dpreview iso comparison

real world ISO comparisons are very different from DXOmark tests, and the results should be taken with a pinch of salt.

If you're testing yourself, there is no point taking a shot in decent light at iso 6400 and 1/8000 sec and marvelling at how good your camera is at high ISO's. Take a shot at ISO 6400 in crap light that REQUIRES iso6400 to even get a decent exposure at the minimum shutter speed for the lens you are using, you'll then get a better idea of how good your sensor is. It's not just noise that is the problem either, colour rendition, dynamic range will all deteriorate as ISO increases.
 
It didn't go un-noticed.

Weather it was intended, liked or not...it is a classic battle between pixel peeping and image viewing...

Your images only proved that you are not a pixel peeper and you are happy with them. Unfortunately.

It should also be noted that exposure was spot on hence the noise isn't so apparent, peepers usually have symptoms of being scared to use high ISOs and more often than not, under expose and hence noise is more noticeable.

I reckon its because we've both owned d2x’s and have no choice but to accept noise ;)
 
Noise is never the issue, it's the quality of the detail retained and the lack of quality of the noise that is the issue.

I owned a 1DsII for about a year and it was noisy as hell upwards of ISO 400 ish, but even at 1600 (it's top real iso setting) it retained bang loads of detail and the noise was much more like old film grain so perfectly acceptable and all but disappeared in print.

That hasn't been my experience with my D300 (although it's not terrible at all) or my D7k.
 
Phil Young said:
That was when you wasn't coming back to tell me I was right in outdoor and indoor noise ;)

Its getting to be a bit pointless now.
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I agree its all a bit pointless, but just so you know not replying may mean

1. I've answered the phone
2. I'm a bit busy doing work ;)
3. Its the school run
4. I've gone to bed
5. I think its a bit pointless and can't be arsed
6. Anyone of a hundred other reasons

none of which means you're right :shrug:
 
boyfalldown said:
I agree its all a bit pointless, but just so you know not replying may mean

1. I've answered the phone
2. I'm a bit busy doing work ;)
3. Its the school run
4. I've gone to bed
5. I think its a bit pointless and can't be arsed
6. Anyone of a hundred other reasons

none of which means you're right :shrug:
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Well from where I am, there was quite a few folk talking about outdoor vs indoor, I said I'll do a test to see and if o came out noisier indoors I'll hold my hands up and say I was wrong.

Did the test and everyone that was shouting about it being a massive difference went quiet...
 
The23rdman said:
Noise is never the issue, it's the quality of the detail retained and the lack of quality of the noise that is the issue.

I owned a 1DsII for about a year and it was noisy as hell upwards of ISO 400 ish, but even at 1600 (it's top real iso setting) it retained bang loads of detail and the noise was much more like old film grain so perfectly acceptable and all but disappeared in print.

That hasn't been my experience with my D300 (although it's not terrible at all) or my D7k.
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Which is exactly the reason I bought the 1DS MkII and often use it at 3200 when I want (And put the images through Neat Image).

But of course higher ISO will mean more noise but the amount which is perceivable also depends on the degree to which the original image is reduced.

Produce a billboard size pic and then view it at 2 feet away and you will virtually only see noise - view it at 200 feet and the noise will probably be unnoticeable.

The same with our pics - the larger the original image and the smaller the final print the less the noise will be.

So pixel peeping the D800 at 100% will reveal noise at 1600 but reduce the image to (say) 1200x800 Pixels and virtually none will be perceivable.

Which in fact tkes us back to an old maxim used even in the days of 35mm cameras and film - for the best quality fill the frame with the subject as much as possible.

Good luck everyone with all that pixel peeping.
 
Come back with results from all of the cameras, in a classic dimly lit church + the odd harsh sun splash from one of those high windows they seem to have

i.e. a generally dimly lit scene that now has a whopper of a dynamic range too.. That sorts out the naff camera's from the gooduns
 
Richard King said:
Come back with results from all of the cameras, in a classic dimly lit church + the odd harsh sun splash from one of those high windows they seem to have

i.e. a generally dimly lit scene that now has a whopper of a dynamic range too.. That sorts out the naff camera's from the gooduns
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Exactly. Although the D7000 is supposed to have amazing dynamic range I never saw it in practice.
 
