Guidelines for graininess - How High is too High - ISO

TimL

New member
I've owned the D500 only briefly and already I have found the high ISO capabilities to be remarkable. The camera seems to be able to "see in the dark". What are other peoples experience with how high the ISO can go before the graininess is distracting?

I am old enough to remember when a Film ISO of 1000 was considered very high. Now with a camera that tops out at more than 51000, it is difficult to get a sense of how high is too high.
 
That is a question you must answer for yourself. I shoot the D750 and it loves the dark. I shoot at 12,800 a lot and ma constantly surprised. One of the keys is proper exposure and also good post processing skills. Lightroom has some very good noise reduction built in.

This one was shot at ISO 12,800

I remember when you had to be careful when you shot ASA 400 film.

07-18-2016_0016.jpg
 

aroy

Senior Member
Properly exposed images will have low noise in the well lighted areas upto one or two steps below the maximum stated ISO. The shadows are another matter and darker areas will have a lot of noise. The trick is to mask out the foreground (the brighter areas) from the dark areas. Apply minimal NR to the bright areas and aggressive NR to the dark areas. In extreme cases you can try a few dedicated NR software. Just note that most NR algorithms will soften up the image.

I have found that it is best to experiment with exposure compensation at each ISO, so that you know exactly the required compensation for each lens/body/ISO combination. For example with my D3300 and the 35mm F1.8DX lens, I find that Red and Yellow are boosted, during RAW conversion, so underexposing ig these colours predominate helps
 
Top