High ISO

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Paul Parker

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Hope you dont mind me asking as I have seen this mentioned previously in this forum by a few of you.

Ive only used three cameras and getting to know its capabilities I know in low light bumping up ISO past *whatever number* i'll get home and see noise on my screen. To be honest pee's me right off but at time in question that was my only option.

If you notice noise do you fight back in post processing to reduce/remove it or accept it? How do your editors or agencies comment (if thats right) on this distortion? Is it accepted or we'll move onto the next set of images. Of course the standard of lighting at venues will make a difference from premier - non league for the football photographers?
 
Noise is annoying, but in most circumstances better than a blurry pic. I don't supply the rags, but I've heard people say that realistically is doesn't matter that much for newsprint. Personally, I will use a bit of software to reduce noise, but I try to avoid pushing iso to the max (where it seems to be the noisiest) and get reasonable results.
 
Maybe it's time to invest in a new camera. Most new models are perfectly useable at some pretty high ISO's. Some more so than others obviously. What is your setup?
 
To be honest @rjbell I noticed noise first in a Canon 5D3 and probably slightly worse with even lower ISO in my recent Canon 1D3 which i both use in F2.8 Tamron and Sigma lenses :-/

Believe me the plan is always to get more equipment but an annoying dictionary word called "Budget" is a real pain ;)
 
Paul Parker said:
To be honest @rjbell I noticed noise first in a Canon 5D3 and probably slightly worse with even lower ISO in my recent Canon 1D3 which i both use in F2.8 Tamron and Sigma lenses :-/

Believe me the plan is always to get more equipment but an annoying dictionary word called "Budget" is a real pain ;)
Click to expand...
Sorry Paul i think you must be a fuss pot. stop pixel peeping! :)
 
1D3 was worse for noise than the 1D4. But a 1D3 was better than a 50D. All relative :)
 
The noise you can see when the image is at 70-100% on your screen is not really going to be much of an issue when the image is shrunk to a 5-10cm photo on newsprint.
If it's going into a glossy mag or being blown up then noise might be an issue.

Who are you currently supplying and are they giving you grief for noisy images?

I could ask a friend who's an editor for reuters what he'd accept, if you like. But it depends if you're dealing with big agencies or just local news outlets.

Do you have any examples of what's been deemed too noisy? What's the highest ISO you want to use on your 5D3?
 
HAHA ... Fair point @rjbell Fair point (y)(y)

@ABTog Thanks for your time. You're probably right in the picture i'm looking at on screen will more than likely be shrunk down and help with quality? Supplying decent images to agencies/media will be my my aim. At present a local sports team but would like to get into agency work. To be honest i have been to a night game at a championship football ground where the lighting was consistent and not to bad a night photographing. Maybe a white balance issue but can be easily corrected later

Suppose photographing at a non league football ground more regularly, especially more at this time of year under the odd spotlight situated behind me... Although on a monpod cant get my shutter speed really below 800, so wide open F2.8 and 6400 ISO is my set up. I'd prefer a much lower ISO ??
 
I've had varying experiences depending on the agency receiving the shots. I remember once submitting a handful of images of Djokovic winning a match at the French Open that had gone later into the evening and the agency rejected them because they were taken on a 1DMKIV at ISO3200. The simple fact was that I was never going to get the required shutter speeds to photograph tennis in that light with a lower ISO.

Elsewhere I've submitted shots at ISO128000 which have been published and nobody has batted an eyelid.
 
My most published image (100's of paid shows) was a very big crop of a very noisy ISO3200 image on a 1D3 from the "wrong" end of the pitch. It was embarrassingly bad quality, but it was the only image of a very controversial incident. I'm sure it wouldn't have seen the light of day otherwise.
 
I find noise isn't really an issue when sending in to my local paper. I use Light Room to handle the noise from my Canon 1D MKIV which for floodlight games in the Wessex League is around ISO 6400 - 12800.
 
All depends from media, I got numeros shots submitted with ISO 6400 shot but that is on d4s which is beast. On older bodies like d700 I was stuck to 3200 as going higher was producing images that was not accepted by agencies
 
Just to prove the point :) This is from yesterdays regional paper.. . The one top left is iso 25600 and the big one in the middle is iso 16000 shot with a 1dx and 70-200 mkII

chorley.jpg
 
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