Nikon D3s ISO samples: IS0 100 to 102,400

<p>Hannah Thiem, 13 others, and myself got a chance to shoot with the new Nikon D3s last Tuesday night at a dress rehearsal of The Big Apple Circus.</p>

<p>In the below linked gallery you will find full resolution 1000x1000 pixel crops shot at the D3s Big Apple Circus event on October 20, 2009 at all full stop ISO settings from 100 to 102,400. The final image is an uncropped view. <br /> <br /> Exposure and processing information is included but the basics are that the camera was set for lossless 14 Bit NEF mode and High ISO noise reduction was set to "Low".</p>

<p>Exposures were:<br>

ISO 100 = 1.3 seconds @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 200 = 0.66 seconds @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 400 = .33 second @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 800 = 1/6th second @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 1600 = 1/13th @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 3200 = 1/25th @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 6400 = 1/50th @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 12800 = 1/100th @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 25,600 = 1/200th @ f/5.6<br>

<br /> ISO 51,200 = 1/400th @ f/5.6</p>

<p >ISO 102,400 = 1/640th @ f/5.6 ( something changed in the lighting, camera settings remained the same.)<br>

<br /> The files were looked at in Nikon ViewNX and then sent to Photoshop for cropping, captioning, conversion to the sRGB color space and saved as level 12 (i.e. minimal) compression. <br /> <br /> No sharpening in the NEF processing or in post processing. Active D-lighting was turned off in hte camera and D-Lighting was turned off in Nikon ViewNX. Beyond what is described above no other processing was done. The HTML Web gallery was created in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.5</p>

<p>photo.net won't let me post the link! Thanks! find me on facebook and I'll point you to it.</p>

<p>Feel free to share the link or post it in your blogs.<br /> <br /> Ellis Vener</p>

<hr>

<p><a href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples"><strong>http://preview.tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples</strong> </a> <br /> <a href="http://tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples"><strong>http://tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples</strong> </a> <br /> <strong><br /> </strong> <br /> <i>At the moment I'm not able to find out why the original link to Ellis' site isn't being accepted, so I've temporarily disabled the tinyurl block. The first link should be a preview, a sort of "safety" built into the tinyurl system. The second should link directly to Ellis' site. -- LJ</i></p>

<p>There's no pics?</p>

<p>Brian -</p>

<p>Read the 2nd to last line of the post - PN won't post the link.... go to Ellis' Facebook page to get it.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>Only works if you are a friend of Ellis. Drats. I am super curious to see the results.</p>

<p>It would be interesting to see the examples. BUT the D3s is a $5100 camera. Not in my wildest dreams will I ever own one.</p>

<p>Brooks, you don't dream wild enough. Come on, live a little.</p>

<p>Besides, in two years, it won't be $5100, used that is.</p>

<p>I've e-mailed Ellis for the link to see if I can squeeze it back into his original post. Photo.net's spam filters are occasionally a little aggressive and may block some useful sites. The consequences of having to deal with the usual onslaught of spammers for shoes, electronics, etc., which sometimes use clever redirects from blog links. Even tiny url is blocked now.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Even tiny url is blocked now.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Poor Tiny, I kind of feel sorry for him... or her...</p>

<p>You could always take a screen shot of the URL bar (print screen), crop it, and add upload it to your posting :D<br /> <br /> I'd like to see the filters block that.</p>

<p>Here's one for you, Lex<br>

Note: Its caps sensitive</p>

<div></div>

<p>Testing link...</p>

<p><a href="http://preview.tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples"><strong>http://preview.tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples</strong> </a> <br /> <a href="http://tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples"><strong>http://tinyurl.com/Nikon-D3s-ISO-samples</strong> </a> <br /> <strong><br /> </strong> <br /> At the moment I'm not able to find out why the original link to Ellis' site isn't being accepted, so I've temporarily disabled the tinyurl block. The first link should be a preview, a sort of "safety" built into the tinyurl system. The second should link directly to Ellis' site.</p>

<p>Okay, that should work as a sort of kludge for now. I'll copy and paste the links to the original post.</p>

<p>As far as I can tell, photo.net has a sitewide filter to minimize the number of times a single type or URL, website or blog can be repeated in the forums. This is because so many folks (not Ellis) have been trying to use photo.net to bump their Google prominence by tagging every post with a signature URL. It would be nice if we could accommodate this for our most valued participants but unfortunately too many people join photo.net just to hype their personal blogs and don't contribute anything else.</p>

<p>Thanks, Ellis, for providing this info.</p>

<p>The link works as a dream.... Thanks Ellis (& Lex)!</p>

<p>Thanks, Ellis. That's pretty damn astounding.</p>

<p>I think there is a growing consensus that clicking on a TinyURL link is very risky, because you don't know where it is going. I was under the impression that this forum would replace a long link with (link) or something like that? Anyway, on with the ISO tests! I was very impressed with ISO 6400 on my old D700. And ISO 3200 isn't so bad on my D300 either.</p>

<p>Grrrrr eat I want one so I can shoot at ISO 102.400 on a pitch black night and finally be able to photograph one of those little elves that live in my closet. Iso 6400 is not making it, they way too fast.</p>

<p>looks like a clean 3200, the noise starts to show at 6400.</p>

<p>thanks for the links, Ellis!</p>

<p>Golly, it's getting to where fast glass isn't THAT important :-/</p>

<p>That is great and glad to see some real world data. In looking at the blue stars at the top of the image, you can certainly see noise at 1600 and it is more pronounced at 3200. Guess I would love to see the D3s vs D3 or D700 in a similar noise comparison to see if it is really 'better' in terms of noise.</p>

<p>Ellis,<br>

Thanks for sharing these links. I can see all the images.<br>

So, this is not meant to be pain but what is your point? Are you posting these for us to make up our minds or are making a statement?<br>

What are you thots about it so far?</p>

 

<p>Remarkable.<br>

Thanks for sharing, and welcome back.</p>

<p>Very interesting results. Not sure if it is the subject matter, or what, but the transition in some of those blacks bothers me. That said, as someone who hates noise and pretty much never does anything to deal with it (a skill I really need to learn), I think it is usable all the way through ISO 1600. The ISOs of 3200 and 6400 might be usable for black and white.</p>

<p>Very nice testing though. And a big thank you.</p>

<p>What person, who is in the grip of their faculties, is seriously going to use 100,000 ISO when all you do is say the magic 5 letter word:</p>

<p>SB800</p>

<p>Who really gives a rats.</p>

<p>....or shoot at a wide aperture, and drop the iso by 4 stops. nikon should concentrate more on getting some decent primes to compete with canon rather than pissing about with useless iso 100 000.</p>

<p>Thanks Ellis!</p>