[jatrax]

The problem is when you or someone else tells us "folks" that we are wrong because we don't adhere to your standards. Lots of people view these threads that don't post and some of them are like myself, photography is a hobby and we "share" our pictures because we honestly believe there are other people out there who have the same approach to photography. I have some slides of my kids playing sports that are horrible, I didn't throw them out because they are the only record we have of events that were very important to us. Modern digital cameras are truly wonderful and I will take it personally if someone is convinced to put their camera away because someone on PentaxForums told them they should only take photos at ISO 100 (or 80 or 64 or whatever nonsense someone wants to promogulate) .

I am sure you have completely misunderstood what I said. 100%. If you wish to take issue with something someone says that is your right but I'm a bit insulted you managed to read what I said so wrongly.

I will try again: everyone has different standards. I have different standards depending on whether it is work or whether it is a family event that will not go recorded unless taken with less than perfect settings. No where did I say anyone had to adhere to my standards, in fact I emphasized MY to point out that they matter to me only not to anyone else. No where have I said you may not post your photos. Nowhere did I say anyone should put their cameras away. I did say it is tiresome when 'folks' post pictures taken at ridiculous ISO settings with the purpose of 'proving' such images are great and that anyone if they just tried could also take such images. High ISO has a place, it is not something I can use for my work, and I am tired of people insisting that I can if I just used this software or that. MY work requires low ISO. My family snaps do not, which I plainly stated.

Please have the courtesy to read an entire post before you go off on someone.

[Gimbal]

Not quite. I still use AF most of the time. There often isn't enough time to AF on the spot I want to take the picture on and then switch to manual. I just AF on the spot (half press on shutter button), and then wait until horse gets there and then snap the shot. It's still on AF but unless I really messed up my framing, it should not have to refocus. 9/10 times it takes the shot. 1/10 times pushing the shutter does nothing - no shot (and I'm quite sure I am pressing the button). I have a higher percentage no-shot rate if I try to track the horse around.. Highly likely I'm just doing something wrong and I'm hoping someone will point that out. But could also be a Pentax AF bug, or a Pentax 60-250 AF issue. I have the AF priority set to shutter priority (vs focus priority), which I assumed meant "Take the damn shot when I tell you to camera even if you don't think it's in focus". If I switch to manual, it will always take the shot. I do this if I'm desperate to nail one particular jump on the course, but sometimes I'm trying to shoot 4 or 5 different spots on the course and I can't be fumbling the MF switch off and on.

Sounds like you should deactivate the AF on half press and use the AF button instead. You would get much better control over when to use the AF.

[Rondec]

The problem is when you or someone else tells us "folks" that we are wrong because we don't adhere to your standards. Lots of people view these threads that don't post and some of them are like myself, photography is a hobby and we "share" our pictures because we honestly believe there are other people out there who have the same approach to photography. I have some slides of my kids playing sports that are horrible, I didn't throw them out because they are the only record we have of events that were very important to us. Modern digital cameras are truly wonderful and I will take it personally if someone is convinced to put their camera away because someone on PentaxForums told them they should only take photos at ISO 100 (or 80 or 64 or whatever nonsense someone wants to promogulate) .

I think we need to be honest about what the results are. If you are sticking a four by six photo in a family album for the purposes of memories, you will tolerate quite a bit of noise and reduction in dynamic range. But I think 12K sucks on my K3 and K5 II. Maybe if I had mad noise reduction skills, it would help, but I have tried running photos through Dfine and Noiseware and am still dissatisfied with the results.

But as you say, if it is your family and you want photos of an event, you will do what you have to to get photos and will tend to keep them, even if the results are sub optimal.



This is 12K on a K3 shot with a 50-135 at f2.8. Pretty low light and I am less than satisfied with the output. But I had to have a certain shutter speed to freeze action and so that's what I did. But certainly I won't be sending it in to Sport Illustrated either. And to return to the OP's point, if 12K looks this bad, why would I use 25K or 51K?

[bxf]

I have some slides of my kids playing sports that are horrible, I didn't throw them out because they are the only record we have of events that were very important to us. Modern digital cameras are truly wonderful and I will take it personally if someone is convinced to put their camera away because someone on PentaxForums told them they should only take photos at ISO 100 (or 80 or 64 or whatever nonsense someone wants to promogulate) .

Well, you just said it yourself: "..that are horrible". These photos may be important to you, and rightly so, but this is entirely meaningless in the context of high ISO noise discussion. It should be clear that noise that is acceptable for your family photos may not be acceptable for some other purposes (e.g. Vogue Magazine).

[mohb]

but this is entirely meaningless in the context of high ISO noise discussion. It should be clear that noise that is acceptable for your family photos may not be acceptable for some other purposes (e.g. Vogue Magazine).

So do Vogue photographers define the context?

[Digitalis]

But I think 12K sucks on my K3 and K5 II.

I think they look fine - far better than Kodak P3200 T-max pushed to 12,800.

[bxf]

So do Vogue photographers define the context?

e.g. definition. An abbreviation meaning “for example.” It is short for the Latin exempli gratia, “for the sake of example.”

[mee]

I think they look fine - far better than Kodak P3200 T-max pushed to 12,800.

And a bicycle with a hard seat () is fine -- far better than walking 5 miles. It doesn't mean the bicycle (due to the poor seat) is really acceptable.

