What to do at high ISOs

Today wasn't the best day to go out and shoot, but I wanted to anyways. All of my shots were taken at an ISO of 800. The problem that I'm facing is that almost all of the shots have at least a little noticeable noise. I'm shooting with an XTi. My questions to everyone are, what does everyone do in a situation like this? Is there a way to reduce the noise and what kinds of cameras is everyone using?

You'll always see some noise in the dark areas, but less & less if you don't underexpose the image.
Then there are guys like Gavin who shot these mostly at over ISO 1000:
Balls, bikes, sticks and some snow...

ISO test between 1Ds Mk.II, 1D Mk.II, 5D and 20D

Some Volly Ball Tournament Tests **56K Warning!**

he does have a much better camera, but are you saying that as long as I don't underexpose, the IQ shouldn't be too bad?

Post a sample image with EXIF that is unprocessed.
Some noise maybe acceptable, some may not, but it's hard to tell without looking.

Here's a sample of some of the noise

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO | PHOTOBUCKET ERROR IMAGE

I'm not especially troubled by noise in that shot - I presume 100% crop, if not it's out of focus. - If having trouble with noise use some noise reduction software, I just use the "lite" version of Noise Ninja built into Bibble because it's easy, there's lots of other choices.

your settings:
F 5.6 1/640 iso 800

im thinking you could get away with a slower shutter speed unless that duck is realy hauling then you could obviously lower that iso. your at 5.6...which im guessing is as far open as you could go at 300mm...so you're good there. after that, id start at iso 100...if your not upwards of 1/100 of a second or its still a little blurry try iso 200. then iso 400 etc.

I always tend to raise my ISO as a last resort rather than a starting point. That shot could have been taken with say 1/300 or less so would have saved you going to ISO800.

rpearce12 wrote in post #5255746
Here's a sample of some of the noise

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Byte size: ZERO

You may notice some noise here, but this shot is either a touch out-of-focus and/or you had some camera shake involved.

Yes. I see that you are already in M mode, so try this:
Need an exposure crutch?

My initial reaction was "what noise?"

The color noise is very easily removed.
The luminance noise won't show in print.

René Damkot wrote in post #5258273
My initial reaction was "what noise?"

The color noise is very easily removed.
The luminance noise won't show in print.

How canI remove it? I'm sure that there's some easy way in CS3, but I'm not sure how.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #5257962
Yes. I see that you are already in M mode, so try this:
Need an exposure crutch?

Thanks photosguy. One question that I do have is this, what do you mean when you say that you're pushing it to the right? Are you talking about pushing the peaks of the histogram over to the right as far as you can to reduce noise?

Sorry if this is a little off topic... My 40D has custom settings for noise reduction. I am aware that this will have an effect on my maximum fps if i were shooting in drive mode, but that is not an issue for me.

Therefore, I have been shooting with the noise reduction enabled at all times, but in situations where it may not be required (i.e. properly exposed shots at lower iso settings), will this setting cause my camera to overcompensate noise reduction when it is not required?

In other words, will it end up degrading the quality of my pictures when used in certain situations?

rpearce12 wrote in post #5258516
How canI remove it? I'm sure that there's some easy way in CS3, but I'm not sure how.

Duplicate layer, go filter > noise > median. About 8.
Set blending mode to "color".
Alternatively;
dupl. layer, go filter > noise > Reduce Noise. Play with the sliders.

DeCeccoNET wrote in post #5258905
In other words, will it end up degrading the quality of my pictures when used in certain situations?

If you shoot jpg: Yes.

I prefer noise over loss of detail.