[JMitchell]

As promised, here are some of the results of my (completely un-scientific) D300 ISO tests. I did these more for myself than anything, but thought I'd share, as I know there are some people deliberating over getting it or not, and perhaps this might help.

The first one is a set of my cat, at the high ISO speeds. This was with the Tamron 90mm f/2.8, no flash, midday-ish natural light:

ISO 2500: (shutter speed: 1/60 f/3)


100%:





ISO 6400: (allowing for a shutter speed of 1/160 indoors @ f/3!!)



I didn't crop this one, although as you can probably tell it is perfectly usable, just a little grainy, like you'd get with say.... ASA800 film

ISO 800: (natural light again, tamron again, this time a shot of my D50 body, shutter: 1/30, f/3, 100% crop)




These settings are all brilliant for getting that super important shot of a celebrity, but you have to use it at it's lowest setting to really appreciate the IQ this camera can produce:
ISO 100, with flash:



100%:



And another:




100%:






Hope that helps someone, I know it's not the perfect test, but it shows a variety of ISOs and colours, so perhaps it'll be of some use

[P-E]

Looking good

[JMitchell]

Sorry Ian you will have missed out on the last 4, they were different shots. Changed now. The others I posted had d lighting activated (), so there was more apparent noise, when extra shadow detail wasn't needed! Now look at the buttery smoothness

[P-E]

Don't post anymore cause I'm already wanting a D3

[JMitchell]

Get the D300, then you wont feel so bad cos it's cheaper (you still get 8fps with the grip....) I can see you squirming, Ian, all the way through the broadband cables
Who needs FX anyway

[Dave]

Originally Posted by P-E

Don't post anymore cause I'm already wanting a D3

Held one at Focus Ian ... stunning piece of kit !!!

Jack, the flower photos are making my credit card twitch ...... well , when it arrives anyway How to get a Nikon D300 for £875 price - Saving £225 !!!

[P-E]

Originally Posted by Dave

Held one at Focus Ian ... stunning piece of kit !!!

Did you hand it back?......wouldn't it fit in your pocket

[Charlotte]

Jack, the flower shots are stunning

In all honesty, I'm quite disappointed with the noise levels of the other higher ISO shots, there's a lot of colour noise

Because the noise factor was one thing in the D300's favour as far as I was concerned, your shots have made me think twice about getting a D300 ... or not I thought it's handling of noise would be a lot better than this.

[JMitchell]

A lot of what now? I can't really see much colour noise, the only thing that I noticed was the shot of the body at ISO 800 was slightly grainier than I expected. I think it may have been an exception, the ISO 2500 looks cleaner
But what you have to remember is that these are unprecedented ISO levels, never before reachable (really), which allow shooting to get usable shots in almost any lighting condition. Another thing to note is that if I had higher quality optics, the pics would be higher quality, that's why I did the tests on the Tamron; it's the highest IQ lens I have.

But I am pretty sure that the shots at ISO 3200 and 2500 have a lot less colour noise and possibly only an equal amount of luminance noise as ISO 1800 on the D50, which in my book is pretty impressive....


EDIT: And one more thing , it's not very often that one is printing or cropping to 100%, and at normal web display size, th noise is really not very noticeable, and you could always apply NR afterwards, which could really clean them up at the expense of a little detail if you so wished