Performance of High ISO

Begin the owner of a Canon 30D along with a wide range of lenses I often get asked advice on which camera to buy. As I use Canon myself I usually recommend Canon 400D but Nikon also has several cameras with a good price-performance.

My argument for buying a DSLR instead of a compact camera is that the picture quality much higher in a DSLR (regardless if you use RAW or JPEG), and the advantage gets bigger and bigger as you bump up the ISO. However, I have not had any good proof for my statement except the few pictures I have taken myself with friends' compact cameras.

Recently dpreview.com provided me with the evidence I need. Please read the article Compact Camera High ISO modes: Separating the facts from the hype and consider the facts!

The article also contains an illustration of the relative size of different sensors. When you look at this it becomes quite obvious why DSLRs have an advantage over compact cameras.