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Andy,
There is very little noise when running the QSI583 cooled to -10 and lower and what little there is is easily removed by using darks. I normally use -15 as it gets there all year round, whereas -20 or lower are not able to be achieved in Summer. The 683 improves the cooling over the 583 so it should be able to reach -20 year round. I cannot comment on the support, however, as it has not given me any issues in the 3 years I have owned it. In fact I know of noone that has had any issues. It would need to be returned to the USA though.
Regarding the different sensors, the Kodak has larger pixels 5.4 microns vs 3.69 and that is why the detector is larger and will give a wider field, with slightly fewer pixels. The sensors are 17.96mm x 13.52mm vs 12.48mm x 9.98mm which is significantly larger.
In addition each Kodak pixel can hold about 25,500 electrons as against 18,000 or so (this figure was hard to find and is a bit uncertain). The pixel dark current is 0.025 vs 0.002 at -10. This should give a greater dynamic range to the 8300 as the read noise is essentially the same but lower for the Sony ICX814.
One other thing is the Sony 9mpix takes about 2 seconds longer to download, 12 against 16 seconds although I would not let that influence me.
Just one further thing is that it is probably no longer valid to call it a Kodak Sensor as they are now produced by Truesense imaging.
Regards
Paul
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