Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Stat Fest!

A new website resource for assessing key elements of your DSLRs performance, with the ability to compare other models.

Makes interesting reading, esp the bit about high ISO performance - gives the highest ISO above which image quality (as defined in the blurb) becomes unacceptable. Shows that most high ISOs in consumer and enthusiast SLRs (i.e ours!) are really just spec-dressing (like high pixel counts in compacts) and offer little real ultility, until to you get to pro-spec cameras. For example, the 450D and 40D come in the 690-710 ISO range, while the Nikon D700 is at 2303.

This tallies with what I have found; that using ISO up to 400 is brilliant, 800 is OK (as it's just above the 692 calculated for the 450D) and can be worked on with software, but 1600 is quite noisy at times, and I refrain from using it.

That said, high ISO is really only useful for sports, action and wedding photography, so it's not an issue. Landscapers can use a tripod, stick it on 100-400 ISO, and get great image quality in RAW.

Ivan

3 comments:

Damian Lidgard said...

I shall check that out. Looks potentially interesting!

With respect to ISOs. When I shoot in the market on Saturdays as I sell my photos, I am always using either 1600 at 1/80th or 1/60th and sometimes go up to 3200. Now, I am pretty happy with the results from the 1600 and even the 3200. However, my prints I suppose are no that big. So I guess the optimum print size decreases as ISO falls. Wonder if there is a graph somewhere that shows that.

Damian

Damian Lidgard said...

And that link doesn't work?

D

Anonymous said...

Try now.