Highest ISO setting safe to use on a D90?

What's the highest ISO setting I can be confident in using on my D90 without having pictures with too much noise? I have plans to upgrade to a body with better high ISO performance but that's not in the cards quite yet.


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the d300 was similar to the d90 in performance and the d300 showed bad grain from 1600. I dont think the d90 is better.

It depends on your tolerance for noise,subject matter and if you are able to do your own noise reduction,i would take the same picture at different ISOs and see where your limit is.

grain is not an issue so much with the d90/d300 more then the horrible chroma noise you get when you go up. you can PP it but its like fixing color fringing...it seems to ruin the image a bit.

daveminnich said:

What's the highest ISO setting I can be confident in using on my D90 without having pictures with too much noise? I have plans to upgrade to a body with better high ISO performance but that's not in the cards quite yet.


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A lot depends on lighting too. In tungsten light the blue channel will be so weak, that your images drown in noise much earlier. In sodium lights out in the street in the night the situation tends to get even worse. So there is no blanket statement that fits all situations.

And remember that it isn't the ISO setting in the camera that is the source of the noise. The noise comes from lack of light. It is the opposite, actually. If you keep exposure constant and keep on increasing ISO, the amount of noise will go down. This is easy to test in 2 minutes. Why else would the manufacturers put the ISO knob in there in the first place?

Thanks for the responses everyone. Related question. It's soon time to upgrade to a newer body that does better in low light. I want to stick with DX format. I'm thinking 7100 or 7200 but I'm certainly not limited to only those choices. I will more than likely buy used to get the most for my dollar. Suggestions?


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If budget is very tight, D7100 will work. But if you can swing it, D7200 has much bigger action buffer and a little better low light capability.

The D7100/7200 are probably the best DX choices out there unless you want to up it to a D500. Alternatively its FX.

When I had it I couldn't go over 800 without losing details to noise (I shoot a lot of birds). After that it was usually an exercise in PP frustration.

If the D90 is anything like the D300, I used to try and avoid going over ISO 400, but would dabble in 800 in case I really needed to. After that it was really not useful for me, at least. Then again, I have a very low tolerance for noise.

I upgraded from a D200, which has even worse low light performance than a D300 or is similar to a D90 and could NOT be happier. Much better high ISO performance, faster frames per second, bigger buffer, and a lot more pixels.

Bikerbrent said:

I upgraded from a D200, which has even worse low light performance than a D300 or is similar to a D90 and could NOT be happier. Much better high ISO performance, faster frames per second, bigger buffer, and a lot more pixels.

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Upgraded to?


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daveminnich said:

Upgraded to?


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Sorry My bad. A D7200.

My D90 was best when at about ISO 640, but I often had to got to 1600 because a noisy shot is better than a blurry one most of the time.

I've owned a D7100 and never was happy with it. Now I've got a D500 as my DX camera, and I'm impressed with it. It is a step up in cost, though.

WM