ISO Experiment
 

We

From what I can tell there is a slight degradation but this shows up most noticeably in the background. This of course is a blurred out of focus element anyway. I would like to have the two prints side by side for a comparison.

The first image was the 200 ISO, the second the 800 ISO and the combined shows the 200 on the right.

I used to be more concerned about excess noise at higher ISO settings but now I really don't anymore. I recently purchased a Sony F828 and at higher ISO settings it is noisy but this program called Noise Ninja really cleans things up well without losing quality in the image like filters in photoshop and others do. It's pretty fun to play around with too because of how clean it makes things. It takes a bit of playing around with to get used to it but once you get a good grip on how to use it, it becomes a great tool in your digital photo software arsenal.

The link for that program is http://www.picturecode.com

Mike,

I can't say that I see any real problem with the images - at either ISO. It is interesting to see the extreme close-ups, since the snapdragons are well beyond actual size, and you wouldn't really ever need that for a human.

Interesting demo. I can't see anything about the 800 ISO images that would be unpaintable. Time to go try this out with my own camera.

Also, thanks for choosing snapdragons for this demonstration. There is a large floral arrangement in the portrait I'm working on now and it has lots of snapdragons in soft, even lighting, much like you show here. I can use these photos as extra reference! (Of course, I'll need you to sign here, here, and here, to give me permission to violate your copyright. But then again, I'm hoping you'll never find out.)

Michele,

Take them, use them, abuse them. Here's another one if you please. I'd even send you a high res. if you want.

Jeremiah,

I've not heard of such a thing. No surprise there though.

Chris,

I was a little surprised at how well the 800 ISO held up. When you think that these are pretty radical closeups. I still think I'll draw the line at 400 ISO, but it's nice to know that I have the 800 in the bag in certain extreme circumstances.

I operate under the principle that anything worth doing is worth over doing. Kind of like the Rocky movies. I had to take this experiment to the extreme.

My camera has a range of ISO settings from 200 to 1600. I re-shot the above using the following ISO settings. The shutter speed was correspondingly selected by the camera in portrait mode, all at aperture 4.5:



ISO 200 shutter speed 100
ISO 400 shutter speed 200
ISO 1250 shutter speed 800
ISO 1600 shutter speed 1000

The first is the full image shot at 1600 ISO. The next three are closeups 400, 1250, and 1600 ISO.

The first two images are crops from ISO 400 then 1600.

The next two are cropped further (from the bottom right corner of the previous two) from the ISO 400 then 1600.

This seems remarkable to me. It suggests that from film to digital, in this regard, it's not apples and apples. Someone just said "Da."

I think it's something like this -- if you think of film as in pixels, it only has it's finite best. So this fixed pixel best, was put in combination with a fixed sensitivity (ISO), to create it's best fixed quality. Sombody stop me.

Digitalia, on the other hand, at it's high end settings surpasses the fixed pixel best of film, and maybe by a long shot. If this is true, then you have to re-shuffle your matrix of the limitations of high end ISO settings.

Or, and what is more likely, I am completely full of crap and yet, still walk around without a keeper.

There is an amazingly small amount of difference between the closeups of 400 ISO and 1600 ISO shots. Who'd have thought!

The other thing that tells me the apple cart has changed is that with film, the lowest color print film ISO was 100, then 200, 400 and 800. With slide film I think it went to 25 or 50 ISO. With my camera, Nikon has opted to have 200 as the bottom end.

I'm sure that they have thought about this a lot, and maybe even run some tests. The only thing I can figure is that they must have concluded that 200 digital, is so much better than 100 film, that there's no reason to take it down any further.

I'm tempted to print a couple of these examples out in 8x10 format. Although you would think that if it was going to fall apart it would be apparent here.

Actually, my first reason for doing this exercise was to demonstrate how different ISO settings affect shutter speed. Notice the above settings and how the shutter speed increased when the ISO increased. Higher shutter speeds can be your friend, lower shutter speeds can make you vulnerable to camera shake and subject movement, thus causing blurry images.

I've exhausted myself on this matter, I should nap.

Hi Mike, I hope you are feeling more rested. I've not been able to photograph people lately due to the increasingly depressive stormy weather, flooding all over and gloomy skies. I've got to get the chroma 50 lights installed upstairs! I did try one experiment yesterday though. We took off on one of our "daytrips" to look at some of the area flooding, and for me to photgraph it. The Baraboo River in my hometown is about 4' over flood stage, so that's where we headed. I set my camera for automatic ISO, just to see what would happen, it was our first day of sunshine in a week with no rain forcast till later in the day. ALL of the pics came back with an ISO of 50! I'm confused but refuse to obsess on it. Next sunny day, I'll try setting the ISO at 200 and 400 manually.

