Be it advances in cameras, software, both ... not sure, one way or another I can now get usable 6400iso photos out of a digital camera I can fit in my pocket
here is a demo
Original shot
Taken using shutter priority -1/80th the auto iso selected the highest available 6400iso, and the aperture to the widest 1.8 producing a slightly underexposed image
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
here is a crop with lightrooms standard "25" colour nr to the raw file
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
this is with the colour nr and +0.8 of a stop to get the exposure right
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
just to show what LR's colour NR does ... take away that standard colour nr and we are all sorts of trouble
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
bit of luminance NR
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
Convert to b&w and tweak
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
Final image
Getting a decent 6400 iso shot out of the sony rx100 by
Hamish_Gill, on Flickr
that would print to a reasonable size and id be more than happy with it!
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... you could even add a bit of grain to disguise the noise a bit more ... but it seems its only the jpeg compression that makes it as bad as it is the above demos look better in lr