Phil Young said:
Well from where I am, there was quite a few folk talking about outdoor vs indoor, I said I'll do a test to see and if o came out noisier indoors I'll hold my hands up and say I was wrong.

Did the test and everyone that was shouting about it being a massive difference went quiet...
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No, as explained some of use have other things to do. Incidently the indoor v outdoor thing is something you've made up. Its better v worse light that flatters high iso and the images are always noiser in lower light

To hopefully show you. Both images from a d800 at 6400. Both inside ;)

1st 85mm f/4 1/1000 - pretty good but lots of light as evidenced from the EXIF


HM5_4270.jpg


2nd 85mm f/1.4 1/100

HM5_4273.jpg


notice the considerable difference in noise levels/detail
 
boyfalldown said:
To hopefully show you. Both images from a d800 at 6400. Both inside ;)
Click to expand...

That's an excellent test of f4 v f1.4 - the difference is noticeable, as expected...

Doing tests like this and getting meaningful results are a lot harder than most people give credit....

Edited to add: here's something I wrote a while back in response to some queries about soft copies of lenses, but it is all still relevant here.
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3949409&postcount=25
 
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boyfalldown said:
No, as explained some of use have other things to do. Incidently the indoor v outdoor thing is something you've made up. Its better v worse light that flatters high iso and the images are always noiser in lower light

To hopefully show you. Both images from a d800 at 6400. Both inside ;)

1st 85mm f/4 1/1000 - pretty good but lots of light as evidenced from the EXIF


HM5_4270.jpg


2nd 85mm f/1.4 1/100

HM5_4273.jpg


notice the considerable difference in noise levels/detail
Click to expand...
And that's what i'm talking about - additionally, had you taken the shot with less light, a shot that needed to have both the bright and dark parts properly exposed we would all be looking at a really ugly muddy looking shot, especially in the midtones down to the dark tones. I haven't seen a digital camera yet that doesn't do this at high ISO
 
Richard King said:
And that's what i'm talking about - additionally, had you taken the shot with less light, a shot that needed to have both the bright and dark parts properly exposed we would all be looking at a really ugly muddy looking shot, especially in the midtones down to the dark tones. I haven't seen a digital camera yet that doesn't do this at high ISO
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Well yeah - there never will be a camera that will, as the darker parts may well have less than 5-10% of the light of the lighter parts, which means shot noise is much more obvious - dark parts of an ISO 12000 image can be counting single/low double digit photon levels (at which level shot noise is something like 25% the magnitude of the signal). That's notwithstanding that silicon doesn't absorb blue well so the blue channel tends to be boosted more, and in low light we tend to have blue-deficient light sources like tungsten/sodium vapour!
 
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boyfalldown said:
No, as explained some of use have other things to do. Incidently the indoor v outdoor thing is something you've made up. Its better v worse light that flatters high iso and the images are always noiser in lower light

To hopefully show you. Both images from a d800 at 6400. Both inside ;)

1st 85mm f/4 1/1000 - pretty good but lots of light as evidenced from the EXIF

2nd 85mm f/1.4 1/100

notice the considerable difference in noise levels/detail
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The 2nd isn't exposed properly.

Care to try again? If you expose right you won't notice a difference.
 
Phil Young said:
Weather it was intended, liked or not...it is a classic battle between pixel peeping and image viewing...
/QUOTE]


Tongue in cheek response:-

Playing devils advocate, i notice that you have put yourself on the side of the image viewer vs pixel peeper, but note you post high-iso samples of your D7000 to show the low noise? Doesnt seem a consistent position!

;)
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Phil Young said:
The 2nd isn't exposed properly.

Care to try again? If you expose right you won't notice a difference.
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both were aperture priority. 0 exposure comp. Heres the histogram from it. Hows its underexposed

Screen-Shot-2012-09-25-at-11_07.jpg


for comparison heres the brighter one.

Screen-Shot-2012-09-25-at-11_10.jpg


which isn't really different
 
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boyfalldown said:
both were aperture priority. 0 exposure comp. Heres the histogram from it. Hows its underexposed

Screen-Shot-2012-09-25-at-11_07.jpg


for comparison heres the brighter one.

Screen-Shot-2012-09-25-at-11_10.jpg


which isn't really different
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One has shadow clipping , the other doesnt

The location of peaks on the histogram is further to the right on the f4 shot.

