"Native" ISO speeds for sensors?

I read in a few of the forum posts elsewhere, reference to the advantages and/or disadvantages of electronically "pushing or pulling" a sensor's native ISO sensitivity, thus electronically altering the pixel sensitivity to accomodate desired aperture or shutter speeds.

The down side is the noise in the shot. I have always equated the noise in the picture to what "graininess" was in film, ie-higher ISOs will produce more grain. But this is the first time I have heard that altering a sensor's ISO sensitivity to a lower ISO also induces noise.

Any experts out ther who can elaborate? Anyone know how to determine your camera sensor's "native ISO"?? I have the D400.

Thanks!

The "native" ISO for Canon bodies is 100. Nikon is typically 200...

Whether you lower/raise the ISO you're essentially adjusting the gain on the sensor, which induces noise and/or lowers the dynamic range. That's why 50/3200 on some cameras must be explicitly enabled via custom function.

Double Negative wrote in post #5751658
The "native" ISO for Canon bodies is 100. Nikon is typically 200...

Whether you lower/raise the ISO you're essentially adjusting the gain on the sensor, which induces noise and/or lowers the dynamic range. That's why 50/3200 on some cameras must be explicitly enabled via custom function.

Thanks for the quick answer. It is sort of what I understood from most of the context of other posts as well. I just wasn't sure about the 100 being the native ISO for my camera. I almost always shoot at ISO 100 simply because I want to keep the "grain" down (I'm still translating and/or flushing my brain from many long years in the film world).

Actually I believe that the native ISOs are 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600. ISO 133 is ISO pushed 1/3 stop, ISO 166 is ISO 200 backed off 1/3 stop and so forth. There is a good thread discussing this though I can’t find it right now.

golfecho wrote in post #5751682
I almost always shoot at ISO 100 simply because I want to keep the "grain" down (I'm still translating and/or flushing my brain from many long years in the film world).

depending on what camera you have, ISO up to 800 should have very little to no noise if exposed properly.

Found the link. Has some nice graphs showing noise at different ISO settings.
http://forums.canonpho​togroup.com/showthread​.php?p=5225

golfecho wrote in post #5751682
I almost always shoot at ISO 100 simply because I want to keep the "grain" down (I'm still translating and/or flushing my brain from many long years in the film world).

I have never shot at ISO 100. The noise is so negligable at 200 that the doubling of shutter speed is far more valuable to me. As a matter of fact, I first determine wht speed and f/stop I want and then dial in the ISO that will give it to me. Worrying about noise will make you neurotic and cost you a lot of good shots.

I'm at ISO 100 more than any other and try to keep it there, but 200 is also very good and the increase in noise is hardly noticeable over 100. But if it's a matter of getting the shot; crank up ISO. Noise Ninja does a fantastic job! Noise is nothing to get excited about... It's still better than the film grain at 1600 any day of the week!

I use to be very ISO conscious as well always trying to get the shot at ISO 100. But the more I shoot at the higher ISOs, the less I see value of trying to keep it low. I pretty much have settled on ISO 400 as a starting point but don’t shy away from 800 or 1600 or even 3200. As DN says, noise ninja cleans it right up is I miss on the exposure.

^ Good point - the important thing is exposure, more than anything. If you have to boost your shadows you'll make the noise more apparent... So best to bracket if in doubt.

I had no idea digital cameras had a native ISO. That's very good information to have.

golfecho wrote in post #5751629
I read in a few of the forum posts elsewhere, reference to the advantages and/or disadvantages of electronically "pushing or pulling" a sensor's native ISO sensitivity, thus electronically altering the pixel sensitivity to accomodate desired aperture or shutter speeds.

The down side is the noise in the shot. I have always equated the noise in the picture to what "graininess" was in film, ie-higher ISOs will produce more grain. But this is the first time I have heard that altering a sensor's ISO sensitivity to a lower ISO also induces noise.

Any experts out ther who can elaborate? Anyone know how to determine your camera sensor's "native ISO"?? I have the D400.

Thanks!

I highly doubt that lower the ISO below the native ISO will generate noise. AAMOF, it should reduce the noise even further. What it will do, though, is reduce the dynamic range of the sensor by approximately however many stops the ISO is decreased by.

Of course, I could be wrong, too. But that's just my 2 cents.

Thanks everyone for your input, gjl711 especially for the great link. Knowing your tools is so important in this photography game, and I am always trying to learn more . . .

golfecho wrote in post #5751629
Any experts out ther who can elaborate? Anyone know how to determine your camera sensor's "native ISO"?? I have the D400.

Thanks!

wow! i didn't know that nikon's d300 was bad enough that they needed to get a d400 already...

if you're talking about any nikon camera, the base ISO is 200. for 1d, also 200. all other canon cameras are hard to explain. they have a peak dynamic range and color at iso200, but it's not much of an improvement over iso 100. don't worry too much about base or not, just use the ISO the situation calls for

PacAce wrote in post #5752203
I highly doubt that lower the ISO below the native ISO will generate noise. AAMOF, it should reduce the noise even further. What it will do, though, is reduce the dynamic range of the sensor by approximately however many stops the ISO is decreased by.

Of course, I could be wrong, too. But that's just my 2 cents.

In this case you are kind of wrong! A couple of pretty scientific tests were done by some dpreview and other forum users, noise characteristics in the 'tween ISO ranges could be higher than the next base ISO hop... The forum post above shows canon got it better tamed for the 40d, but the 30d wasn't quite so pretty.

http://www.adidap.com …non-eos-30d-iso-vs-noise/