The best ISO for Quality and low noise on a 7D?

I was told by Canon today that I would be better using ISO 160 than 100 (for stills, flash stills and even video) because it gave a cleaner picture. Reason the Senosor on a 7D was "tuned" to 160 ISO.

Well coming from the film era it sounds crazy, that ISO 160 would deliver a better image quality [all other things being equal] than ISO 100. But discussing my Sony A77 with one of their top techies. He said the A77 Sensor was tuned to ISO 200 - and that it would deliver noticably better Image Quality.

Interested what your 'real world' experiene of this is?

For someone "just starting out" don't worry about it.

I never really worry about it much. I set the proper ISO to get the shot I'm taking at that time. With today's software it is easy to pull the noise out in just a second or two in post.

ISO 100 is the base ISO and has the best SNR and dynamic range. 160 is just ISO 200 overexposed, then pulled back 1/3rd stop.

If ISO 100 has too much noise, then you need to be making your way out of photography

I weston I wrote in post #14842461
ISO 100 is the base ISO and has the best SNR and dynamic range.

Not according to a Canon employee apparently:

Who's wrong?

The simplest solution would be to test it out for ourselves. How much easier is that than talking to a Canon Rep!!!

5280Pics wrote in post #14842405
I never really worry about it much. I set the proper ISO to get the shot I'm taking at that time. With today's software it is easy to pull the noise out in just a second or two in post.

X2

I hardly see any noise in my pics after PP and this is with a 10 year old camera....
I used to be afraid to shoot in high ISO but now I shoot at 1600/3200 all the time.
And my pics at that will look like crap compared to your guys better performing cameras, so there's no reason why you should be afraid to bump it up.

I honestly doubt if you could tell the difference between an iso 100 shot and an iso 160 shot. Don't think I could. 100 and 1600 yes, 100 and 160 no.

I recently did this test with my 7D. I set up a scene with bright and dark parts with a variety of colours indoors with constant lighting. I put the camera on a tripod and shot with every ISO from 100 to 12800 in third stops, with each shot increasing the ISO and then increasing the shutter speed by 1/3 stop.

I processed each picture from the raw file with the identical settings and with noise reduction and sharpening turned off. I carefully compared each picture and I could not see any case where a higher ISO gave a better picture quality than a lower one.

Take a look at this. It's counter-intuitive for film shooters (including me), but it seems that on many Canon models, analogue noise is best controlled at 160/320/640 etc. On the video, you'll note the comment that ISO 100 is as noisy as ISO 640 and ISO 2500 cleaner than ISO 2000.

I've heard and read that on this forum, as well. Even if 160 isn't better than 100, but just as good... why not shoot with a possible 2/3 stop faster shutter speed (unless you're purposely trying to get lower speeds)?

Also, i've only heard about this for 7D's...wonder if it is the same for all the 18MP body's (T2i/T3i/T4i/60D)?

It was the case with the early Canon digital cameras that they used odd ISO base levels. EG my 30D used 160 and this produced the best results. I can confirm that my 30D did produce its best work at that level.

I was recently told that Canon have standardised on 200 ISO across the board and all the rest are simple manipulations of this level. So suprisingly ISO 100 is less good than 200. How true that is I don't know, but its not the first time I've heard this so I imagine there is some truth in it. I tend to use 100 myself, so I really should run a full test.

I would dearly love Canon to use a base level of 25, or maybe even 12.5 ISO myself, but given the popularity of high ISO's I cannot see it happening.

crn3371 wrote in post #14842870
I honestly doubt if you could tell the difference between an iso 100 shot and an iso 160 shot. Don't think I could. 100 and 1600 yes, 100 and 160 no.

Absolutely agree...

Here is a test I did this morning to try to put this to bed. The only comment I will make is that ISO 160 is better than 100 underexposed by 2/3, other than that, I don't see any 100% peeping difference.

At this ISO level, the quality of the image, composure, color, etc will make a bigger difference than whatever ISO you shot at.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #14843839
Absolutely agree...

Here is a test I did this morning to try to put this to bed. The only comment I will make is that ISO 160 is better than 100 underexposed by 2/3, other than that, I don't see any 100% peeping difference.

At this ISO level, the quality of the image, composure, color, etc will make a bigger difference than whatever ISO you shot at.

thanks for that - to my eyes iso160 looks a tad cleaner than iso 100.
BTW it was just out of interest, as this guy was quite emphatic about it - he said it was for all the current Canon DSLRs + said it also applied to video!

Again, at such low ISOs, I just don't see how a tiny difference once way or another is going to make a difference in end results. It just seems to take the fun out of shooting if you have to watch your low ISO settings because you are worried about a tiny difference in any noise, if any.

Typically I turn ISO to be full stops and not 1/3 stops, but if I use auto-ISO, then I don't mind it using 1/3 stops. Did it today on a family trip, it was more fun than trying to watch which intermediate ISOs to shoot.

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