Originally posted by RiceHigh I would say those noise tests nowadays by the measurbators are not so meaningful as long as noises are measured along instead of the Signal-to-Noise (aka S/N) ratio.
RH, well said.
But things are improving, slowly.
Recent German magazine "Color Foto" decided they must redo all camera tests (29 DSLRs retested) because they "forgot" to notice the disappearance of texture detail in some models.
Some of those "preservation of texture" values read (bigger is better, max. 15, ISO 100/400/800/1600):
Pentax K20D(Samsung GX20): 15/15/15/14.5(15) (or 100%!)
Pentax K200D: 15/15/15/13.5
Pentax K100Dsp: 13/13.5/13.5/12
Nikon D300: 14.5/14.5/14/14 (or 98%)
Nikon D3: 14.5/14.4/14/14.5
Leica Digilux 3: 15/14.5/14.5/14.5
Canon EOS 40D: 10/10.5/10.5/8.5 (or 66%)
Sony Alpha 700: 9/8.5/9/10.5 (or 62%)
So, if you just would weight category "preservation of texture" high enough, Pentax would win the entire competition. Of course, they didn't. But they ended up at a very respectful position.