And there is a 3 stop difference in aperture, whic would require 1 /800s shutter speed to get the same exposure, not a 1/1000s

All of the above points to different exposures IMVHO!
 
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boyfalldown said:
both were aperture priority. 0 exposure comp. Heres the histogram from it. Hows its underexposed

for comparison heres the brighter one.

which isn't really different
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Clearly you needed to compensate +0.7 in the second.

All you're proving is what I've been saying all along.

If you under expose you will notice noise more.
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
and don't change the aperture or focussing or distance to the subject!
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The focusing and the distance - if you can manage that with a four year old girl you're better then me.

The point was to show a 'correct' ie bar of the metre in the middle exposure which this has done. If I'd left the aperture without changing then the second would just of been radically under exposed and not shown the increase in noise as available light falls, even on a correctly exposed subject
 
Phil Young said:
Clearly you needed to compensate +0.7 in the second.

All you're proving is what I've been saying all along.

If you under expose you will notice noise more.
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how do you work that out. You have the histogram. Its exposed properly. I'm only proving it in your mind.

What you mean is I'll get less noise if I intentionally over expose. Well yes
 
boyfalldown said:
how do you work that out. You have the histogram. Its exposed properly. I'm only proving it in your mind.

What you mean is I'll get less noise if I intentionally over expose. Well yes
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Firstly, look at the images and forget the histogram. Are they the same exposure? No. Does that make it a fair test? No.

Secondly. You wouldn't deliberately over exposing. You are simply exposing the shadows.
 
Phil Young said:
Firstly, look at the images and forget the histogram. Are they the same exposure? No. Does that make it a fair test? No.

Secondly. You wouldn't deliberately over exposing. You are simply exposing the shadows.
Click to expand...

But you told me that one was underexposed. I simply showed the histograms to show it isn't. 2nd how would modiyfing exposure comp make it a better test? You mean you want me to expose each one differently to give the results you want
 
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Rapscallion said:
One has shadow clipping , the other doesnt

The location of peaks on the histogram is further to the right on the f4 shot.

And there is a 3 stop difference in aperture, whic would require 1 /800s shutter speed to get the same exposure, not a 1/1000s

All of the above points to different exposures IMVHO!
Click to expand...


The question, and the reason for the histograms was it was claimed the images were underexposed. They show (with the expection of some very small clipping, which is outside of the crop anyway) they weren't underexposed at all. Theres clipping in both BTW
 
boyfalldown said:
But you told me that one was underexposed. I simply showed the histograms to show it isn't. 2nd how would modiyfing exposure comp make it a better test? You mean you want me to expose each one differently to give the results you want
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You're not testing the cameras ability to expose. You should be testing noise outdoors vs indoors and at faster/slower speeds to see if any of the above make a difference in noise.

There's no point exposing for shadows in one and not the other and saying the first proves that slower speeds make more noise.
 
boyfalldown said:
The question, and the reason for the histograms was it was claimed the images were underexposed. They show (with the expection of some very small clipping, which is outside of the crop anyway) they weren't underexposed at all. Theres clipping in both BTW
Click to expand...

Sounds like you're either trying to prove anything you can because you can't prove what we are testing for...

So far you have proved that I used the word underexposed when I should have said "exposing more for the shadows".
 
DuncanDisorderly said:
You mentioned earlier the lack of fine detail in the f1.4 shot; probably mis-focus rather than anything to do with the ISO.
Checking fine detail needs more controlled conditions.

A four year old is probably not the best subject for this!
Click to expand...

It was a quick test to prove a point. It does that in that it shows the second image in poorer light is much more noisy
 
Phil Young said:
You're not testing the cameras ability to expose. You should be testing noise outdoors vs indoors and at faster/slower speeds to see if any of the above make a difference in noise.

There's no point exposing for shadows in one and not the other and saying the first proves that slower speeds make more noise.
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Where does indoors/ outdoors come into it?

I've never claimed slower speeds make noise but poor light effects ISo.

Both were exposed identically from the cameras meter. It was you suggesting I should expose 1 differently. You specifically said I should of added .7 comp to make it a fairer test. How would that make it more realistic
 
boyfalldown said:
Where does indoors/ outdoors come into it?

I've never claimed slower speeds make noise but poor light effects ISo.

Both were exposed identically from the cameras meter. It was you suggesting I should expose 1 differently. You specifically said I should of added .7 comp to make it a fairer test. How would that make it more realistic
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Right.

