[chomp]

Hi!

I am interested in the high ISO settings of cameras. I am wondering if anyone can post some samples of photos at high ISO? e.g. 800, 1600, 3200?

People are saying there is a lot of noise at high ISO. Do you think so?

Thanks!

[slejhamer]

ISO 1600, 1/200s, f/1.8, 50mm:



Is there some noise in the shadow areas? Sure. Is it a problem? No. Get your exposure right and it's very manageable.

[shuttertalk]

Superb action shot, Mitch!

[Petographer]

True enough. The photo is great and the noise levels are minimal. Of course you are shooting with the 10D and a good fast lens.

[Chomp]

Nice photo, thanks slej! Petographer - what do you mean - does using a fast lens result in less noise?

[Rufus]

Excellent shot!

[Rufus]

Hey Chomp, sign up, 'eh???

[Petographer]

Nice photo, thanks slej! Petographer - what do you mean - does using a fast lens result in less noise?

Yes. I would think to a certain degree. It does allow for you to shoot in lower light situations with better results. Mitch would not have got as good results with a lens such as a f3.5-4.5. But he did answer your original question. There are just some circumstances to getting low noise images shot at 1600 and 3200iso. Usually it will be more evident in dark areas.
Example:



Not the noise in the brown background? This was also taken with a 50mm f1.8 @1600iso. However, the lighting was much lower than that of Mitch's. Here, all I had was the single ceiling light and a 420ex flash aimed at the ceiling.

[StudioJ]

It is a rare occasion where I shoot 1600 and only in desperation at 3200, I find the noise level at 800 to be perfectly acceptable, you won't even notice it on anything 5x7 or smaller to begin with. Definitely needs to have a good exposure though as Slej said, the more light you can get into the shot the less noise there tends to be.

[byrt_001]

hi

uuhmmm this is very interesting to me....does anyone knows of how much noise there is on the top end of canon 1ds mrk2 compare to the new 350d? same sensor same noise?

Regards

Christian

[slejhamer]

Christian, in theory the 1Ds-II should have a slightly higher signal-to-noise ratio because it has slightly larger pixels. Note that it is the actual physical size of the pixel, not the number of pixels that matters.

An explanation of why larger pixels offer a higher signal-to-noise ratio can be found here:
http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/does....ze.matter/

There was much uproar when Canon released the G5 with more (smaller) megapixels crammed into the same sensor as the G3. The result, of course, was higher noise.

[ I edited the first line above to read "higher signal-to-noise ratio" rather than "less noise." Noise, in fact, is higher, but the signal is stronger too and more than offsets the increased noise. I love the "photon rain" example used in that link. Easy to visualize. ]

[ Colin: you're welcome! It's really amazing how many of these geek-techno articles I've bookmarked over the past couple of years, and even more amazing that I keep referring to them! ]

[Petographer]

Hmmm interresting! :/ Thanks for that Mitch.

[shuttertalk]

Pet-o - didn't notice it before, but now that you mentioned it, I can see the noise in the background...

Hm... what would people do? Use a noise removal tool?

[noisynoodle]

I know I'm a bit late joining this thread, but if anyone's interested these were both taken with the Pentax *istD at ISO 1600:



Neither has had any noise reduction applied.

--NN