Image Quality

Image Rendering

Nikon has done a good job with the image-rendering on the D2Xs. The colour is geared towards professional use, with less saturation than a consumer DSLR at default. If you want to change this, though, there are plenty of options to do so, such as in custom curves or via the colour modes and so on.

White Balance

Similarly, our tests of the Auto White Balance proved very accurate, within 10°K in the lighter tones, and within 20°K in shadow areas.

Noise, Luminosity and Sharpness

Noise is good, too, especially in the lower ISO range, though the blue channel shows more than the others. Luminance noise is good, while chroma noise follows the luminance graph very closely – apart from the blue, that is.

Sharpness is good in JPEGs, while Raw files need a little help to get there, but this isn’t unusual. Exposure, too, is pretty spot on most of the time, and there was seldom a reason to change metering modes from matrix or use exposure compensation too much.