I find that sample image is soft, noisy with weird color... due to the side effects of using a very high ISO and the provided light. But I too would accept it for personal family/memory sake. I wouldn't for just about any other reason. Definitely I would feel weird if I was 'hired' to photograph another family's event and that was the best results I could offer... even if I was doing the work for free. The FF body would really help in that situation... ISO 12000 on that crop is what.. ISO 3000 on the K-1?

But this is all neither here nor there now that I look at the topic a bit more closely... because the OP is discussing those massively large ISO values.. 25.6k, 51.2k 128k 1.4 million. WHO is using those? They have to be marketing pieces to amp the product in stores. Because they're providing beyond 'poor' results, unless your desired result is a 'convenience store security camera' look.

[Ikarus]

The FF body would really help in that situation... ISO 12000 on that crop is what.. ISO 3000 on the K-1?

Unlikely. In order to match the shot, you'd be shooting the K-1 at 200mm, f/4, 1/200s, ISO28800. How do you think you'd be able to drop that to ISO3000? In general, I believe high ISO gets all the bad rap for poor image quality in difficult conditions. In the case of this kart-racing shot, the shutter speed is borderline adequate at best. Without the motion blur, you could do a much better job at cleaning up that high ISO noise.

[stevebrot]

And a bicycle with a hard seat () is fine...

...and preferred! (At least by this cyclist.)


Steve

[rawr]

I find that sample image is soft, noisy with weird color... due to the side effects of using a very high ISO and the provided light. But I too would accept it for personal family/memory sake.

FWIW, I was browsing this page on my mobile phone yesterday, and I have to say that image looked acceptably fine on a small screen. Which is where most images end up being displayed nowadays.

[mee]

Unlikely. In order to match the shot, you'd be shooting the K-1 at 200mm, f/4, 1/200s, ISO28800.

Why? You went 1 stop on aperture (adjusting for DoF?) and 1 stop up on ISO ( ???). So 2 stops difference.

How do you think you'd be able to drop that to ISO3000?

Larger sensor in play. Currently going from DX to FX or vice versa gives a 2 stop difference to ISO. Some say 1 stop difference, but I've seen and agree with those that say 2. If you didn't care about the DoF then you'd drop the ISO by 2 stops (12000 down to 3000) and call it a day. If you did care about the DoF then you'd still lower the ISO by a stop (to 6000).

In general, I believe high ISO gets all the bad rap for poor image quality in difficult conditions. In the case of this kart-racing shot, the shutter speed is borderline adequate at best. Without the motion blur, you could do a much better job at cleaning up that high ISO noise.

But any effort at 'cleaning up' that high ISO noise means a deduction in sharpness. It seems these denoisers use some kind of gaussian filtering to smooth the noisey parts. Then some kind of sharpening is (sometimes) applied on top. Either way it doesn't look natural.. more like a painting even in light amounts. Though some scenes work better with denoising than others though I will say. And a patient PPer can do wonders in Photoshop, but that isn't generally an option if you have a couple hundred photos that need denoising.

Even if the karts were standstill and the photog using a tripod.. at ISO 12000 it would look awful due to the camera's high ISO performance. And the cleanup work is going to be tough to impossible because the data available to use is limited (vs having used a much lower ISO value). DR is squashed to smithereens at that ISO level.

[clackers]

Not quite. I still use AF most of the time. There often isn't enough time to AF on the spot I want to take the picture on and then switch to manual. I just AF on the spot (half press on shutter button), and then wait until horse gets there and then snap the shot.

I wouldn't do that, CS.

I would AF using AF-S on the spot you want, then (you're still sitting in the same seat, right?) switch to MF and leave it there for your jumps.

Practice your rhythm and chimp beforehand on the riders that don't matter, so your pics of the ones that you're interested in are great.

That's how I did this one of a 100km runner at the finish line, all manual focus on Sony A7 - prefocus, burst.

We look for gear to do things which technique will achieve.

[Ikarus]

Why? You went 1 stop on aperture (adjusting for DoF?) and 1 stop up on ISO ( ???). So 2 stops difference.

For equivalent AOV, DOF and exposure, the focal length and f/stop scale with the crop factor and the ISO with the crop factor squared (since the total light is the same, but the sensor area is 1.5^2 larger for FF, so the light intensity drops by the same amount). So yes, ISO scales up for FF, not down, so if you move to FF, you better get used to using higher ISO settings. Mind you, higher ISO does not imply more noise when changing the format. See for instance here for more details.

Even if the karts were standstill and the photog using a tripod.. at ISO 12000 it would look awful due to the camera's high ISO performance. And the cleanup work is going to be tough to impossible because the data available to use is limited (vs having used a much lower ISO value). DR is squashed to smithereens at that ISO level.

It does suffer for sure, but what are the options with the given parameters? You can't open the aperture any wider than 2.8 with this lens, and you can't possibly drop the shutter speed without making things worse. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the shot were better with double the ISO for the sake of a faster shutter speed.

[bigdavephoto]

After reading (or scanning) everything that has so far been said in this thread, Hi ISO (depending on each person's definition) photos are not always bad and full of noise. I will be honest here and say that I am impressed by the Nikon D5 and the high ISO performance. A photographer, who I will not name, a week after getting his D5 posted a video about the high ISO settings. In his video, he shot some portraits and got usable photos at an ISO of 81,000. He printed out the high ISO bigger then 13x19 and showed them on his podcast (video cast?), and it looks great.




Also, after reading this thread, I guess I must have got lucky with this photo with my K7 at ISO 6400;


https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/12-post-your-photos/317311-people-just-si...roll-band.html