ISO on a 10D

[BiikeMike]

Is there a point where the 10D really shines with an ISO setting? I'm trying to learn as much about my camera as possible, and I know at high ISO its pretty noisy, but what about in the lower range? is one setting sharper than another?

I know light is a factor and all that, just wondering if one setting is better than another

[CyberDyneSystems]

I was perfectly happy with the 10D through ISO 400..
Obviously it was best at 100, @ 200 you could barely see a change, and 400 was as I said, perfectly fine. In low light, bumping to 800 with good exposure got very good results, but there was certainly some noise.

For best results when there is enough lite, use 100.

[PacAce]

Use the lowest ISO setting you can get away with. If you can't get the shutter speed dor the aperture you want or need, increase the ISO until you can, even up to ISO 1600. You can always run the images through a noise removal program if the noise becomes objectionable.

[Mark_Cohran]

My 10D had perfectly acceptible results up to 400 ISO, and was pretty good at 800 with some noise. Where it wasn't' so good (and I didn't' expect it to be) was in noise is low light situations with even moderate underexposure. ISO 100 is/was best with this camera.

Mark

[canonphotog]

My 10D is best at 100 ISO, but I don't have a problem with the results up through 400 ISO. I agree with Mark Cochran; at 800 and above you start to see noise.

This link has information that you may be interested in. Covers noise on 10D, 20D, 30D and the 5D.

http://www.adidap.com/2006/09/09/canon-eos-30d-iso-vs-noise/

[goatee]

If you get the exposure right, then even ISO 1600 can produce some great results with no noise reduction. The shot below was shot at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, and the only PP I did was to tweak the levels.
http://static.flickr.com/98/242982918_1990ff2782_o.jpg

Admittedly I don't have that many shots from my 10D at ISO1600 that are so clean, but the key is not to underexpose the shots.

Normally, if it's a high contrast scene, I tend to underexpose a bit, and bring out the detail - on a 10D at ISO 1600 you will get lots of noise if you do that, so either
a) Get the exposure spot on
b) Bracket
c) Overexpose and lose some highlight detail
d) Underexpose and get friendly with Noise Ninja ;)

Actually, in all seriousness, chroma noise is easy to get rid of (see http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/color-gremlins.shtml) and luminance noise isn't so terrible - and doesn't show up on prints that much. The problem with all this new fangled digital stuff, is that we pixel peep - did you ever look at 35mm shots blown up to A1 or larger? That's what you're doing when you pixel peep.

Basically, as PacAce said, shoot at the lowest ISO you can comfortably handhold, but if you're not sure, it's better to get a well focussed slightly more noisy shot, than a blurry one!

[thedoc]

I read when 20D was been tested at www.dpreview.com that 10D is better from 100-400ISO than the 20D(the difference is really small).From 800 and above 20D is better.

The link

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/page20.asp

[BiikeMike]

Cool,, thanks :)

this site is a wealth of information

[Jim_T]

I use ISO400 a lot on my 10D with good results. The only problem with 400 is that strong sharpening brings out the grain... This doesn't happen at 100 or 200.

With good noise removal software like Noise Ninja or Neat Image, you can get acceptable results at ISO 800 and 1600.

[dschwartz69]

I took some shots a family members wedding recently - using the 10D and 17-35 2.8L using available light. Many shots were 800-1600 and looked pretty good. A family gallery is up at http://www.schwartzfamilyonline.com - I think many still have EXIF data intact if interested.