Hopefully this post will go through this time.. I'm on a very sketchy connection here (and only online because it's 430am here in Japan and I have jet lag). Anyway, I mention the apertures for these shots in the review, f/4 for some and f/8 for others. Shutter speed, ISO, and Aperture were always identical in the shots between the cameras. I won't rule out lens variation hurting the Canon this time around as I only have ever used the one copy of the lens, but as far as these 2 specific samples were concerned, my results were very consistent.

Hmmmm ... not sure about that... what were the apertures for both shots?

Good explanation

Basically my answer is this: The D60 actually holds the advantage in this faceoff as a 10MP DX sensor has more densely packed photosites than the 5Dmk2, which means if we're taking a 1:1 picture with a leaf in the center, more pixels are inside the leaf on the crop sensor than the full frame. The D60's pixel density is actually identical to the D3x, just with a smaller sensor, so it's vaguely similar to pitting a D3X in crop mode against the 5DMk2's full frame. Since we had good lighting in the test, the absolute size of the photosites doesn't make as big a difference is it could in other situations.

Aside from pixel density, lens sharpness is the other factor. I've believed after shooting these 2 lenses that the Nikkor is sharper, and the tests seem to confirm that. These differences you're not gonna see unless you blow the image up to massive proportions, or alternatively crop it a lot, but they're there.

I wonder how come D60 is sharper than Canon 5DMkII?

I've added some side-by-side shots from the Micro-Nikkor shot on my D60, and the Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro shot on a Canon 5DMk2. It is a bit difficult to get good direct comparisons of the lenses since the cameras are so different, but I think there is still something to take away. Unfortunately, as I have to prepare for holiday in Japan (leaving early tomorrow) I didn't get much time to work on this today and won't for another couple weeks. If you have recommendations as to how to improve these comparisons, I'll read them when I get back! Thanks!

Sample:

Thanks for the compliment! Standardization is really something I need to take a look at. I should set up a still life with controlled lighting conditions to use in addition to my real-world shots.

The photos up now were all shot on my D60 or D200 which produce close to identical images with their identical sensors. I'll be shooting the Canon 100mm USM Macro for comparison on Friday with a 5DMk2 and a 20D available on the Canon side, and a D90, D60, and D200 on that day for the Nikon. Unfortunately none of the cameras are exactly equivalent, but I should still hopefully be able to come up with some telling results.

Me like this.
I see you are not doing any postproduction on the shots as it should be.
If you are going to keep this site running you should probably standardize on a camera used for testing lenses so the results could be compared.

In terms of organizing the pictures, You're right, it does get a bit long, and the thumbnails are a bit small. The blogging software was entirely self-written, so these things are certainly changeable, but that's something that would have to wait until I'm back home. Thanks for the input!

Oh, hey, this went through at some point! I've been getting errors all day.

These are all good suggestions. I've been thinking about if I want to do any sort of rating out of 10 or stars or what, and haven't decided yet. As I said, I do plan to shoot this lens side by side with canon's 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro later this week as I have easy access to that lens. Though I may not be able to get that all up for another couple weeks as I'll be in Japan all next week.

just ideas, STAR system (how would u rate lens)
do it in sections: organismic, quality, build etc ... makes it easier to follow and to reference to
don't stretch it that much put pictures next to each other not one on top of the other
some how highlight important text
maybe comparison to the similar lenses on a market

how about that : ) .. thats just ideas

I have a decent collection of mostly MF lenses and am going to start reviewing them on my site. What I'd like to hear from you is what you like to see in lens reviews. Do you mostly prefer subjective thoughts, MTF charts, head-to-head comparisons?

Here are the beginnings of my Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/4 AI review.
http://taishimizu.com/index.tai?title=Micro-Nikkor-105mm-f-4-AIS-Mini-Review&view=post&postid=101

I'm going to add head-to-head shots against at least the canon 100mm f/2.8 USM macro (as I have easy access to this) and the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AF-S VR if I can get my hands on it again. What else would you like to see?