d50 is still the king of high iso, from what i can see anyway
Interesting statement.
recently, under controlled settings, I have compared 11 Nikon bodies at all available ISO settings. One run with out of the camera created JPEG files and a second run with RAW files generated.
The out of camera JPEGS are located here - please look at the orginal file sizes for assessments.
www.pbase.com/andrease/noisetest.
Generally speaking, there is a strong affinity between product release date and ISO noise performance. The latter the camera was introduced, the better Nikon engineers understood how to control noise.
On JPEG:
The D40X is better at ISO 1600 than any Nikon body since the D1
The D40X is significantly better than the D50, D70, D200
The D40X is marginally better then the D80
The D1X is the best of the old generation cameras.
The D80 is visible better then the D200, D50, D70
on RAW:
The D40X and D80 are practically identical - the best Nikon currently offers.
With the D50 and D70 you see the progress Nikon made since these debuts.
This compares only noise performance. All cameras have many attributes which need to be considered for purchase and usage.
kind regards,
Andy