1) no I didn't suggest slower speeds and outdoors vs indoor light did. Scott did and then you backed him up with "I think Scott knows what he's talking about" ergo I don't.

2) so see you telling me that you 100% rely on your camera to expose what your eye wants to see? By the sounds of it you can't even see why its an unfair test and instead making excuses for your shortcomings without actually realising, its not a good test and proves nothing to what the argument is about.
 
Phil Young said:
Right.

1) no I didn't suggest slower speeds and outdoors vs indoor light did. Scott did and then you backed him up with "I think Scott knows what he's talking about" ergo I don't.

2) so see you telling me that you 100% rely on your camera to expose what your eye wants to see? By the sounds of it you can't even see why its an unfair test and instead making excuses for your shortcomings without actually realising, its not a good test and proves nothing to what the argument is about.
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sigh. Sadly ergo nothing. Although I'm thinking you'll never look at anything that suggests you might be wrong.

Have I said that where? Yet again you seem to be putting words into my mouth. Maybe you think a more realistic way of doing this is not to use any form of measurement and expose them completly differently. Of course if you're going to argue I should of just used randomly different exposures for each then you'll get the results you want.
 
boyfalldown said:
sigh. Sadly ergo nothing. Although I'm thinking you'll never look at anything that suggests you might be wrong.

Have I said that where? Yet again you seem to be putting words into my mouth. Maybe you think a more realistic way of doing this is not to use any form of measurement and expose them completly differently. Of course if you're going to argue I should of just used randomly different exposures for each then you'll get the results you want.
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Clearly this is going no where.

Its not about me looking at things that might prove me wrong, I said at the start of it can be proved then I'll say I was wrong...but look at what you've supplied!!!!

You have given 2 different exposures, shot too slow for a 4 year old, missed focus and you are claiming this is proof!!!

I don't think I'm the proud one here.

We are yet to hear something along the lines of: "OK that was a bit of a rubbish test, let me try again".

If you can't even understand that you have 2 different exposures I would suggest not even contributing to the argument as we have just wasted so many posts that people will get bored of reading because you have supplied 2 different exposures claiming proof.

If you go back to the original post, do you see dpreview giving different exposures and then claming its proving something?

.......or is it because they are in "a controlled environment"...?
 
Phil Young said:
Clearly this is going no where.

Its not about me looking at things that might prove me wrong, I said at the start of it can be proved then I'll say I was wrong...but look at what you've supplied!!!!

You have given 2 different exposures, shot too slow for a 4 year old, missed focus and you are claiming this is proof!!!

I don't think I'm the proud one here.

We are yet to hear something along the lines of: "OK that was a bit of a rubbish test, let me try again".

If you can't even understand that you have 2 different exposures I would suggest not even contributing to the argument as we have just wasted so many posts that people will get bored of reading because you have supplied 2 different exposures claiming proof.

If you go back to the original post, do you see dpreview giving different exposures and then claming its proving something?

.......or is it because they are in "a controlled environment"...?
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yawn.......I've never claimed they are in a controlled environment. Just the exposure was neutral as per the meter and neither is under exposed. And this

Phil Young said:
Clearly you needed to compensate +0.7 in the second.
Click to expand...

would be fair how?


You're right theres no point though. You're absolutley right. You always are*

ps sarcasm
 
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boyfalldown said:
yawn.......I've never claimed they are in a controlled environment. Just the exposure was neutral as per the meter and neither is under exposed. And this



would be fair how?


You're right theres no point though. You're absolutley right. You always are*

ps sarcasm
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Hugh - the pictures are exposed differently, see my point above re shutter speed. The difference in exposure and the difference in aperture make the comparison pictures you have posted less than ideal.
 
Rapscallion said:
Hugh - the pictures are exposed differently, see my point above re shutter speed. The difference in exposure and the difference in aperture make the comparison pictures you have posted less than ideal.
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I've never claimed it was a perfect controlled test. But the point is the second is much noiser, almost unuseable. Neither is underexposed either as stated in the thread
 
boyfalldown said:
I've never claimed it was a perfect controlled test. But the point is the second is much noiser, almost unuseable. Neither is underexposed either as stated in the thread
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Have you been following the thread?

We were discussing underexposed shadows at high ISO will cause noise to be more noticable.

You done exactly that and proved only what we already concluded...
 
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