ISO testing

I know that the higher the ISO the grainier the picture but I have often wonder how far could I go before it really became apparent. Went out this afternoon and did a couple of tests. The first was in slightly overcast bright sun and the second was in a slightly darker area with different subject matter. The only processing was to resize all the photos in View NX2. Hover over the image and the first part of the file name is the ISO

Second Series

tracsoft said:

Second Series

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What a great job. you have saved me the trouble of doing it for myself thanks. I can't see any difference with my 73 year old eyes. I shoot with iso 800-600 most of the time with my 5100. Gives me faster shutter speed in low light. helps to over come my shakes

I viewed them in CS5 and they looked pretty good all the way through 800. Even the 1600 ones held up better than I thought they would. Anything past there you would only use for court evidence.

In the first test I noticed ISO 100 had a definite magazine quality to it and the Hi-2 produced some grainy people.

Just kidding. Great examples.

tracsoft said:

I viewed them in CS5 and they looked pretty good all the way through 800. Even the 1600 ones held up better than I thought they would. Anything past there you would only use for court evidence.

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You can see how your camera performs if you shoot a scene that has shadows i.e. next to a lamp that cast a shadow. You can then view that area at 100% and see how obvious the grain appears. Noise doesn't show well outdoors during daylight.

Here is the next step. First example. Small section of each print at 100% Shows the loss pretty fast.