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[Stephen]

I was in Calumet in Manchester yesterday and, as you do checking out a new camera. I took a few test shots using my own card so I could examine them at home. I'd be interested in anyone's opinion as to what ISO I took this at. All I'll say at this point is that it was shot at 0EV and I corrected the white balance and adjusted the exposure by +0.5 Oh and its the full frame downsized to 850px So what do you reckon ISO 400 ISO 800 or ISO 1600

[Gez]

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I would go for ISO 1600, because of the lack of sharpness and grainy effect. Also
at ISO 400 and 800 you wouldn't have thought it exceptional enough to show the photo.

[Stephen]

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I would go for ISO 1600, because of the lack of sharpness and grainy effect. Also
at ISO 400 and 800 you wouldn't have thought it exceptional enough to show the photo.

Mmm, sounds pretty logical I suppose. I'm surprised you think there is a lack of sharpness though

[Gez]

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It's the writing in the foreground that seems to lack sharpness, although that could be
down to the artwork itself. Nevertheless another welcome advance by the camera makers.

[devilgas]

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difficult to tell with it being a downsize of the original. a 100% crop would be much more useful.

[Bear]

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As would knowing the brand of camera, these things are somewhat brand dependent.

[Stephen]

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No, no, no you are missing the point of my little game
All I'm wanting is an opinion on the sort of ISO level you think it might be, using your skill, judgement and experience, at a screen size comparable with an average print, say 7x5ish

For my own part I was pretty impressed with what I saw here and when I first opened it up in LR3. To me, being used to using a Canon 1DMkIIN, I would have said it was comparable with something around iso 800-1600.

I do a lot of work these days with the camera set on this sort of range, often iso 1600 wide open @ f2.8 and around 1/60 sec, pretty much the extreme limit of what it will do hand held with a 70-200mm lens on with no IS, and as you can imagine even though I may be using a monopod it isn't ideal.

To avoid any further guessing and me supplying 100% crops etc., let me tell you that the picture was shot at iso 6400 on a Canon 5DMk2 The camera will go higher but it meant going into the menus to find the iso expansion setting and for me iso 6400 was giving me 2 stops on what I was used to and the result looked better, bearing in mind also that its a FF camera.

I think it may have tipped the balance

[Bear]

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Ah, the penny drops ! based on my experience with my Olympus E3 I would have pegged this between the 400-800 ISO range. A bit noisy for 400 but perhaps a little clean for 800. I mean perhaps before I get jumped upon. I have been using a Nikon D3s for about a month now, but don't have the same kind of experience as I had with the E3 so my judgement is a little off. From what I have seen with the Nikon, if the exposure is spot on this looks like it could belong in the 10,000 - 15,000 range. I have some difficult low light shots around 9000 that bear comparision.

I see your point now. The sensitivity and performance of the best of the current FF sensors is quite astounding !

[Stephen]

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Indeed, you are right Bear. I suppose also that increasing the exposure by 0.5 it would make it around iso 10000 ish

I must also add that running it through the new LR3 Noise reduction it makes an amazing difference when you view it at 100% though its mainly Luminance noise in this instance, the colour slider doesn't need moving much. I'm well impressed with it.

[Bear]

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Stephen, I don't have LR3 yet but have heard good things about it. It does seems that ISO 6400 is the new 1600. The latest generation of FF cameras (and the 1D MkIV) are all pretty indistinguishable up to 6400 and that 6400 is really a fully useable level. Above this point things get a bit hairy but depending upon the requirements, can be useable. I had a couple of pictures printed of a gig, in a local paper, that I had taken at 25,600. OK for newspaper work, not necessarily something you would want to print at poster size ! Made a nice A4 B&W print for the artist though ! Try doing that with film !

[Ian]

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Ah, the penny drops ! based on my experience with my Olympus E3 I would have pegged this between the 400-800 ISO range. A bit noisy for 400 but perhaps a little clean for 800. I mean perhaps before I get jumped upon. I have been using a Nikon D3s for about a month now, but don't have the same kind of experience as I had with the E3 so my judgement is a little off. From what I have seen with the Nikon, if the exposure is spot on this looks like it could belong in the 10,000 - 15,000 range. I have some difficult low light shots around 9000 that bear comparision.

I see your point now. The sensitivity and performance of the best of the current FF sensors is quite astounding !

That's odd! I thought you had gone for a D700!

Ian

[Bear]

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Ian, you must be thinking of someone else ! There is someone that frequent the 4/3rds forum that recently bought a D700 but can't I remember his name.

[Ian]

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It's tricky to evaluate these things on the Web, but here is an example from a much smaller sensor camera - can you guess what ISO this was shot at?



Ian

[Ian]

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Indeed, you are right Bear. I suppose also that increasing the exposure by 0.5 it would make it around iso 10000 ish

I must also add that running it through the new LR3 Noise reduction it makes an amazing difference when you view it at 100% though its mainly Luminance noise in this instance, the colour slider doesn't need moving much. I'm well impressed with it.

Sorry Stephen - that's the wrong way round

If the camera was set to ISO 6400 and you increased the exposure in LR by half an EV, your equivalent ISO is reduced to ISO 4800.

Ian

[Bear]

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It is difficult to evaluate on the web - the downsizing tends to have the effect of cleaning some of the noise. I would guess that ian's example is frm an m4/3rds camera - EP2 or E-PL1.