Noise,noise noise

[greypoint]

A quick perusal of the Canon forums on dpreview shows once again the obssession some people seem to have with noise. Every time a new camera is released the first thing many of them jump on are sample images - one side saying how dreadful they are the other how it's all down to the subject/lighting/processing. Given how much things have improved all round I can't say that a bit of noise at 3200ISO is a major problem for me- what's wrong with a bit of grain. Of course it's nice to be able to up the ISO when you need to but I do find it odd that it seems to be the be all and end all for some - who often, if you read their other posts say they seldom shoot at over 200ISO anyway! Are we really going to see ever more mp in crop DSLRs? I see Olympus have stated 12mp is as far as they're going. Perhaps we'll all be able to afford full frame soon.

[Oly Paul]

Sue I guess these moaners would never have been able to take a half decent pic in the days of film and its limited ISO.

Pehaps it just me being old school and taught to use the lowest ISO possible for quality but out of 4000 digital images only 600 were taken above ISO 400 and out of those only 6 above ISO800.

A wise man once told me many years ago .." the camera that does everything teaches nothing." 

[Trickee]

i think noise is irrelevant i look at the bigger picture.

[greypoint]

I find I often up the ISO when the lighting is actually quite good to get high shutter speeds and under those conditions most cameras are'nt too bad. 400ISO tend to be my default and as long as that's OK I'm generally happy I think a lot of it is the old Canon v Nikon thing - I do love some of those fanboys on dpreview

[Zenmer]

Something I've always maintained is that if you get the exposure right even my D200 could cope with higher ISOs, bigger problem for me is having mostly 2.8 lenses and needing to keep the \ISO down on sunny days 

[Carlj]

DPR has to be viewed if only for entertainment value.

Canikon fanboys there condemned Sony's entry to the market, with reference to diluting the gear with frivolity such as video.... Hmm, nice shot there.

TBH, while I print out 6x4, 10x8 and above, I wonder if some of them gather the family around a 22" monitor, and have a group pixel peek at iso 6400.... 

[Spiritflier]

I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to pixel peeping... I'm not averse to shooting at high ISOs - far from it! In fact I've even made a couple of hundred dollars out of one high ISO shot that a US magazine used last year! 

I guess I'm quite lucky in that the 40D and 5D both cope really well with noise.
If you like what you've shot, that should be good enough.

[minky_monkey]

I do keep an eye out for noise performance, I`ve had a few low light indoor shots ruined by noise although I have a feeling it was more bad technique than anything else.

As things progress though, cameras will be able to cope with situations better.  They`ve moved on leaps and bounds as it is. 

[anglefire]

As I've said before, the ISO race, as such, has taken up since Nikon Brought out the D3. Traditionally Canon has had better ISO performance that Nikon. Even when exposed correctly, Nikon's have traditionally had more noise reduction which tends to soften the image - I'm not so sure that Canon now use more noise reduction!

As for my use, I will go to ISO1600 without much thought on the 5D and double that on the mkIII - with some additional software noise reduction, the MkIII will go to 12800 and still be usable images. 3200 on the 5D is ok as long as care is taken to exposure correctly (I.e. the right and RAW).

In normal use though, ISO800 is as good on the MkIII as ISO 200 on my 350D.

[Hinfrance]

My experience re noise is somewhat different. At this point I should say that I have not used either of the 'god' makes of camera, neither Canon nor Nikon.

But with all the other makes I gave used noise is not a problem at any speed IF their is a decent source of light. If the lighting is dim even an ISO of 100 will create a noisy image.

As I rarely find any reason to use anything more than 400 (creature of habit, Tri-X man) and very infrequently 800 or more, I find this whole debate to be a non issue. Unless you are doing surveillance work why on earth would you need anything more?

[Graham]

Unless you are doing surveillance work why on earth would you need anything more?

  Err, when your trying to do somthing like this


  3200 iso  500@ f4.0

    Graham.

[Jonathan]

Um, ISO 800 pretty much counts as low ISO for me......

I've been using auto ISO recently and it's quite fun.  Just wish you could tune it per lens and make it turn off automatically when you're shooting manual.

[Hinfrance]

Unless you are doing surveillance work why on earth would you need anything more?

  Err, when your trying to do somthing like this


  3200 iso  500@ f4.0

    Graham.

See, band surveillance !  Seriously, at university I used to take a fair few band pictures, and all we had was Tri-X. It worked, sometimes pushed a bit. If you had done that shot at 1/125 problem solved, you're down to 800, or lift one stop after the event then 400.

Jonathan - I forgot most of you live under a permanent grey sky and rain  

[Graham]

  Yeah I used to use TriX as well (Wasn't it supposed to have a "T" shaped grain stucture or something?). I used to push it a bit more than a bit!
  I get far more "Hits" now though, and.... they'er in colour!
                          Graham.

[Jonathan]

Unless you are doing surveillance work why on earth would you need anything more?

   Err, when your trying to do somthing like this


   3200 iso  500@ f4.0

     Graham.

1/500s?  Wuss.