[Pentaxor]

I rarely shoot past ISO 800. plus A50/1.2, does it ring any bell? even their lens equivalent at such speed and focal length can't touch it. so why the hell should I care about High ISO?

and the image is just fine at ISO 3200. not the best but good enough. and besides, FA LTD's, DA LTD's, legendary Pentax lenses. Pentax gear is bad investment? yeah right, tell them next time other camera brand users must be dead wrong and stop using Takumars and try hard to adapt and desecrate K-mount lenses.

[RioRico]

Tell them you'll be happy to use whatever system they recommend, as long as they pay for it.

I no longer need to drive fast. Usually.
Yet, some drivers insist on tailgating.
I should print a nice bumper sticker:

*** TOO SLOW? BUY ME GAS!! ***

The photographic equivalent would be:

HATE MY PENTAX? BUY ME A LEICA!

Ugh, arguments here are annoying.

[GeneV]

Where I come from, the 1990s, 800 ISO was supersonic.

This obsession with high ISO is funny, and for many people speaks more about their interest in camera ownership than actual photography. If your dinner or mortgage doesn't depend on you getting "the shot", then take the gear that you got and take the damn picture.

Absolutely. My original photo heyday was the 80s, when 800 meant pushing (ASA back then) 400.

I do enjoy the confidence I have in the K-x at ISO 3200 ,and I've taken a few shots at ISO 6400 that I'm proud of. Still, talking about a camera that holds its own as well as the K20d as though it were a waste of money is obsessing a bit over the tech.

[troglodyte]

I don't get all this insane machismo about, 'z0mg h1gh 1s0 r0x0r muh l337 p1x0rz!!!11.' Above iso 800 on pretty much any camera looks bad, to me. I try to use 100. My k7 does something like 80 equivalent? People are shocked with my da 21 iso 200 with

[troglodyte]

highlight compensation. I get asked all the time how do I get my images to look so clean, sharp, and colorful even printed larger than 11x14. They think I have some sort of expensive Canon. When they see my Pentax, 'Wtf is that? Never heard of it.'

[JohnBee]

I don't get all this insane machismo about, 'z0mg h1gh 1s0 r0x0r muh l337 p1x0rz!!!11.' Above iso 800 on pretty much any camera looks bad, to me. I try to use 100. My k7 does something like 80 equivalent? People are shocked with my da 21 iso 200 with

I think high ISO definitely has its place and benefits.
ex: here is a shot taken in an underground mine with very low light. We had no choice but to push ISO to compensate as they didn't allow flash photography during the tour.
Still... the camera handled the task quite nicely and we were able to get away with some decent shots.

K20D, ISO3200, 1/100, SMC-A 50mm f/1.4

click image for actual size

This time deeper in the mine, we had to fall back to ISO6400 to cope with the even darker surroundings. In this case, things couldn't get worst. The shutter speed was very low and exposures were leaning heavily to the left.
But! thanks to our trusty K20D, we managed to pull through. I guess we could say, "The ol' K20 held its own" against those Canon and Nikon shooters who never bothered taking a single shot past the entrance

K20D, ISO6400, 1/15, SMC-A 50mm f/1.4

click image for actual size - note this is not a real man, but in fact a painted facade


~ The end

[Arjay Bee]

Your last pic above would be very suitable in wide open mode as the whole figure has very limited Depth of Field being only an inch through.

[GeneV]

I think high ISO definitely has its place and benefits.
ex: here is a shot taken in an underground mine with very low light. We had no choice but to push ISO to compensate as they didn't allow flash photography during the tour.
Still... the camera handled the task quite nicely and we were able to get away with some decent shots.

The other key there in the first mine scene is to let the black shadows be black shadows. The camera always wants to expose as though it sees daylight. Some of those "night into day" scenes I've gotten at high ISO don't look so hot, but take the scene down in brightness to where it looks more like it did in reality, and the shot looks much cleaner.

[tehSancho]

Here are some examples of the fashion show i mentioned in 7th post:










As I said, first time "in action" with the K-x, in Tv and forgot to adjust ISO. They are all in 6400. Even though they have plenty of noise (i deactivated the NR for some reason), the colours look great for me.

[Ratmagiclady]

Well, for me, I love my K20d: he does tend to band unacceptably at 6400, but I do get results at least consistent with the old days of having to go to a pro lab and setting some Tri-X across the counter, and saying, "Please push the crap outta this."

I actually have a lovely shoot of high-ISO shots from recently that don't look like low-light shots at *all,* which is a problem I never expected to have. (My fault, really: I was using a longish M lens and perhaps thanks to the punch-bowl was just reading everything by eye as 18 percent rather than preserving the dark.) Came out *great,* just doesn't look like twilight. You gotta be careful with this high ISO, or it'll steal your dark.

Not that I couldn't find use for any high-ISO that Pentax pitches our way, but I think it works. Except for the banding at 6400. I do like having 3200ness at will, though. I'm not sure what people's standards are these days, but then again, I like the character and the texture. Maybe I'm an analog throwback, maybe it'll seem different and I'll be kicking myself when I get a decent monitor, but I rarely go below about 320 or 160.

