[beholder3]

[deleted]

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Last edited by beholder3; 08-11-2013 at 07:09 AM. Reason: [deleted]

[TaoMaas]

What's the highest ISO you'd allow for snapshots?

I think of snapshots as pics which were taken for casual purposes...birthday parties...opening Christmas presents...family reunions...that sort of thing. For those things, I say use as high an ISO as you need to get a sharp picture. You're trying to capture moments. The importance of those moments trumps the amount of noise in a pic. I used to call it "shooting Bigfoot". lol Nobody cares about the amount of grain in a picture of Bigfoot. All they care about is that you got a shot of Bigfoot. Same thing.

[normhead]

If it goes that high... I'll use it... who knows, it might look artsy. I used to shoot in broad daylight with tri-x 400, for that grainy effect. Why should digital be different?

[dadipentak]

There are many instances when any shot is better than no shot

Absolutely.

[crossmr]

400 ISO or then I turn on a flash if possible.
If I'm taking snaps around the house or at a party, that's it. I don't really like a lot of noise in my photos, and probably wouldn't use them if they're too noisy. If it's a really special event, I'd probably let it go higher.. but. it'd be rare.

[NickLarsson]

25600, I prefer a noisy shot over a blurry shot.

[MSL]

One thing that I don't think that has been mentioned is the usual rule about slowest shutter speed in relation to the focal length (FL) of the lens. I believe the general rule is no slower than 1 / FL but if your hands are rock steady, or the lens is heavy one or a zoom, you may have to up that limit a bit to say 1/2 FL. Aiding you, is the shake reduction the camera body may offer. So for a short FL prime, you might not need to go to as high an ISO as you might for a slower zoom. On the few occasions I've shot events straight to JPG images, I'll use TAv mode and let the camera roam up to 3200, which has usually been sufficient for the lighting.

[cali92rs]

Some of you guys are pretty conservative.

Everyone has a shoe box with 4x6 prints which is what I consider a "snapshot". Hell, "jumbo prints" were 5x7, lol.
On a 4x6 print I would not hesitate to shoot at 6400 with my K-5. 12800 is not bad with even lightrooms noise reduction.

In today's world, it seems like a snapshot has to look dead sharp with no noise when viewed at 100% on a monitor

[MSL]

Some of you guys are pretty conservative.

Yup, and some of us haven't escaped our film days, when shooting 1600 was a rare occasion, only to occur under the toughest of circumstances, and when buying film, one debated hard between 100 or making the radical jump to 200.

[JinDesu]

I don't go higher than 3200 on my k-x, but with the my new k-01, it seems like going to 12,800 is entirely possible.

[Just1MoreDave]

A few times, I have regretted staying with a super-low ISO early on, getting motion blur instead of noise. If everything else works (the subject is interesting, no motion blur, focus is right, exposure is right, etc.) raise the ISO if you need it. The noise will only be noticed by other pixel-peepers.

I have some K-7 shots at 6400 (the top) that work. I have even tried pushing shots to 12,800 but haven't gotten that to work.

[EarlVonTapia]

I keep my auto-ISO on my K30 between 100-6400. It's good for every day situations.

If I'm going for a specific shot, such as a nightscape, I'll fix the ISO onto a specific value, usually something low, but otherwise, the auto ISO is intelligent enough for me.

There are times I have pumped up the ISOs to 25600, to take pictures of something in near darkness for fun and giggles, but it's something I would never rely on to take a serious shot. I'm happy it's there though, just in case.

[jon404]

Thanks for all your comments. Tell you one thing, I'm not going to worry about ISO any more. You guys are WAY past my worries about going past 1600! Here's the payoff, for me anyway. A picture today at 5 PM, down near the beach, 55-300mm lens at 55mm, TAv, 1/1000 at f/11, ISO 1250. Why 1/1000 and f/11? Because I've found -- for snapshots -- that I can just blast away at 300mm and it's never blurry. So I leave it on this setting for other focal lengths, too.

This snapshot is 1800 x 1200 ppi, so I can print it out at 300 dpi for a 4" x 6" postcard. Will it look OK? Sure! Will I worry about too-high ISO ever again? No! Not when you guys are going way up over the 25,600 limit on my K-01! Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it...

[Kerrowdown]

What's the highest ISO you'd allow

I do a fair bit of music photography at clubs and venues, where lighting conditions are usually less than desirable, it's not what I allow, it's often what I need to do, to get workable images.

Often 1600 ISO is quite the norm, running lenses damn nigh wide open, still only gives 1/30 or 1/60 if I'm lucky, the images just need a bit of tweak and clean up later in PP.

[top-quark]

A workable rule of thumb seems to be that two stops below quoted maximum is the usable maximum - for the K-5 12,800 is quite acceptable while 25,600 is getting nasty and 51,200 is downright ugly.

If you're getting unusable 1/4 second shutter speeds for a metered exposure, use exposure compensation or manual mode to underexpose by two stops and lift the exposure in Lightroom. The Adobe algorithms may well be more effective at keeping the noise manageable than the in-camera ones.