Are we becoming too obsessed with high ISO performance ?

[not_in_good_order]

If I'm not doing long exposures, most of the pictures I take with my D700 are ISO 1600-3200.

 

[M4cr0s]

Being a crappy photog with questionable technique and skills, better high-ISO performance means more forgiving shutter speeds and better dynamic range, thus more forgiving towards exposure errors. It's a win-win 😉

Also, I like photography and photos, I'm not in love with grain or a particular emulsion, process or light-sensitive medium so I see no reason to be "It have to be Tri-X shot through a 50 year old camera, developed in your bathroom to be a real photo"-anal about this. Coming from the digital age I kind of like smooth, digital imagery and find looks more realistic and natural and suits many kinds of photos better, yet I also see the charm with with beautiful, classic cameras and film. Each to his own though.

Mac

 

[ruben]

All from the D700:
Out of camera JPG ISO 25,600:


3,200 no NR:








................

Usually it is not to my taste when a clear cut technical thread is abused for the sake of personal picture gallery, but after looking at these outstanding images I cannot but reckognize my own hipocresy. I should correct myself from now on and admit I do not like when a clear cut technical thread is abused for the sake of lower quality personal picture gallery - as these images are amazing !

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[ruben]

Until recently the big race in digital camera development was megapixels. Thankfully manufacturers and users seem to be realising that we now have enough pixels for most applications and more often means less quality due to increased noise, especially with small sensor cameras.

The new race appears to be high ISO performance with minimum noise. Now I’m not saying that’s a bad thing but I just wonder whether we are becoming a bit too obsessed with it. The manufacturers need something to ‘improve’ so that we will keep buying new gear. Are we being brainwashed and when is high ISO high enough ? I have read in posts on this forum that the choice between camera A and camera B was made based on (slightly) better high ISO quality. I just wonder how many of us really need or will regularly use very high ISO and how many just think we need it because we have, in effect, been told we do.

....................

I have no particularly strong feelings on the above (and no real need for very high ISO) but I was thinking about it and I though it might be an interesting topic for discussion.

I was not aware of the "new race", but if this is indeed the case - and I have no reason to question the opinions here expressed that it is - then I personally welcome it and I think we all should welcome it, as it serves in this specific case the interests of us all.

True, it is not nice for our egos when new tech advances fall upon our heads and we cannot cope with the bills to stay cool .

But what ? are we to opose NASA scientific investment out of our individual unability to put our own personal legs on the moon ? What kind of logic it is ?

Had you told me that NASA money will be better invested in US health equality - that's a totally different story and I will agree and may even donor to NASA (Paypal required).

Now the argument runs that high ISO development is not such a relevant priority for some of us. So what ? Can't you see the inter-relationship between the scientific advance in one area and its effect on the others ?

The REVOLUTIONARY stepping from film to digital was full of holes and tricky comercial traps, being the supression of the viewfinder one of the most ugly aspects, presented to the (mentally) poor consumers as an advance, via implication.

If now the manufacturers, out of boredom or edges or curiousity, do expand the capacities of the digital camera in every possible aspect, we would do better expanding our own tolerance for innovation.

Not every new thing we must purchase. We should live longer if we adapt to the idea that the race for being cool is lost beforehand. And it doesn't make us "loosers".

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[Keith]

First of all let me say welcome back Ruben ... nice to see you here again!

After owning my D700 for a couple of weeks I have to wonder why anyone wouldn't want a camera that can operate as effectively at the sort of ISO's that this thing does ... it's truly amazing!

Being able to wander around in the low light environments I work in occasioanlly with the ISO set to 6400 knowing that the results will be way beyond what my M8 was capable of producing is an absolute relief!

 

[ruben]

..............Now the argument runs that high ISO development is not such a relevant priority for some of us. So what ? Can't you see the inter-relationship between the scientific advance in one area and its effect on the others ?
.............,
Ruben

Just to remind another aspect of scientific advance, consider too all those discoveries taking place today in the field of medicine that come unintentiolly, while ther researches are looking for something totally different and the questions the must answer in the way lead them to find new discoveries, almost "by accident".

Personally I plunged into my serious money investment at the moment the camera I wanted assured me ISO 1600 with RAW - this to remark how modest my personal expectations are. After purchasing two samples and experimenting I went to acquint myself with the hard to diggest that that RaW 1600 is highly dependentent to the amount of existing light, meaning that the more light around, the better the results and the other way around.

I am very much aware that other cameras do provide outstanding results at higher Iso. So personally I too am done in this field, so that a new commercial campaign announcing extreme higher ISOs will not make me rush to buy. But I still insist in that the most the industry advances - smaller and cheaper cameras will appear carrying higher features that today only the most advanced carry. The whole history of the Rebel series is the most outstanding proof .

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[yanidel]

When I look at pictures in my book collection, I'd over say 90% have what we could call "technical faults" : unsharpness, vignetting, not accurate colors, grain, etc ... but somehow I suspect that these pictures would be much less appealing had they be taken by a D700 at ISO6400. Does the sum of imperfections create perfection ?

 

[furcafe]

Not sure why "blurry, grainy and out of focus" shots "scream rangefinder" to you. Whether or not you consider them good or bad, I've seen plenty of photos of that type & they've been taken w/all kinds of cameras (film & digital); of those, only a small minority were taken w/RFs (like photos in general).

I personally hat most shots that scream rangefinder. Those are the shots that are blurry, grainy and out of focus. There is nothing relevant to me in those shots. Many are pretentious, all are over my head; after all I'm a photographer, not an artist.

 

[furcafe]

I believe Sony actually makes the physical sensors that Nikon uses in their cameras, but the specs & software are Nikon's.

I agree that the M8 & M9's relatively poor high ISO performance is a direct result of Leica's decision to stick w/Kodak & that they're not big enough to cut a deal w/Sony like Nikon (AFAIK, Canon keeps their sensors in house) . The basic problem is that camera manufacturers now must supply their own digital "film" & Leica opted for a slow, but high-resolution, medium format-type sensor that's better for those who shoot landscapes in Velvia & Tech Pan. In an ideal world, my ideal anyway, Leica would also offer another photojournalist-type version of the M9 (say an "M9-P") that had a lower pixel count Sony sensor like that in the D700 for the "available dark" shooters.

Frank,

The problem, as I see it, with the M8/M9 is the sensor's producer (i.e. Kodak).

Look at the companies currently giving you "relatively clean" high ISO images; Canon & Nikon (don't know about Sony, Pentax and/or Olympus) - the sensors (in Canon's case), and the noise-reduction programming/algorithms are developed in house (to the best of my knowledge).

Leica is not big enough to be able to do all that effectively.
Sony would have been the only company that Leica would have gone to to acquire a decent sensor chip. I don't know why Sony & Leica wouldn't jump into bed together but perhaps it could have something to do with Sony's "Zeiss" branded lenses?

Instead, Leica went to Kodak for its sensors - while not bad, it's not the best choice.

So if there are any complaints about the M8/M8.2/M9 sensor's lack of clean high ISO imagery, one should look at the sensor (and any NR programming that goes on in the processing of the image).

Cheers,
Dave