[Ratmagiclady]

The other key there in the first mine scene is to let the black shadows be black shadows. The camera always wants to expose as though it sees daylight. Some of those "night into day" scenes I've gotten at high ISO don't look so hot, but take the scene down in brightness to where it looks more like it did in reality, and the shot looks much cleaner.

See, Gene, there's ways you're a man after my own heart.

I still think that a lot of the complaints about Pentax high-ISO come from this 'Expose to the right' measurebating nonsense: 'Expose To The Right' means: Overexpose, which means.... 'You overrate your ISO performance by a stop or two.'

Whatever. If you're not in the bright, it's supposed to look that way.

[JohnBee]

Well, for me, I love my K20d: he does tend to band unacceptably at 6400

While it may not be for everyone(PP route), I've had very good success with debanding software such as Nick software's Dfine: Photographic Noise Reduction

[JohnBee]

here, you can see on his forearm the obvious jaggedness of colour fallout, bordering white out

the candle is completly blown out

the wall behind him is banded to hell and back (as is the shadow areas on the torso)

this was F1.8 at 1/10 iso 6400 at 31mm.. just squeezing all the potential out of a K20D

if this was a D700 the photo would have been cleaner with greater detail in the shadows... even the KX would pull a cleaner shot.

also i probably would not have spent a minute trying to focus it..

You're image has inspired me to try my hand at a little candlelight shooting of my own using a K20D.

Overall I'd say the experience went well enough. The Katzeye was no doubt helpful in achieving focus, though what was interesting for me was where the AF confirm remained responsive through the entire shoot. However... unlike your setup, I swapped my 50mm f/1.4 early out, for a 28mm f/2.8, which was far better suited to handle both the light source and subject in the same frame. And though this cost me some precious light in the process, I think it was a worth while trade-off in contrast to using my normal in this case.

Having said that, I too found numerous blowouts in my images(similar to your own).
However... with ACR6, I was able to recover most of the files quite nicely as they still seemed to exhibit a fair amount of overhead on the highlight side of things(see bellow).

Adobe Bridge Viewer



Adobe Camera Raw: Default Settings



Adobe Camera Raw: With adjustments

K20D, ISO6400, 1/4, 28mm f/3.5, and ACR6.01

With this in mind, I'm left leaning toward skepticism on the issue of synthetic vs. real world effect of DR through ISO scaling.
And though I'm not discounting the data or your experiences, I'd say my own results would serve as are a good indicator that the numbers and influences they would have in real world conditions are well worth a closer look.

As far as the files go, I'll follow through tomorrow and post process a few sample, see how far I can take the images.
Though at a quick glance, it looks as though there is a fair amount of detail left in them despite the harsh conditions they were shot in. And so I'll update this thread when I finish those as well.

~ The end

PS. There is remnant of cake on my daughters face. Our children have been camping out in the back yard these past few, and it looks as though they've been indulging in the junk food along the way. It's a good thing my K20D has above average high ISO detail retention, or I might have missed this evidence altogether!

[Mountain Vision]

Sounds interesting. Any chance you could demonstrate the added detail and DR advantages between(say a K20D) and the newer models under high ISO conditions? I know the graphs seem to say alot(and I'm not discounting them), but I'm just not convinced that they would translate into real world conditions in much the same way that they are being demonstrated.

They actually don't, unfortunately there are two types of people (actually there are many more than 2 types, but humor me, or list all the types). Ones that create images, and ones that stare at 100% crops of test images made in a dark room on a blank wall, followed by equally long analyzation of graphs. All from which they determine the final image qualities of a camera.

I'm not discounting the observations of those people, but the fact is print quality and screen viewing at 100% are two vastly different things. The problem is most people in the digital age don't actually realize this. Your prints have a long way to go before they actually look like the 100+% crops people use. I was simply blown away by how good the K20D looked in print at larger print sizes from 800+ ISO. bearing in mind I don't generally shoot at ISO 1600 and then print 16x20 fine art prints, but the K20D actually looked incredibly good at around 11x14 for some sports shots I sold at ISO 800-1600.

Sure it's important if your 100% crop looks good from a technology standpoint, but from a practical imaging standpoint it's actually not that important. As a matter of fact, it was recently pointed out to me just how little dynamic range actually comes out in a print. I knew this, but I got caught up in the same things we all do. stats on a graph! The fact is most printers have a limited DR output, and believe it or not the K-7, K20D, K-x, K100D, etc all exceed that DR. So having overhead is good for image processing, but realistically it's unnecessary.

I'd really recommend most people doubting what their camera can do spend some time shooting and then printing your best images. Print at various sizes and see how your image compares to whatever you are supposed to be comparing it to. If you are disappointed, see if the newest super camera (ie. the best camera you can afford) can do better on the same subject and same conditions. I'm willing to bet that aside from ISO3200+ any particular pentax model can hold it's own when printed.

The fact is, from ISO 100-400 I truly believe the K-7 and K20D are perhaps the best (yes, I said the best) print quality of any comparable cameras (that would include the K-x, D300, and 7D).

[Blue]

Tell them to f-off and mind their own business.

I'd ask them to buy me a ff Nikon.