Question about ISO

9 years 7 months ago #402449 by Ryan711
Hello, I'm trying to figure my camera out and how to use this thing.  Now I have basic understanding of aperture and shutter speed, those have been a little easier for me to understand.  The one that is getting me right now is ISO.  When I go up to high, the photos get all grainy looking and frankly look bad.  Is there a ISO number ceiling that you won't go beyond when taking photos?


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9 years 7 months ago #402470 by KCook
Depends on the camera model, the editor's skill with noise reduction in post, and the tolerance of the viewer.  In other words, a grey area.  I sometimes add a grain effect to my pictures for a richer, vintage look.

Kelly

Canon 50D, Olympus PL2
kellycook.zenfolio.com/

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9 years 7 months ago - 9 years 7 months ago #402477 by PT Talker
:goodpost: Kelly's right on target, as usual. It also depends on what you need from the shot. For instance, if you want a good, deep star shot, but don't want trails, you're going to have to push the ISO up to keep the shutter speed high. That's going to give you some noise with most cameras, but that's where post processing comes in.

-Dana


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9 years 7 months ago #402488 by Hassner
If it was not for noise, photography would have been easy.
Now it is all about bringing the ISO as low as possible while still have a high enough shutter speed and enough depth of field.
Sports photography in low light is a good exercise of pushing the limits.


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9 years 7 months ago #402564 by Ryan711
When you do have this graininess in the photos, how do you remove it?


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9 years 7 months ago #402584 by Hassner
There is no "remove". You can try and hide by softening the effect.
It depends what program you process your photographs with.
I can help you with Photoshop.


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9 years 7 months ago #402593 by garyrhook

Hassner wrote: If it was not for noise, photography would have been easy.
Now it is all about bringing the ISO as low as possible while still have a high enough shutter speed and enough depth of field.
Sports photography in low light is a good exercise of pushing the limits.


Meh. Stage photography is much more difficult (dance, etc) IMO.

Back to the OP:

IFF you are shooting in RAW there are tools available to help you mitigate "noise" (ISO artifacts). The fact of the matter is that, even at the lowest ISO (e.g. 100) and a bright, perfectly lit image, there will be noise. It's just finer than you can detect at normal viewing sizes / resolution.

Your challenge is to learn what is tolerable to you based on what you prefer and what you can work with in post.

If you're shooting JPGs, well, then, you get what you get.


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9 years 7 months ago #402608 by Stealthy Ninja
Don't pixel peep (look at the image at 100%). Just look at the image as a whole, if it's too grainy even then, then you know you've gone past your acceptable level of grain.

Or apply NR.

Frankly I don't mind a bit of grain. It depends what I'm shooting.

60D I'd guess 1600iso or maybe 3200iso is your max.
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9 years 7 months ago #402702 by Joves
Well to answer your question on how far to go with your ISO setting. You need to keep it in the base ISO range. SO if your camera has a range of 100- 6400 before the push. or pull to go lower, your best results will be in those ISO numbers. Also on the higher end you have to nail the shots to eliminate noise. I also do not mind or find the noise to be all that egregious. It is really nothing compared to some of the grain in the old high speed films. Which I used to use at times just for the graininess. Also now the newer cameras produce luminance  noise, over the early models which produced chroma noise, which was absolutely terrible.


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9 years 7 months ago #402727 by Ryan711
WOW thank you all for jumping onto my question everyone. 


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