What's the highest ISO you'll use?

Kryptix

Kryptix

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I think 800 is the absolute most I'll use. After that, I'd sooner just not get the shot than get a very noisy, low quality shot. :shake:

Obviously if it was something big like a car crash at night or something I'd make an exception, but I certainly wouldn't bother taking a 'normal' photo if I knew I had to use a higher ISO than 800.

How about you? Would you sooner get a noisy picture rather than no picture?
 
1600, no problem. Possibly higher if necessary. The example below was shot at 1600 - a 6 second exposure as well. No out-of-camera NR applied.

3266947316_1c1600576c_o.jpg


Looks better at A3 and still no hint of noise.
 
Noisy rather than no picture for me. Noise can be minimal if exposed correctly and corrected in post carefully. Motion blurred/out of focus/none existent can't be corrected.
 
I used to shoot alot of live music and would often shoot at 1600.
Id shoot at 3200 if it means that i get the shot off.
 
fabs said:
Regularly go to 1600 for sports but would be happy to use 3200 if necessary. I think a lot depends on the camera though. Some models handle noise better than others.
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Exactly! I shoot very high at a wedding on my D700, id rather have noise than use flash, the noise effet can also work well. It does all depend on the camera though.
 
Whatever it takes to keep a shutter speed of at the very least 1/320th with the aperture as wide open as it will go which is f/2.8 with my current set up.

ISO can go to 1600 or 3200 easy when shooting floodlit football - even at some league grounds as KIPAX will confirm - let alone cricket when the club have decided to hire floodlights for a late season Twenty20 game.

Nod - Nice! But then that was with a new NIKON model D700 - still nice and I'm jealous!

Alan
 
I frequently push the 450d to ISO1600 (maxed out) although I prefer to keep it lower if I can. if it's the difference between getting it or not... I'll push it.
 
Kryptix said:
I think 800 is the absolute most I'll use. After that, I'd sooner just not get the shot than get a very noisy, low quality shot. :shake:
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Silly question that I am afraid.. Different cameras perform different with high iso.. my 1dmkIII gives me very good results at iso2500 so much so I dont have to use noise reduction.. yet my 1dmkII isn't great at iso 1600



iso 2500 no noise reduction

test_pp.jpg
 
I agree totally with JL in that to a certain extent noise can be controlled, and as long as you look at what you're taking a shot of, you can usually keep the noise to a minimum.

I have used ISO1600 often, and occasionally ISO3200... not as good as the current crop of Nikon D700's or D3's, or the Canon 5D's et al... but despite the myth, my E-3 is totally usable at ISO1600.
 
I'm happy to use the D300 at 3200 ISO for Weddings as the results are ace after my standard DxO processing

Of course a D700/D3 sensor is better still, but it's not that important for the £10,000 ish change of gear needed just to get another stop or two

DD
 
I'll quite happily use ISO 3200 on the 40D and 1600 on the 400D if it means I can get the shot and there is no other way.
 
Kryptix said:
I think 800 is the absolute most I'll use. After that, I'd sooner just not get the shot than get a very noisy, low quality shot. :shake:

Obviously if it was something big like a car crash at night or something I'd make an exception, but I certainly wouldn't bother taking a 'normal' photo if I knew I had to use a higher ISO than 800.

How about you? Would you sooner get a noisy picture rather than no picture?
Click to expand...

Well it really does depend on your methods of shooting at high ISO.

ISO 10,000
_9EM3031-2.jpg

Crop
_9EM3031.jpg


If you over expose alot of detail can be salvaged and get you a much cleaner result.
I have gone as far as 25,600, haven't printed at that speed though.

With my Canon gear (R.I.P :crying:), I could go to the maximum for black and white prints, going that high on a 1DmkI and a 30D would annihilate the colours IMO so B+W is the only option.

To not bother taking a shot because it's going to be noisy is not a great attitude or approach to adopt IMO, It's a little destructive and will only hinder you rather than help you to evolve. Go for it, if it's trash = it's trash, at least you tried.

There are exceptions but generally speaking there are some awesome images out there that convey every last atom of sentiment or feeling they intended, regardless of high ISO.
 
It all depends on the camera and the situation.

The highest I'll go on my D50 is 800, but took some at 1600 when the conditions were really bad on Rally GB. Although they're quite noisy, NoiseNinja helps and I'd rather a noisy photo than no photo at all... ;)
 
mostly shoot at 3200 with the d700 and previously with the d300 at concerts
 
I've had to use 3200 ISO at f/2.8 and 1/60 for a wedding at the end of November, when I could not use flash. 1600 ISO is pretty standard for the evening shots in order to pull in sufficient ambient light with my f/2.8 zooms.
 
