Originally posted by Christine Tham terms of image detail
It's marketing BS. Maximal IQ (base ISO) is superior with bayer filter (Fuji uses already old but still good Sony IMX071 sensor, the same as on Pentax K-5, Nikon D7000, etc).
Nikon D800E | Sony NEX-5n
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Pentax K-01 | Fuji X-Pro1
Nikon D800E is downsampled to 16Mp. I used RAWs for Nikon, Pentax and Sony. JPEG for Fuji (it's the best available quality for this camera).
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So, it's obvious the NEX-5n is superior over Fuji. The question is what ISO of NEX-5n equals base ISO of Fuji in terms of resolution?
The answer: ISO800. NEX-5n@ISO800 has about the same quality as Fuji@ISO100.
Here are NEX-5n @ 100, NEX-5n @ 400, NEX-5n @ 800 and Fuji @ 100:
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High ISO is another matter. First,
this link shows Fuji cheats with high ISO. Looking at
chart (Measurements section) we see Canon 40D ISO sensitivites are about the same as NEX-5n ones, so the ISO 3200 of Fuji is something like ISO 1800 of NEX and we should compare these sensitivities, not ISO3200 vs ISO3200. In this case NEX seems to be highly competitive. I repeat, we are comparing best available results, which is OOC JPEG for Fuji and we can use any software for Sony RAW. In this case the NEX-5n about equals Fuji from its ISO3200 to 6400 (that is ≈1600 up to ≈3200 for NEX).
The great perception of Fuji images is based on very good OOC JPEG processing. But it can't match great software, like DxO FilmPack, DxO Optics Pro, some Topaz plugins anyway.