ISO 3,280,000?

[Mike Farley]

One of the headlines for the new Nikon D5 is its impossibly top ISO of 3,280,000. For those who specialise in shooting black cats in darkened cellars, what results can they expect? Petapixel via Nikon Rumors has the answer. The top native ISO of the camera is a mere 102,400, with the further steps to the top ISO being in the extended range. That's the the equivalent of pushing film in development, so you can expect image quality to suffer. No one has yet been able to publish any photographs taken with the camera, so this report relies on shots of the image review on the rear screen. It does give an idea of what the results will be like and as you would expect anything taken at 3,280,000 is incredibly noisy, although the images taken at the lowest extended setting of 204,800 look as though they could be useable and even 409,600 does not seem too bad.

http://petapixel.com/2016/01/12/this-is ... o-3280000/

Speaking as someone who does not owna camera which exceeds ISO 6400 and limits auto ISO to 3,200, I have rarely felt the need to have anything faster for the type of photography I do. There are very few situations where an aesthetically pleasing image will be possible when light levels are vitually non existent, although I can see the benefit for documentary photography. The paparazzi will undoubtedly love the D5. Celebrities won't.

[GrahamL]

Hi Mike,

I guess higher ISO is the big draw for many journalistic professionals, certainly always seems to be quoted as an important aspect of the D4/D4s and one area where they stand above the D810 in performance (as well as frame-rate etc.).

There is a review by Ole Liodden on using two pre-production D5's, see
http://oleliodden.com/photo-gear/field-reviews/beta-test-report-nikon-d5/ This was a few months ago so may not be representative of the current stage of development of course. He thought these was a 1.5 stop improvement in ISO performance.

These is another, very limited, comment on image -ISO performance out there, it's at the tail end of a hands-on review by a Techradar's Angela Nicholson. See: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cameras-and-camcorders/cameras/digital-slrs-hybrids/nikon-d5-1312739/review/3

Although she was able to shoot with the D5 at the exhibition launch, she wasn't allowed to take any copies away. She says that at ISO 204,800 (Hi1 extended range) the results were 'good', and even passable at ISO 409,600 (Hi2 extended range). However, she did think beyond Hi2 it was extremely noisy, with a magenta cast to boot. As she says herself until much nearer the launch in March the cameras exhibited are pre-production and may well have their performance spec. changed before then. I guess that's why Nikon is reluctant to allow too close an independent examination at this stage.

Can't see how improved ISO performance can't be a good thing though. Especially this time of year.

Cheers,

Graham

[Peter Boughton]

so you can expect image quality to suffer

Except for those who want noise (or the effects of it) in their images, in which case it may well save time in post.

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Clean straight lines are overrated.

There are very few situations where an aesthetically pleasing image will be possible when light levels are vitually non existent

And plenty of situations where poking a camera into a dark hole just to see what you get is fun even though the image may not be considered aesthetically pleasing.

This is from my old D70, which had a max ISO of 1,600 that wasn't usable for "proper" photography - would be interesting to see what the D750 at "only" 51,200 makes of it - and if Nikon want to send me a D5 to test out I'd happily see what can be got out of over 3 million.

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