CL and ISO

[FeralCoton]

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Just got the CL addition. I haven’t actually taken a real photo with it other than the usual pressing the button in the kitchen to hear the shutter. I know the max ISO is 50k. But what is the real max ISO that yields a photo? 6400?

 

 

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[lct]

I would say 3200 w/o noise but i have no experience with the CL yet.

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[thighslapper]

Just got the CL addition. I haven’t actually taken a real photo with it other than the usual pressing the button in the kitchen to hear the shutter. I know the max ISO is 50k. But what is the real max ISO that yields a photo? 6400?

 

 

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 Try it and see !

[Vogelweide]

this one is ISO 12500 with no NR.

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[jip]

this one is ISO 12500 with no NR.

 

 

You see it's a high ISO shot, but really in a good way if you ask me. Nice! 

[AndreasB]

ISO1600, f2.8, 1/30, EV0, sooc

Hamburg Harbour

 

ISO 3200 is also OK, above that I wouldn´t use it if there are wide areas in same dark colours like in that photo

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Edited December 12, 2017 by AndreasB

[lct]

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Yes noise is well visible in the 12500 pic above. Nothing to complain about imho. Cameras with clean 12800 isos do exist like my A7s mod but i would not expect such results out of the CL. Clean 3200 should be reached i guess or at least 1600 but i have not ordered the body yet so take what i say with a ton of salt. I would like to see more 6400 pics to check if the camera suffers from banding then. Hopefully not.

Edited December 12, 2017 by lct

[SiOnara]

I tend to shoot up to 6400 for colour and 12500 for B&W. I don’t mind noise as long as it looks quite organnic and film like which I find the M10 and the CL does.

 

1600 is my limit for auto ISO as I find the camera does fairly clean images up to that value.

[Jared]

Depends on what you are doing with the image, of course.  Assuming you are going to look at it on a web page where it will be presented at 72ppi, I'd say:

• 50,000 is quite poor, unusable except in the most extreme situations
• 25,000 is much better, but grain and noise will be easily detectable even in a web-sized image
• 12,500 is lacking in dynamic range, but the image looks fine when presented as a web-sized image--film-like grain detectable in smooth areas but not particularly objectionable depending on the content
• 6400 is very good, just a hint of grain visible at web sized images
• 3200 is good enough that I wouldn't even try to avoid it for web sized images, and the dynamic range is getting reasonable as well
• 1600 and lower--essentially perfect for web sized images

All of the above assumes the image is properly exposed in camera, that you aren't adding exposure compensation in post.

 

If you are going to be looking at the image at 100% (significant cropping), then things change:

 

• 50,000 is still poor, of course, and useful only for emergencies
• 25,000 has significantly better dynamic range than 50,000, but the noise itself looks just as bad
• 12,500 is maybe usable for certain subjects; dynamic range still not sufficient for many subjects and shadow noise is quite bad, but highlights and midtones are beginning to look good enough that you might get some decent pics
• 6400 is where the dynamic range gets good enough to cover most subjects, and noise is well enough controlled that even for a 100% crop I might be willing to use this ISO.  This is where I put my cutoff for auto ISO (and I think it's the default cutoff as well)
• 3200 still shows noise in the shadows and on very smooth areas like sky, but definitely usable even when cropping to 100%
• 1600 and lower allows more and more dynamic range as you go slower, and noise is very well controlled even in shadows

Basically, 1600 and slower is good enough for almost any situation with the real advantage to the slower ISO's being situations where you might want to pull up the shadows or situations where you need more dynamic range.  I can't imagine complaining about image quality at 1600 or below.  At 3200, there is enough noise in deep shadows that anyone looking for it will see it, but it is certainly not objectionable, and it is mostly luminance noise so it appears quite grain-like.  At 6400 I'd start to worry if making a large print or cropping heavily, but for web-sized images there is no reason to avoid 6400 for most subjects.  Above 6400, no summary as it will depend on the use.  Think twice.

 

All of the above is based on raw files with fast enough shutter speeds that dark current is not an issue.  

 

Here is one taken at ISO 6400, but it is with very careful work in Lightroom and Photoshop.  Still, not bad.

 

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Edited December 13, 2017 by Jared

[Jared]

Here is a crop from that last pic...

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[lct]

Interesting thanks. Any banding at 6400 and above?

[helged]

Some banding present at high ISO; weak at ISO6400, more obvious at higher ISOs. Attached are crops of deliberately underexposed images with +2.5 stops exposure adjustment in Lightroom at ISO6400, 12500, 25000, and 50000 (no sharpening/noise reduction applied).

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[jaapv]

2.5 stops underexposed @ 6400 equals about ISO 20.000. Underexposing and lifting in postprocessing is the same as exposing at a higher ISO value.  So your 50.000 test is an effective ISO 150.000 or thereabouts.

Getting a good result at high ISO means getting a correct exposure. Reason for many noise complaints. The exposure meter gets tricked out by specular highlights and the whole image is underexposed.

[lct]

So no banding at 6400 w/o underexposure if i understand well.

[helged]

2.5 stops underexposed @ 6400 equals about ISO 20.000. Underexposing and lifting in postprocessing is the same as exposing at a higher ISO value.  So your 50.000 test is an effective ISO 150.000 or thereabouts.

Getting a good result at high ISO means getting a correct exposure. Reason for many noise complaints. The exposure meter gets tricked out by specular highlights and the whole image is underexposed.

 

The deliberate underexposure was done to check banding if shadow regions are lifted in pp. In this case, banding is present.

So no banding at 6400 w/o underexposure if i understand well.

 

 

Attached are another set of images taken at ISO6400, 12500, 25000, and 50000, in this case with proper exposure and without any form of pp (except for a crop). Without lifting the shadows, I will say that banding is hardly seen, even at 100 percent magnification on my screen. By lifting the shadows, only slight banding occurs.

 

Thumbs up for the high-iso sensor characteristics of the CL sensor!

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Edited December 14, 2017 by helged

[jaapv]

So the answer is the century-old photographic one: Expose for the shadows or the midtones, not for the highlights

[01af]

So the answer is the century-old photographic one: Expose for the shadows or the midtones, not for the highlights.

 

Oh, please! That's how to deal with negative material. For positive material, i. e. transparancy film as well as digital sensors, you have to expose for the highlights—or in newspeak, ETTR.

[jaapv]

Yes; ETTR for as much as possible - but don't kill the shadows. If you start advocating this people will start to "protect" the specular highlights, even try to get sun-spots on their beach shots. ETTR is a bit old hat anyway. With decent modern wide  exposure-latitude sensors, the correct answer lies more to the left. Slide film had 4 or 5 stops latitude, a modern sensor something like 12 or 13. You are showing your age

[thighslapper]

Bracket and Blend has superseded both .... particularly in landscape work. 

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[jaapv]

Not to mention HDR