Where is your threshold for ISO?

[TheBigE]

All,

I was just curious where everyone's threshold is for too high of an ISO?

I know this is going to vary from person to person, camera to camera and desire to spend time/ability on Post Processing.

Background for me is that I just finished going through Vacation photos some of which were shot at high ISO (to get SS in line with hand holding.). Most of the time these were indoors, with less than stellar lighting. The highest ISO i shot was 6400 and this was the case several times indoors. Generally, I would say that over 50% of these photos I was not able to clean up to my desire using using LR CC. (FYI I did try NR in PS CC with not much more success).

My biggest concern was in cropping the scene (when needed), combined with High ISO just really brought out the lack of detail.

I think in future, I will be setting my limit at 3200 and taking an extra second to make sure the composition is as I like to minimize any cropping of the photo.

Obviously, I have left Aperture out of this discussion at the moment, but I am also considering (based on Focal Lengths) of getting an f/2.8 zoom lens. That however, is another story and another path for later.

Thanks
Erik

[Manfred M]

Erik - there is no specific answer to your question, as it is both camera specific and user specific.

With my mFT Panasonic GX7, I try to stay at ISO 800 and lower but with the D800, I don't hesitate to go right up to ISO 6400 and even beyond. Generally, if your exposure is good, noise should not be an issue. It will be more noticeable on a smaller sensor if you have to enlarge the image a fair bit (something that will happen if you end up cropping too much).

I rarely crop a lot, so I generally don't run into this issue.

[Shadowman]

Higher ISOs just mean more work during post processing, at least for me. But I don't let it limit me in any way, if I need it I'll go for higher, but I typically stay at around 1600-3200 for comfort and will go as high as 25600 if needed.

[Donald]

With my Canon 5DS (once it gets repaired after my dropping it), I would only very rarely expect to shoot anything other than ISO100. With my 7DMkII, on the other hand, anything goes and I'll be happy to go right up to 12800 (normal high end) and further (via expansion), if the circumstances suggest that it's appropriate.

I view them as tools for different purposes.

[DanK]

I think of it as two ranges: the 'I don't care' range and the 'I am getting increasingly worried' range.

The "I don't care" range is the range within which I notice little or no effect. It's camera-specific. On my old 50D, which was a noisy camera, it was simply 100-200. On my 5D3, I get an extra two stops, and I don't worry at all about 800. I haven't yet figured it out for my 7D (generation 1), which I recently bought to replace the 50D, but I think the top may be 200 and certainly won't be more than 400.

Once I get into the second range, I just try to keep it as low as possible. With the 50D, I found I often had to do appreciable cleanup by 800. The 5D3 can go a few stops higher. I'd have to look, but I doubt I have ever posted a shot I took with the 5D3 at an ISO above 6400, and I am not certain that I have even posted any above 3200.

I often carry a monopod or tripod (the latter with a remote release), which lets me use slower shutter speeds instead of higher ISO. Of course, there are circumstances where you wouldn't want to carry all of that.

[rpcrowe]

I have no hesitations shooting my 7Di or even my 40D at ISO 400. In fact when I shoot sports or other moving subject venues, I will most often use 400. When shooting portraits or other non-moving subjects, my choice for ISO is most often 160.

However, when push comes to shove, I'd rather have a bit of noise than an image blurred from too slow a shutter speed.

Most of my commonly used lenses have IS which helps with camera shake when using slower shutter speeds but, does nothing for moving subjects.

OTOH, shooting at peak action or shooting while subject is approaching or going away directly from the camera helps when using a slower shutter speed.

Finally, I use flash creatively for many of my what otherwise might be low light images.

[chauncey]

I once, for my edification, reviewed some older images shot at ISO 400 on my dated Canon 1Ds3.
I could probably salvage them for internet display but...no way would I print them.

My rule now is...if it needs more than ISO 200...it doesn't get shot.
That will probably change if/when I upgrade to Donald's new toy.

[xpatUSA]

For my Sigma cameras, the consensus among owners is ISO 400. For me, ISO 100 is all I ever use - but only because I always shoot RAW and my cameras are truly ISO-less - that is to say, there is no difference between raw image files for various ISO settings at constant exposure (of the non-triangular variety)

[Geoff F]

I find it depends on whether I'm increasing the Iso to obtain a faster shutter speed or narrower aperture in good lighting or struggling to get anything in poor light.

In bad light I don't like going beyond 800 with my 7D Mk II; which is much the same as my old 40D.

[pnodrog]

ISO kept as low as I can, but if circumstances force me to use high ISO I will go to the camera's limit. However once it gets over ISO 6400 I only keep shooting if it is an important occasion, sport or PJ photography.

[dje]

It depends a lot on the camera and the pixel size in particular but for my D610, I usually have max ISO set to 3200 if I am shooting auto ISO. I don't feel comfortable trying to remove the noise and maintain sharpness for anything higher than that. When I had the Canon 600D, my max was 800.

