Alan, I's not a question of "normalizing." You asked how the two sensors compare. The only reasonable way to make a comparison is to make the comparison files equal in size. For that kind of comparison it wouldn't make any sense to upsample the D700 file to 36.3 mpx, since you can't add information that isn't there to begin with. But you can downsample the D800 file to 12 mpx. By doing that you lose a bit of fine detail, but you also lose noise. A D800 file at 100% is going to look noisier than an equivalent D700 file at 100% because on your monitor you're looking at a much smaller part of the file. As near as I can tell, there's not enough difference between the two sensors in a high noise situation to get excited about. But the D800's dynamic range and color reproduction beat out the D3/D700. I was going to say "hands down," but the difference isn't quite that extreme.

Russ Lewis
www.FineArtSnaps.com