This photo was taken on all automatic settings. Shutter speed 1/144, f-stop 4.4, ISO 50, file size fine. I wonder why it chose these settings on such a bright sunny day? I used to hop rocks in this river, can't even find a rock in the water now.

Jean

Jean,

Thank you for that question.

Given the lighting conditions you describe, the camera made a perfectly reasonable choice.

If you had taken the time to switch your ISO setting to 200 or 400, then taken a photograph of the same scene with the same light, you would not be able to tell the difference one little bit. The only difference would be that the camera would have chosen a progressively higher shutter speed.

And, if you had returned to that same scene in the late evening with much less available light, with your camera in auto ISO mode, it no doubt would have selected a much higher ISO.

When you, or your camera, select a higher ISO, it

Thanks Mike, sorry you lost your first post! I'm getting it! I played again today with different ISO settings with all the other settings done manually instead of auto. After I get more time on the computer I'll post my results. I found one small sentence in the instruction book about ISO settings on this camera. It states that settings higher than 50 will produce noise (increasing as the ISO is set higher). I don't know if that is for my model only (5400 Coolpix) or all Nikons in general of that vintage. Maybe yours is an "improved" version! I used the tripod today for all my playing around. I'm anxious to load them up but hubby gets the computer now, I get it later (we share).

Jean

That seems very curious to me. Fifty is an extremely low ISO setting. When they say "noise," this is what I was calling "grainy." To suggest that there would be a reduction in quality at something just above 50 seems incredible to me. My Nikon D70 (a different, SLR type of camera) has 200 as it's lowest ISO setting. I'm pretty sure that your Nikon has a completely different type of chip but it's not that old. I would not have expected that kind of disclaimer.

It would really be interesting to see a similar type experiment that I've done above with a camera like yours. Even if it were only with two references like the 50 and then a 400 ISO. What is your highest ISO setting?

Hi Mike, my highest ISO setting is 400. I had a wiling model today, who was able to stay still for long periods of time, so I took about 100 pics at different settings. Here are three of them, same pose, same light, different ISO, all done manually. This was a really interesting experiment.

1st: ISO 400, shutter1/15, f-stop 5.7, there is a lot of "noise" in the colors of her fur. Random spots of violet, yellow etc.

2nd: ISO 100, shutter 1/4, f-stop 5.7, the random spots are disappearing, but still a little when I really zoom in. But not too bad.

3rd: ISO 50, shutter 1/2, f-stop 5.7. Clear as a bell no matter how far I zoom in.

These were all taken indoors with available light. Southern exposure but under an overhang. And all using the tripod.

Jean

After seeing this posted I guess I really have to crop closer to see the difference. I'll be back.

Okay, here are close crops of what I'm talking about. This is actually quite ridiculous, as I'd never need to see something this close! The first is at ISO 400, second at 50.

Jean

Large pixels versus small pixels
 

Dear Mike and Jean,

I think what we are finding in your comparisons between cameras, is that ISO 200 on the Nikon D70 (or my D100) yields a similar picture quality to ISO 50 on the Nikon Coolpix 5400, and along the same scale, ISO 1600 on the D70/D100 is about the equivalent picture noise quality as ISO 400 on the Coolpix. This has everything to do with the actual size of each pixel on the sensor. The sensor is much, much larger on the SLR type digital, and therefore each pixel is relatively larger too. When the pixels are larger they work cleaner and generate less noise at the equivalent ISO rating. This gives the Nikon D70/ D100 vastly increased sensitivity in low light without much sacrifice in quality. On the other hand, the Nikon Coolpix 5400 has the great advantage of being lightweight, handy and portable all day in a pocket, with no bulky long lenses knocking into everything. There is a good reason for liking each camera.

Garth

Jean and Garth,

This digital equipment is still pretty new to me and I'm learning a lot as we go. I think your analysis, Garth, is accurate. Nikon has all but told us so in the way they have configured the different ISO selections between the two cameras. One 50-400 the other 200-1600.

Having a better understanding of the individuals equipment can give us a better insight into how we might advise them through different situations.

In those ancient film days photography was film specific. No matter how clunky your equipment, you could shoot state of the art film. With digital, it's all equipment specific.

I've learned a great deal here.

Thank you both. Being the real novice here, I really feel I've gained the most from this experiment, and had fun too (and gotten some great flood pics)!

Jean