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Home >> Photography >> Digital Photography High
ISO Comparisons A couple of weeks ago, I got together with a local reader to do some ISO comparisons. My thanks to Daniel Lao for coming out for a couple of hours to do the tests and then chat about wedding photography afterwards. I was interested to see just how good Canon's vaunted high ISO noise performance is and how my Nikon D200 and D2X would fare against the 20D. The 20D is no longer current, but it's noise performance is still considered excellent and carried over to its replacement, the 30D, as well as the full frame version, the 5D. Before looking at these test shots, my assumption was that the D2X would not fare very well because it's normal max ISO setting is 800. It does have the equivalent of ISO 1600 and ISO 3200, but Nikon does not give these settings official ISO numbers. Instead, it calls them "1 Step Over 800" and "2 Steps Over 800;" a subtle hint that Nikon does not want D2X users to use these high ISO settings very often. The question mark would be the D200, as it's newer than the D2X and uses a CCD instead of a CMOS sensor. Thrown into the mix for fun is the Fuji F30 digicam, a camera that is now becoming very highly regarded thanks to its high ISO performance. Some users suggest that the Fuji chip deserves a much better camera than the F30 and others have taken to using the F30 as a compact, carry around, B&W mode snapshooter. Shooting in B&W allows you to ignore chromatic abberrations and purple fringing and its high ISO and shooting performance gives it some semblance of being a quick street camera. Very intriguing then to compare it to some highly regarded SLRs, as most digicams falter at anything above ISO 100 with ISO 400 usually the equivalent of SLR's ISO 3200. These are just some quick and dirty shots taken during a sunny afternoon. The shots were in a covered section of a schoolyard to ensure consistent lighting. The lenses used were the Canon 24-70 f2.8 L and the Nikon 28-70 f2.8 AF-S set for f8 and 70mm for all the shots with shutter speeds adjusted appropriately for each ISO setting. Exposure was based on a handheld meter reading of ISO 100, f8 and 1/8 of a second for all three SLRs. The F30 has no manual mode, so we let its exposure fall where it may based on the aperture. The F30 has the lowest resolution of the four cameras at 6 MP, but we moved it closer to the subject area to try and get a similar magnification. The SLR shots were taken from the same distance, but the cameras were a few feet apart on their tripods, so the angle of view and subject detail is slightly different between the Canon and Nikons (as seen in the lower left corner of the shots). Cable releases were used for all three cameras. No, it's not a perfect test setup, but I was just simply curious about ISO performance as the primary point of comparison. The samples below are maximum quality JPEGs that are straight from the camera (we shot both RAW and JPEG at the same time, but for processing sake, I just used the JPEGs). I applied a USM of 300, 1, 3 for all the SLR shots to give them back the details robbed by the anti-aliasing filter while the F30 shots were left alone. The Nikon and F30 shots could have used a little bit more USM compared to the Canon, but I wanted consistent settings. I chose the crop section to provide a mix of highlight and shadow detail (top left corner) and also to spare you from seeing my fat face so many times (I had placed myself in a lot of the sample shots and had Daniel take the shots). These crops would be just to the right and above the center of the frame. The forgotten parameter, my old Nikon D100, which I neglected to bring along for this session, but I'll be sure to test it out in the future against the D200 and D2X. The Murphy's Law parameter, after looking over the test shots, I was struck by clean the D200 shots looked, albeit at the expense of detail. After looking at the camera settings I knew why, the D200 had been set for "high" for the High ISO Noise Reduction, while the D2X had been set for none and to compound it all, I'm not sure what Daniel had set for his 20D. However, I think it still might serve some use for comparing at the low ISO settings (100 to 400). ISO 100
At ISO 100, there's not much to desire from any of the three cameras except for the differences in resolution size and a bit more USM here and there. ISO 200
At ISO 200, there's just a very subtle increase in noise, but I wouldn't be concerned at all about utilizing this ISO setting with any of the four cameras, which is as expected. ISO 400
At ISO 400, the D2X noise is more noticeable whereas the 20D and D200 are still looking pretty good. The F30 has already surpassed expectations by being only slightly worse than the 20D and D200 instead of being massively worse as other digicams would be by this point. The D200 is beginning to show some smoothing, which is interesting because I didn't think the High ISO Noise Reduction kicked in until ISO 800. ISO 800
None of the four is bad at all at ISO 800 and while the D2X was set for "None" for High ISO Noise Reduction, I believe the camera still automatically does some noise reduction (counter intuitive as that may seem).
The 20D is starting to show digital noise artifacts while the F30 is clearly showing splotchy digital noise. The D200 is still the cleanest, but again, details have been smoothed over like a plastic Barbie doll. The D2X is still maintaining the film grain-like noise charateristics.
I'd never use ISO 3200 and you can clearly see why. Conclusion None at this point, because the cameras were not all set identically. I will have to do the testing again and make sure my testing methodology is better next time around. Submit comment (And no, you don't need to comment about the obvious flaw 8^)) Readers Comments
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