By Gavin Seim — Will the need for flash start to fade and noiseless high ISO cameras surface? Will sensors become so sensitive that they can actually make a scene clearer than what it is, such as removing fog when desired? Will they soon be able to see through objects, and interpret what’s on the other side?
We digital photographers live in an ISO sensitive world. It used to be that ISO 800 was high, 1600 was really noisy, and 3200… Well, could you even shoot that high?
The megapixel race is no longer a huge factor in a pro camera purchase, and now the attention has rightly turned to ISO and noise. In the early digital days a high ISO, or long exposure would quickly get filled with noise. Today we have two major brands. Canon, who though they are getting better noise to ISO ratio’s, their ISO settings have seriously fallen behind of their biggest competition Nikon.
With a Canon you can shoot at ISO 1600, and expand out to 3200, and on the 1D MK III you can go up to 6400. Nikon’s latest on the other hand goes to 6400 and well beyond. On the Nikon D3 there’s even an ISO 25,600. No that’s not a typo, and though there’s certainly a fair bit of noise at that level it’s clear that Nikon has taken a step ahead in terms of ISO. This article is really not about who’s better however since this is simply a race of brands that will ultimately benefit all consumers. The real item of note is these advancements could change the way we do photography.
Pretty soon we may not have to worry about noise, and we can start changing the ISO level to change exposure instead of shutter or aperture. Here’s an article comparing the noise on the 5d, and the D3. Also heres a post on beckers blog where he run the D3 through the paces.
Now the battle of brands will rage on, but the question is with noise getting lower and lower, and ISO getting higher and higher where is it all going? Noise levels are getting so high that the cameras have almost night vision capabilities! All I know is this. I love the flexibility of high ISO, and the fact that we have heavy competition in the field means we’ll be getting better technolighy sooner.
What do you think? Your comments below!
I think that Ken Rockwell’s test between the Canon 5D and the Nikon D3 was a little, shall we say, overexposed? I am a 5D owner and have found the camera to be superb when operating in low light. Why anyone should want to push their ISO up to 25,600 is beyond me. I took some decent images at a comedy festival where the lighting was basically one spot on the act and the 5D was at ISO 1600, 70-200mm lens @ f/2,8, shutter speed 1/80th. I was quite happy with the results.
I thought photography was about knowledge – not about tricks and settings that take the skill out of imagery.
That test linked to is bunk. Ken Rockwell is a puppet, for the record.
He shot the test in JPEG. The problem? The 5D doesn’t do much noise reduction in the camera, but the color noise isn’t problematic with default settings in ACR. Sure, you could say that if we were all out there shooting JPEG then it would be a fair test, but since the D3 is designed to work better for people that shoot sports (lots of JPEGs really fast) and the 5D is designed more to be a studio camera, comparing their JPEG performance is bunk. Let’s not even bother mentioning the fact that the 5D is nearly 3 years old. The D3, by comparison, is about 4 months old. All this and we haven’t touched on the fact that the test was shot with a Nikon lens or the fact that the D3 costs twice what a 5D does.
Had Ken been less of a Nikon puppet he might have compared the D3 to, say, the 1D Mark III that is it’s main competitor. They’re both speed shooters selling at $5,000 with comparable specs. Only then, the tests might not have sold nearly as many D3’s.
Linking to the article highly devalued the information you present in my freshly forming opinion.
Corey you don’t need to be a fan of Ken as far as I’m concerned, but I write info I feel is reliant. I linked to Ken for reference info, and my article was in no way determined by him. Also this is not an article to bash Canon or Nikon. You’ve just decided to read that into it.
Myself as you probably know am a Canon user, and I have no switch plans in the works. Nonetheless Nikon is now ahead of Canon in ISO simply by the fact that they can go far higher and this is a big asset to many photogs.
As the same levels Canon may have as good, or better noise. But Nikon has set themself ahead and Canon now has to catch up just like Nikon had to in the past.
Nice thought for the day Gavin – ISO is VERY important to the events photographer and I am sure than Canon are not far behind Nikon with performance in the 5D Mark II (7D?? whatever it is called!)