50D users, higest ISO before noise ?

So what's the highest ISO being used and keeping good sharpness ? I've always used a flash but since I'm starting to shoot more sports that are either indoors or not in sunny conditions I'm finding myself needing to bump up ISO.

I recently spoke to a 1D mkII user who's shooting at ISO 3000+ but I know that camera is in a different league than the 50D.

Thanks in advance !

That depends on your perception of what might be too much noise and the programs you use to reduce noise. Personally, I have no problem shooting indoor sports at ISO 3200 with great results after slight NR in photoshop.

The limit will (more than anything else) depend on the intended output size. You might be perfectly happy with ISO3200 for web images but not want to exceed ISO800 for large prints.

Fligi7 wrote in post #13450512
That depends on your perception of what might be too much noise and the programs you use to reduce noise. Personally, I have no problem shooting indoor sports at ISO 3200 with great results after slight NR in photoshop.

Can you please elaborate ?

Photoshop, Filter>Sharpen ?

Elaborate on what exactly? I'm not sure what you mean by sharpening since we're just talking about noise here. I shoot ISO 3200 shots of indoor volleyball without any concern of too much noise, and I'm a definite pixel peeper. I think the 50D handles shots up to 3200 exceptionally well.

Fligi7 wrote in post #13450831
Elaborate on what exactly? I'm not sure what you mean by sharpening since we're just talking about noise here. I shoot ISO 3200 shots of indoor volleyball without any concern of too much noise, and I'm a definite pixel peeper. I think the 50D handles shots up to 3200 exceptionally well.

What I meant was to what were you referring to by "after slight NR in photoshop" ?

Oh, meaning at most I need to move the slider to about 20-30 for Noise Reduction in Photoshop (using Adobe Camera Raw) to get super clean looking images at their full size.

Fligi7 wrote in post #13450922
Oh, meaning at most I need to move the slider to about 20-30 for Noise Reduction in Photoshop (using Adobe Camera Raw) to get super clean looking images at their full size.

Ahhh OK, thank you for the clarification

So you're shooting in RAW then ?

100% of the time. If you have post-processing software, there is very little to no reason not to shoot in RAW.

I do, Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 3.

Thank you for the valuable information !

Fligi7 wrote in post #13450512
That depends on your perception of what might be too much noise and the programs you use to reduce noise. Personally, I have no problem shooting indoor sports at ISO 3200 with great results after slight NR in photoshop.

You should probably qualify this, what size prints are you making? A lot of people leave this key information out when they comment on their max ISO comfort level.

Good point, JefferyG. I haven't printed larger than 11x17, so I'm using that as reference.

I was just asking the same thing a few weeks back. It is too late for me as my daughters season is over until next year. I was very afraid to go above 800, but folks have convinced me to go higher next year.

duane0524 wrote in post #13451069
I was just asking the same thing a few weeks back. It is too late for me as my daughters season is over until next year. I was very afraid to go above 800, but folks have convinced me to go higher next year.

You're really missing out on a lot of potential in that 50d! I would not hesitate at all at 1600 ISO even without PP software. 3200 would probably start to push it (in my picky opinion) without PP software but you will certainly get usable prints.

Additionally, the amount of noise is predicated on exposure. Underexposed images tend to have more noise than correctly exposed images.

The use of an ad-on like Noise Ninja, NIK or Topaz software will help.

Finally, too much sharpening, especially after noise reduction will increase noise...