ISO 6400 - Image acceptable?

hi everyone,
I'd like to know what is your standard on high iso image.
is this image acceptable?
50d canon
iso 6400
http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...684451bf_b.jpg

wow that's much much better than 3200 on my nikon d80. makes me jealous :)

and this is
iso-1600
f/4
1/125
http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/..._1154882_n.jpg

They look fine - but then again, I would expect them to. When you reduce the size of the image you also reduce the noise. In my opinion, image noise is SERIOUSLY over-rated.

Hi Isabelo,

There's no problem with the second, iso 1600 one.

The original iso 6400, if unprocessed apart from down sizing, this is not bad at first glance, but on closer inspection, it does have issues...

With my Nikon D5000, while unprocessed iso 6400 would be noisier than this overall, I don't think it suffers from the fixed pattern noise ("tram lines" across sky, and in shadows of bushes). These are 'unfortunate' because any standard means of de-noising cannot cope with them, so they remain (although to a much lesser extent) even after the noise reduction process, leaving one to clone them out where still too objectionable.

Here's what I did with Neat Image at 70% luma NR with a sample taken from near top left corner (members must view at full size 1024 x 683) for critical assessment.
http://i44.tinypic.com/126e6vt.jpg

It is possible these tramlines are being 'enhanced' by flare from the lamps, or that the camera's sensor was unusually hot at the time of capture which increased the noise for this shot - another image might not be so unlucky.

However, it was, as presented by you, a well exposed and sharp capture with remarkably little chroma noise, only the luminance noise which Neat Image has now (largely) dealt with.

Hope that helps,

I was thinking of getting one of these camera's but I read you have to put up with a lower dynamic range than the 40D and noise gets silly after 800 iso but no hot pixels. Also images I've seen don't look as sharp as even a 1.3 crop 8 MP but that might be down to the lens or camera shake even.

Therefore I was pleased to see an example of 6400 iso with this camera and I've had a go with it usung Topaz DeNoise 3 set really low on noise and high on chroma and clean smooth areas. High Pass Filter 0.25 pixels vivid blending and then darken the sky with a brush and more selective noise removal.
http://i41.tinypic.com/ng962w.jpg

cheers :)

Hi, Isabelo;

I think part of the point here is what you're defining as "acceptable." As Colin says, noise is talked about a lot, like megapixels. As people have commented in other threads, photographers look at photographs differently: where everyone else looks at the print on the wall and says, "That's nice," the photographer walks up until his/her nose is against the image, looking for noise, compression artifacts, whatever.

If you're posing someone in a studio, of course you will have plenty of light, and use a low ISO. People don't want a portrait with a lot of noise. But in low light, like your picture here, it's different: I think if you want to get a candid shot thae demand that everyone gather close to you to be in range of your flash. If there's some noise in the sky, process it as best you can, but it's still better than having everyone in a little group, I think.

Cheers,
Rick

now i am confident of cranking up my ISO even to it's maximum,
before, i was overly concerned with the ISO setting of not getting higher than 400.
thanks everyone...
cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by belong

now i am confident of cranking up my ISO even to it's maximum,
before, i was overly concerned with the ISO setting of not getting higher than 400.
thanks everyone...
cheers

---

Hi Isabelo,

Many things in photography are a compromise, and ISO selection is no exception. Some will avoid using high ISO settings - but that means you have to get more light on the sensor by either using a longer exposure (and risking camera shake / motion blur) or opening the aperture and risking depth of field issues. Often a higher ISO is BY FAR the lesser of the 3 evils.

The 7D seems pretty useable at ISO 6400 to me....
http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...5b31af19bf.jpg
Bigger versions

Not sure I'd want to use it for macro but I'm happy to use it for less critical work.

Couldn't be bothered setting a tripod up for this so just whacked the ISO up to 6400....
http://backup.cambridgeincolour.com/...c1bbbd7de8.jpg
Bigger versions

Both shot in RAW and the full res JPEGs on Flickr are straight out of DPP....no mucking about:cool: