who is king of the high iso

[griffithimage]

Wow, I recently read this article http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/01-2010.htm describing the high iso capabilities of the Nikon D3s. I've been shooting for 25 years and the advancements in the last few years with higher iso and the ability to shoot with low light is blowing my mind. Its hard to keep up. I was a Nikon guy and then switched to Canon with the 1DS mark 1. Who is the current king of full frame high iso? The canon 5d? the Nikon D3s? I'd like to hear some real world examples and what the highest working iso people are using...

[JeffT]

Wow, I recently read this article http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/01-2010.htm describing the high iso capabilities of the Nikon D3s. I've been shooting for 25 years and the advancements in the last few years with higher iso and the ability to shoot with low light is blowing my mind. Its hard to keep up. I was a Nikon guy and then switched to Canon with the 1DS mark 1. Who is the current king of full frame high iso? The canon 5d? the Nikon D3s? I'd like to hear some real world examples and what the highest working iso people are using...

Lloyd Chambers has a blog and website and he has been using both the Nikon D3S and Canon 1D mkIV. He is pretty good at testing cameras in real world situations.

Nikon D3S blog entry:
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2009-12-blog....NikonD3sLongLow

Canon 1D mkIV blog entry:
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/index.html

[tokengirl]

I've been shooting for 25 years and the advancements in the last few years with higher iso and the ability to shoot with low light is blowing my mind.

Agreed.  There is nothing that makes me laugh more than people complaining about noise in today's DSLRs.

Here is a sample from my Canon 5DMkII at ISO 3200:


Processed in Lightroom 3 Beta, sharpness set to 50, color noise reduction set to 50, no luminance noise reduction (it's disabled in LR 3 Beta).  Custom camera profile, but no other adjustments were made.

I guess ISO 3200 is no big deal anymore already with the new introductions from Canon and Nikon.  I'm not sure which is "better", and I suspect the difference is not even material unless you are planning on printing very, very large.  The thing that matters most at these crazy ISO numbers is correct exposure to begin with.  Pushing gets ugly really fast.

[griffithimage]

token girl- wow that's clean!

[fennario]

My situation is a little different than most, so my perspective may not be entirely applicable to your usage scenarios.  I routinely shoot concerts in the EV 5-7 range with a 1D MKIII and find myself at 3200 to maintain shutter speed around 25% of the time (with f1.4/2 lenses).  Simply put, I am not satisfied 1D MKIII IQ at that ISO under concert lighting conditions - (1600 is good, but there is a significant degradation of IQ, detail, and saturation when you go to 3200).  With respect to this genre Nikon owns the space at this point in time... the 1D MKIV and 5DII IQ are not competitive with the D3s at ISOs above 1600, particularly when the light/shooting conditions are less than ideal.  

The 5DII does have decent 3200, but lacks the build quality, AF precision, and number of AF points of the 1D; and I have little confidence in its ability to survive a material cocktail/beer encounter (the 1D has taken direct hits from super-soakers loaded with champagne, beer spills, been knocked out of my hand onto concrete floors, etc. - takes a licking and keeps on ticking).

Would say that 80%+ of the shooters I see in the pits are using D700/D3/D3s with 2.8 zooms.  Nikon's superiority re: high-ISO (3200+) at this point in time is indisputable and the D3s is far more suited to concert photography than any Canon product at this point in time.  Net-Net, like many others am considering a switch to the D3s despite my investment in Canon glass.  

P.S. Beautiful grey ghost.

[griffithimage]

What are the movie stills people shooting with these days? They are working with low light/ high iso scenerios.

[tokengirl]

My situation is a little different than most, so my perspective may not be entirely applicable to your usage scenarios.  I routinely shoot concerts in the EV 5-7 range with a 1D MKIII and find myself at 3200 to maintain shutter speed around 25% of the time (with f1.4/2 lenses).  Simply put, I am not satisfied 1D MKIII IQ at that ISO under concert lighting conditions - (1600 is good, but there is a significant degradation of IQ, detail, and saturation when you go to 3200).  With respect to this genre Nikon owns the space at this point in time... the 1D MKIV and 5DII IQ are not competitive with the D3s at ISOs above 1600, particularly when the light/shooting conditions are less than ideal.  

The 5DII does have decent 3200, but lacks the build quality, AF precision, and number of AF points of the 1D; and I have little confidence in its ability to survive a material cocktail/beer encounter (the 1D has taken direct hits from super-soakers loaded with champagne, beer spills, been knocked out of my hand onto concrete floors, etc. - takes a licking and keeps on ticking).

Would say that 80%+ of the shooters I see in the pits are using D700/D3/D3s with 2.8 zooms.  Nikon's superiority re: high-ISO (3200+) at this point in time is indisputable and the D3s is far more suited to concert photography than any Canon product at this point in time.  Net-Net, like many others am considering a switch to the D3s despite my investment in Canon glass.  

P.S. Beautiful grey ghost.

Thanks for adding this perspective - maybe not everyone needs to shoot under those kinds of conditions frequently, but I can understand why it's a critical issue for you and you need the best tool available for the job at hand.  I honestly have not really kept good track of the newer offerings from either Canon or Nikon since I got the 5DMkII, because it does everything I need it to, and then some.  I keep telling myself I'm going to sit down one day and really look at all these new cameras, but I have a feeling by the time I get around to it, they'll be old cameras.