the wall) but the IS worked pretty well anyway.
http://latenightcoffeeshops.blogspot...o-skyline.html
But I could shoot an image of a few people standing on the street in daylight with both cameras at a midrange focal length and stopped down to f/8 and you would be hard pressed to see any difference at all in image quality.
The only image quality advantage a D700 would give over these two cameras in practical application would be better low light performance.
The major difference between digital cameras in my experience is speed and flexibility- not the ability to print large. I did a portrait shoot years ago on a 3 mp Olympus P&S that ended up being printed on 18x24 posters. It looked totally sharp. The trick was that the Olympus had really good optics. The lens is what makes the difference, not the camera.
Here are a couple of examples of the SD880 operating at the absolute outer edge of its ability. These are super high ISO, extremely low light, high contrast images in a very non standard white balance setting. These were handheld at more than one second (braced against the wall) but the IS worked pretty well anyway.
http://latenightcoffeeshops.blogspot...o-skyline.html