Tomas Whitehouse said:
Well it really does depend on your methods of shooting at high ISO.

If you over expose alot of detail can be salvaged and get you a much cleaner result.
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I must be missing something here.

What is the point of shooting at ISO6400 and then overexposing if you can get the same settings with the correct exposure at a lower ISO?

How does the noise compare of say an image taken at ISO 6400 and then overexposed by a stop to an image taken at ISO 3200 correctly exposed?
 
tdodd said:
I've had to use 3200 ISO at f/2.8 and 1/60 for a wedding at the end of November, when I could not use flash. 1600 ISO is pretty standard for the evening shots in order to pull in sufficient ambient light with my f/2.8 zooms.
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Similar to me.

I was shooting at a football match the other week, had an old 70-210 f/5.6, but I had to shoot ISO 3200 at f/5.6 at 1/160 of a second. Not cool!
Some shots came out brilliantly though, check this one for an example:

3212640475_bd3e81f5c3.jpg


Oh, and, uh, COME ON URZ for anyone who supports Reading FC :D
 
Maybe the ISO is different on more expensive cameras then. On my 450D, ISO 1,600 is just silly...
 
50D at 12,800 ISO, NR and sharpening in Lightroom and Neat Image. No other edits. I've also added the original, straight out of Lightroom on default settings.

20081107_163358_1045_LR_filtered.jpg
20081107_163358_1045_LR-2.jpg


It won't win any awards but it is a useable picture. This was shot at 16:35 on 7th November 2008, 13 minutes after the official sunset time, in a country park with no lighting within the park. It was handheld at 400mm, f/5.6, 1/60.

50D at 1600 ISO, f/2.8, 1/60. No PP except WB, resize, sharpen. NR and everything else at Lightroom defaults.

20081130_162508_2960_LR.jpg
 
Kryptix said:
Maybe the ISO is different on more expensive cameras then. On my 450D, ISO 1,600 is just silly...
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Thats pretty obvious though?

Companies don't bang on about low light performmance on their new models for nothing, it's a huge selling point.
 
with the recent greyness i've been shooting at nothing higher than 650, and sacrificed the shutter speed. I think I've got steady hands ;)

But the d80 doesnt seem to handle noise well obviously, and in daylight so not much need to go higher. Keep it as low as possible normally.
 
EdBray said:
I must be missing something here.

What is the point of shooting at ISO6400 and then overexposing if you can get the same settings with the correct exposure at a lower ISO?

How does the noise compare of say an image taken at ISO 6400 and then overexposed by a stop to an image taken at ISO 3200 correctly exposed?
Click to expand...

Maybe you are missing something, how about trying it?
 
I've always been confused by people who are scared to use high iso's. It's the same as people who are scared of a tiny bit of noise/grain in a photo, good job they didn't have to use film, they would of hardly ever taken any photos.
 
6400 without qualms on the 1D MkIII
 
OutLore said:
:eek::eek::eek: I would have gotten nothing more than a blurry mess!!! Good job!!!
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That's the benefit of IS on the 100-400 lens. I's only supposed to be good for a couple of stops of stabilisation (=1/160 on a 1.6X crop body) but with care I can get reasonable sharpness down to 1/50. If I fire off a burst then there will probably be one or two sharp images out of five at shutter speeds as low as 1/25, so long as the subject stays still enough.
 
As pthers have said, whatever it takes.

And what Tomas says does work, we were discussing this the other day as I had been experimenting with a similar technique, this afternoon I tried it in anger and it does work. Both of these images have only been through LR2 and have had no noise reduction.

ISO 6400 1/640th f/3.5:

Zeuslesson-10.jpg



ISO4000 1/500th f/6.3

Zeuslesson-54.jpg
 
Tomas Whitehouse said:
Maybe you are missing something, how about trying it?
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Okay, tried it.

Took three images all raw files:

1st at 1/125 sec @ f2.8 ISO 6400 (straight exposure)

2nd at 1/125 sec @ f2.8 ISO H1 (12,800) (+1 stop overexposure)

3rd at 1/125 sec @ f2.8 ISO H2 (25,600) (+2 stops overexposure)

All opened in PS4 raw editor

Nothing done to the 1st

2nd exposure dropped back by -1 stop

3rd exposure dropped back by -2 stops

And guess what? they were all identical, colour, noise, contrast, sharpness Everything was the same!

So overexposing at high ISO, you are just as well exposing correctly at a lower ISO!
 
EdBray said:
Okay, tried it.

....

So overexposing at high ISO, you are just as well exposing correctly at a lower ISO!
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I really not interested in an argument, plus you seem a little too 'enthusiastic' about trying to prove me wrong.
You just be happy with your test and I'll be happy with mine. :)
 
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