I recently picked up a new camera after a few years of not shooting on anything other than an iPhone. For a little context, I was a full time photographer a few years back. I worked at a magazine full time as the director of photography and principal photographer. I shot fashion, editorial and advertising mostly. I even had a photo used for a billboard ad. So, I would consider myself knowledgable about digital and film photography.
The concept that noise on my new camera could be less at 800 ISO compared to 400 ISO kind of blew my mind.
The Tech
So I found a website https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_ADU.htm with graphs to show how your camera’s noise preforms at different ISO settings. Based on how my camera performs, at ISO 800 noise is slightly better than at 400. And based on the numbers ISO 1600 is just marginally different that ~600.
I’m going to have to do some testing but from what I’m seeing so far the numbers are accurate.
Why this matters
Easy answer, leverage with your exposure. Let’s say you are hand held photographing something at 50mm and need a shutter speed to avoid blur but you are just on the line at ISO 400. You can confidently bump your ISO up to 800 allowing for a faster shutter speed with no extra noise added to your shot.
Summary
I still have some real word testing to do but it is nice to know exactly what my camera can do. Let me know if you will start shooting at different ISO’s now.
