D100 and the ISO Issue

I'd be interested to know how D100 users are finding its ISO facility in their day to day shooting. For example, the Fuji S2 ISO settings go down to ISO100, the D100 only to ISO200. Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Noisy it is, but unacceptable only at 3200 and 6400 ISO. I get
very acceptable images at 1600 ASA with the D100.
800 ASA is certainly not a problem

Fred Phillips said:

I'd be interested to know how D100 users are finding its ISO
facility in their day to day shooting. For example, the Fuji S2
ISO settings go down to ISO100, the D100 only to ISO200.
Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image
is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users
claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get
reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Click to expand...

Noisy compared to what? The D100 at 1600 ISO is less noisy than my Kodak DC265 was. At 3200 ISO the D100 is less noisy than using 1000 ISO film. I have been very happy with the level of noise produced by the D100. I always try to keep the ISO as low as possible but that is more for color saturation rather than keeping the noise down.

--
Tony

http://homepage.mac.com/a5m http://www.pbase.com/a5m

Fred Phillips said:

Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image
is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users
claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get
reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Click to expand...

Anthony Medici said:

Noisy compared to what? The D100 at 1600 ISO is less noisy than my
Kodak DC265 was. At 3200 ISO the D100 is less noisy than using 1000
ISO film. I have been very happy with the level of noise produced
by the D100. I always try to keep the ISO as low as possible but
that is more for color saturation rather than keeping the noise
down.

--
Tony

Click to expand...

Tony

Many thanks. Glad to hear that.

Fred Phillips said:

I'd be interested to know how D100 users are finding its ISO
facility in their day to day shooting. For example, the Fuji S2
ISO settings go down to ISO100, the D100 only to ISO200.
Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image
is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users
claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get
reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Click to expand...

I've shot wedding pictures inside a church at 800 ISO and no problem at all. We can't expect perfect noise free pictures. And really the noise I'm gettng at 800 ISO just looks like film, so I think that's cool.

--
Steve Hiebert
http://www.personalexpressions.ca

… I use ISO400 all the time – I will drop it down in bright weather but I find the ISO noise is more acceptable with some subjects.

A sharp sports picture with a heavily blurred background is pretty impressive and if a high ISO is needed to achieve this then it is usually acceptable.

I shot a pretty acceptable high ISO team picture last night but I’d not consider this for a wedding group – where I’d get them all to stay still for a ½ second or the like – rather than risk the noise and play safe for sharpness with a smallish aperture on low ISO.

I would think the subject, closely followed by its treatment is the key element as to what ISO noise is acceptable on any particular system. I’ve been happy up to ISO1,000 but only played with the higher values and never actually tried them on anything I actually wanted – yet. )

Out of curiosity, I switched the camera to 3200 ASA and took a test shot.
It was still very acceptable, certainly not grainier than film emulsion.

Next I created a NeatImage profile for 3200 ASA and let NeatImage clean up the original picture. Virtually all grain was gone and image looked mighty sharp to me.

Bottomline, I think the D100 is very good even at 3200ASA and when used with some cheap tools, it looks much better than film. One could leave some grain in for the effect tho.

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, all this comes to a halt as soon as you start exposing long times, as of 30 sec. At 2 minutes the D100 is unacceptable because of heavy noise from hotpixels. I have been talking about this with the authors of NeatImage and maybe they can come up with a solution to partly fix the problem. Will take some time though... but they are clever guys

D.

Ger Bee said:

… I use ISO400 all the time – I will drop it down in bright weather
but I find the ISO noise is more acceptable with some subjects.

A sharp sports picture with a heavily blurred background is pretty
impressive and if a high ISO is needed to achieve this then it is
usually acceptable.

I shot a pretty acceptable high ISO team picture last night but I’d
not consider this for a wedding group – where I’d get them all to
stay still for a ½ second or the like – rather than risk the noise
and play safe for sharpness with a smallish aperture on low ISO.

I would think the subject, closely followed by its treatment is the
key element as to what ISO noise is acceptable on any particular
system. I’ve been happy up to ISO1,000 but only played with the
higher values and never actually tried them on anything I actually
wanted – yet. )

Click to expand...

