[Charles Hueter]

I had to send my K100D in a few months ago to get an anti-shake problem fixed and when it returned, my 3200 shots were unexpectedly cleaner than before. I suppose the sensor itself was replaced because the banding I saw in low-light 3200 shots was substantially less noticeable.

However, I was not worried about going as high as 1600 ISO both before and after the repair. I try to keep it at 800 and lower, but I'm getting better with post-processing and if required I can clean up 1600 to satisfy a critical peek.

In my opinion, the noise at 3200 looks great after converting to black and white!

If I had to narrow down my core problem with the K100D's noise at higher ISOs (other than the banding issue at 3200 that was resolved), I'd lay the blame at the camera's JPEG noise reduction choices. I'd like more control over how JPEGs are created in-camera. That's solved by going RAW and spending a few extra seconds in PhotoLab and Photoshop, of course.

[jdg]

here's a sample from my k100d super (iso1600, 1/10, f5.6, 55mm, AWB)