Dave

[James G]

I shoot with a 7D Mk2 and before that with the Mk1. For general, wildlife, macro etc, I usually shoot in the ISO range 100-400. On occasion I go higher but have a somewhat illogical preference to stay below ISO 800.

I have not shot using auto for as long as I can remember, (always use RAW), and like Richard will use flash on those occasions I might otherwise have to resort to higher ISO

I do use higher values up to 1600 for nightsky/astrophotography, where I use stacking techniques to remove noise.

I have a Canon G12 I use as a 'point and shoot' but since I use this in raw capture mode I still stay at ISO 400 or below.

[rpcrowe]

I will monitor my shutter speed and f/stop to see if the ISO I have selected is doing what I want it to do...

At my first polo match, I realized that I wanted to shoot wide open with my 300mm f/4L IS lens (for selective focus reasons) and I realized that shooting with ISO 400 was giving me an exposure of 1/4,000 second wide open. That was faster than I needed, so I lowered the ISO to 200 giving me a shutter speed of 1/2,000 second at f/4. This was plenty fast and give very nice quality imagery with my 7Di...





I suppose that I could have further reduced the ISO to 200 which would have allowed a 1/1,000 shutter speed but, I arbitrarily decided to keep the ISO at 200 and the shutter speed at 1/2,000.

Since I cut my photographic teeth on film, I am still awed at how easily I can adjust the ISO from image to image and subject to subject. The trick, I suppose, is to be cognizant at all times of my ISO and what shutter speed + f/stop combination I want to shoot.

Also being nurtured in a film environment, I am not quite willing to give up my control of ISO by using the Auto ISO function. I prefer to keep the ISO where I want it by adjusting it when I need to!

[Manfred M]

I was just looking at some of the shots I posted here yesterday.

Toyota Automobile Museum

Odori Festival - Gujo, Japan

This one is taken at ISO 6400, and I used NO noise reduction on it. Yes, there is noise, but is it objectionable? I don't think so.

I'm with the other shooters who suggest that when it comes to ISO, I will try to shoot with as low an ISO as I can get away with. This minimizes noise issues and gives better colour depth.

[Mike Buckley]

I shoot at whatever ISO is required to get the shot the way I envision it with regard to shutter speed and aperture settings. Another way of putting it is that the ISO setting is the least important one of the three settings for me.

[arith]

On my little cheap Canon 50D I rarely contemplate going higher than 400 iso, sometimes I do but hardly ever like the result.
I liked this one though.

http://images60.fotki.com/v778/photo...1717_hf-vi.jpg

[Stagecoach]

I was just curious where everyone's threshold is for too high of an ISO?

Erik, I have never considered a threshold for any setting on my camera, I use what is best to achieve results that are acceptable for the end purpose of the image.

With respect to ISO specifically what I have learnt over time is that controlling exposure and framing go a long way to making noise less of a concern.

[Inkanyezi]

Noise does not bother me at all, but dynamic range can be important to the image. When I want the widest possible dynamic range, I use low ISO, but if the scene has moderate dynamic, I can go higher, and as high as I think will do the job, whatever that is. If I need to stop action, I can jettison dynamic range and choose a higher ISO than one that covers the entire range of the scene. But noise is of no concern to me.

You don't lose detail due to noise, never. You can lose it because the detail is under your noise threshold, which means that you did not expose well.

[lukaswerth]

When I need high ISO I usually try to keep it between 1600-3200. I might have used 6400 ISO; I don't remember that right now.
Camera is a Nikon d800e, and in difficult light when photographing people I often use my 24-70 with VC which I have come to appreciate very much in certain situations.

Lukas

[TheBigE]

Interesting comments and great feedback. For me as I said, after looking through photos, for my D5300 and Kit Lens (18-140mm) I would be very cautious going above 3200. I would estimate that of the photos that I took at 6400, only about 1/2 of them were "recoverable" in PP.. Even with the ones that were recovered, I could tell there was some detail lost in the NR process. Perhaps, some more iterations and work in Post could make some marginal improvements. The photos are more than acceptable posting on the internet, no question there...I would not want to even try printing them without some more work on them...

I used Auto ISO a couple of times, and it was just not for me...I know how it works and understand the concept, but I did not like not knowing exactly what my ISO was...sure maybe I lost a photo or two because of camera shake when manually setting ISO, but I enjoyed setting ISO and working other parameters to make the exposure work. This way I know exactly what I have set.

I certainly understand the need for good composition and taking the extra time when at higher ISO to make sure composition is correct....how about exposure? Is it better to exposure exact or should some EC be used? I generally set my EC to -0.7 and may adjust at touch, but generally leave it there as it seems easier to recover shadows in Post with a -0.7. Any changes in EC for High ISO?

Thanks again