I find that the NR feature is very good at removing hot pixel noise. Any remaining hotpixels can be removed by Capture 3, I've even used it to remove hot pixels on 30 second exposures from my D1H.

--
Tony

http://homepage.mac.com/a5m http://www.pbase.com/a5m

dodi said:

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, all this comes to a halt
as soon as you start exposing long times, as of 30 sec. At 2
minutes the D100 is unacceptable because of heavy noise from
hotpixels. I have been talking about this with the authors of
NeatImage and maybe they can come up with a solution to partly fix
the problem. Will take some time though... but they are clever guys


D.

Click to expand...

up to 30sec usually is no problem, but if you go beyond that, DF substraction in the camera (or manually, as I tried that too) does not

work well enough anymore. A 2 minute exposure creates far too much noise with leaking hotpixels to neighbouring pixels. Not much one
can do about it then. Substracting a dark frame (by the NR
of the camera or manually) will create lots of tiny dark holes
in the original image. Give it a try with a 2 minute exposure in
temperatures around 20 degrees C... So, make your night
shots in winter where the CCD is cooled .
I don't know how Canon solved this in the D60. Only based
on CMOS? Mighty trick they found...

Anthony Medici said:

--
Tony

http://homepage.mac.com/a5m http://www.pbase.com/a5m

dodi said:

On the other hand, as I mentioned before, all this comes to a halt
as soon as you start exposing long times, as of 30 sec. At 2
minutes the D100 is unacceptable because of heavy noise from
hotpixels. I have been talking about this with the authors of
NeatImage and maybe they can come up with a solution to partly fix
the problem. Will take some time though... but they are clever guys


D.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

If you compare S2 and D100 images side-by-side, and have familiarity with methods of noise reduction, you may conclude that the S2 is applying more in-camera (or in-RAW converter) processing to remove high-ISO noise.

You may also find that the D100 images have more much lattitude for noise reduction, because they are less processed to begin with.

That's what Nikon's doing, putting less between you and the original image.

As a D100 user, this can be a disadvantage in situations for which the S2 approach is well calibrated, because processing is required for the D100 but might not be for the S2.

However, in situations for which the S2 approach to noise reduction is poorly suited, you can end up with a superior photograph from the D100, because you have lattitude for alternative approaches.

Fred Phillips said:

I'd be interested to know how D100 users are finding its ISO
facility in their day to day shooting. For example, the Fuji S2
ISO settings go down to ISO100, the D100 only to ISO200.
Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image
is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users
claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get
reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Click to expand...

I personally, from the posted pics comparing noise among the cameras, find the noise from the D100 to be much less objectionable at high ISO settings. I think that there it more noise overall, and when you look at 200% crops from test charts, the D100 certainly appears to be the loser (which almost kept me from buying it), but in real world subjects, the D100's noise looks, to me anyway, much less digital. NC3 does a really good job of removing color noise, too, and the luminance noise is almost pleasant... the S2, while really less noisy overall, seems to sacrifice detail in the shadows to achieve this (based on what I've seen), which would suggest it's doing more in camera processing to eliminate noise. However, I think that the blotchy, blurred color noise that the S2 exhibits at high ISO is really quite hideous. Also consider that, although not for everyday use, the D100 is the only camera in this class to give you ISO 3200 and 6400, which was one of the big selling points, for me anyway. And yes, the results from ISO 3200 have been more than acceptable to me, considering that you are getting a color picture. Convert an ISO 3200 image from the D100 to Black and white and compare it to a 35mm pic taken on Tmax 3200 and you will see what I mean.

Cribbage said:

You may also find that the D100 images have more much lattitude for
noise reduction, because they are less processed to begin with.

That's what Nikon's doing, putting less between you and the
original image.
As a D100 user, this can be a disadvantage in situations for which
the S2 approach is well calibrated, because processing is required
for the D100 but might not be for the S2.

However, in situations for which the S2 approach to noise reduction
is poorly suited, you can end up with a superior photograph from
the D100, because you have lattitude for alternative approaches.

Fred Phillips said:

I'd be interested to know how D100 users are finding its ISO
facility in their day to day shooting. For example, the Fuji S2
ISO settings go down to ISO100, the D100 only to ISO200.
Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image
is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users
claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get
reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Doug Boutwell said:

I personally, from the posted pics comparing noise among the
cameras, find the noise from the D100 to be much less objectionable
at high ISO settings. I think that there it more noise overall,
and when you look at 200% crops from test charts, the D100
certainly appears to be the loser (which almost kept me from buying
it), but in real world subjects, the D100's noise looks, to me
anyway, much less digital. NC3 does a really good job of removing
color noise, too, and the luminance noise is almost pleasant... the
S2, while really less noisy overall, seems to sacrifice detail in
the shadows to achieve this (based on what I've seen), which would
suggest it's doing more in camera processing to eliminate noise.
However, I think that the blotchy, blurred color noise that the S2
exhibits at high ISO is really quite hideous.

Click to expand...

Precisely, what I've noticed. The D100 noise at high ISO's "looks" better (especially in shadow areas) both on screen and in print than the out of camera S2 equivalent because of less color noise despite highier average luminance noise. A thread was started just after the S2 review was posted where an analysis of color noise/luminance noise was done..what was found is that overall luminance noise on the S2 is lower but individual channel noise is actually highier in most patch samples. The D100 gives you more noise luminance wize but less color channel wize on average, this would explain your (and my) subjective assessment of the images.

Regards,
--

Steve said:

I've shot wedding pictures inside a church at 800 ISO and no
problem at all. We can't expect perfect noise free pictures. And
really the noise I'm gettng at 800 ISO just looks like film, so I
think that's cool.

Click to expand...

Interesting, Steve!

Does that mean that you made the shots without flash? What lens did you use?

Regards,
Sven

I use 200 for stills but for people events and flash I go to 800. Color is good and what noise there is can be post processed.

Fred Phillips said:

I'd be interested to know how D100 users are finding its ISO
facility in their day to day shooting. For example, the Fuji S2
ISO settings go down to ISO100, the D100 only to ISO200.
Additionally, reviewers have noted that at ISO 400 the D100 image
is "acceptable" and above 400 it's downright noisy. The S2 users
claim they can go to 400, 800 and even 1600 and still get
reasonable results. What is the actual experience of D100 users?

Fred

Click to expand...

--
Ken Eis

Hi all,

I've been following your very interesting thread and I'm in the process of buying either a D100 or an S2. I shoot primarily landscapes and macro shots of products and I have quite a few 35mm and a Coolpix 990.

Using my Nikon lenses is essential so I didn't even look at Canon. The Fuji has me mesmerized by the possibility of a higher res pictures. The reviews on the field by some actual users though are mixed. I like the Nikon quality I'm used to from my F5 and I don't have the funds to buy a D1X.

I was interested at some of the software packages you mention in this thread for noise reduction, etc.

Could you please write a short list of what I would need if I got the D100 in order to start getting the most out of the camera, like Nikon Capture, etc.

Thanks in advance,

John

Yeah, i remember that post... one of the reasons I went with the D100

David SL said:

Doug Boutwell said:

I personally, from the posted pics comparing noise among the
cameras, find the noise from the D100 to be much less objectionable
at high ISO settings. I think that there it more noise overall,
and when you look at 200% crops from test charts, the D100
certainly appears to be the loser (which almost kept me from buying
it), but in real world subjects, the D100's noise looks, to me
anyway, much less digital. NC3 does a really good job of removing
color noise, too, and the luminance noise is almost pleasant... the
S2, while really less noisy overall, seems to sacrifice detail in
the shadows to achieve this (based on what I've seen), which would
suggest it's doing more in camera processing to eliminate noise.
However, I think that the blotchy, blurred color noise that the S2
exhibits at high ISO is really quite hideous.

Click to expand...

Precisely, what I've noticed. The D100 noise at high ISO's "looks"
better (especially in shadow areas) both on screen and in print
than the out of camera S2 equivalent because of less color noise
despite highier average luminance noise. A thread was started just
after the S2 review was posted where an analysis of color
noise/luminance noise was done..what was found is that overall
luminance noise on the S2 is lower but individual channel noise is
actually highier in most patch samples. The D100 gives you more
noise luminance wize but less color channel wize on average, this
would explain your (and my) subjective assessment of the images.

Regards,
--

Click to expand...