Which is worse HIGH ISO film grain or ISO digital noise?

[jerry_schuler]

<p>Let's say I wanted to shoot color at ISO 800. Is film graininess at ISO 800 better, more acceptable, than the noise from a D60 at ISO 800? Are there other film factors involved with high ISO?</p>

 

[sattler123]

<p>You should have close to zero noise at ISO800 with any DSLR. Just expose correctly and you will be fine. ISO 800 film, esp. color is a different matter - grain is unavoidable and will stand out. I never shot color film above ISO 200. B&W is a different story - I've pushed TriX to 1250, developed it in Diafine and the results are great.</p>

[jerry_schuler]

<p>Thank you. That's what I wanted to know.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>High ISO digital noise and film grain have very different characteristics. "Worse" and "better" are entirely subjective and matters of personal aesthetics.</p>

<p>Some viewers find film grain either less unappealing or actually find it appealing. I suspect this is due in part to familiarity. We've seen film grain for many generations.</p>

<p>High ISO digital noise comes in two flavors: Luminance, which resembles film grain; and chrominance, which looks like blotchy discolored areas and there is no counterpart in any film I've seen. I've long suspected that this blotchy discoloration is what gives digital noise a bad reputation.</p>

<p>Fortunately, digital noise is easily fixed in software. The blotchy chroma noise is the most easily fixed, with no loss of detail. Luminance noise is tricky - too much noise reduction in this area impairs sharpness.</p>

<p>Since film grain most closely resembles luminance noise, it's very difficult to reduce in software without also compromising sharpness.</p>

[a._valerio]

<p>I think luminance noise from digital cameras and film grain are very similar...the line blurs even more when one scans a slide or negative, because scanners introduce luminance (and also chroma) noise of their own.</p>

<p>Personally, I don't believe that photos have to be totally free of grain just because digital cameras at low and moderate ISOs aren't plagued by lots of noise. While purists might say all noise and grain is a bad thing, I think it can be an effective artistic tool if used properly. The human eye searches for edges constantly, and noise can create the illusion of higher sharpness in some cases. In addition, I have successfully applied faux grain to images in post production. Sometimes, it can help to hide low-frequency digital artifacts that could only be removed by using a noise-fltration algorithm that tends to soften the image.</p>

<p>So noise ain't always bad, and can sometimes be just as useful as grain.</p>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

<p>Sometimes grain looks right for a photo. And well-behaved (luminance) digital noise doesn't bother me either. On the other hand, I love the smooth grain-free tonality I get from large format film.</p>

[dangoldman]

<blockquote>

<p>You should have close to zero noise at ISO800 with any DSLR.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Thats funny... my 350D, which is similar to the D60 in terms of its target market, gets quute noisy at 800, and is unuseable at 1600 for anything other than straight documentary purposes.</p>

[John Crowe]

<p>In my opinion they are both bad, so I'd take the DSLR over film, just for simplicity sake. Pesonally, I rarely shot anything other than ISO 25 and 50 on film, and I rarely shoot anything beyond ISO 100 on my DSLRs. Of course the newer more expensive DSLRs are getting better all the time, but I have also heard that low ISO output suffers for the benefit of high ISO output.</p>

<p>It is too bad that both Nikon and Canon have a model called D60. I think that this is the only occurence, as long as Nikon does not come out with a D30. Perhaps Canon should have sued Nikon when Nikon released their D60! </p>

[rossb]

<p>The 35mm film grain will be more noticeable then the D60 noise at ISO 800. Acceptable or not would be up to you to determine that..For my own preference I do not shoot 800 speed film ever but I will shoot my D200 at ISO 800. </p>

[roman_p]

<p >I don’t use ISO 800 films. In my opinion the better way to achieve high quality ISO 800 file it’s to use one of E-6 emulsion with pushed processing. A couple months ago I posted the thread asking about pushing E-6 films opinions. I’ve got several helpful advices from some of our members. For my preferences I found that the new Provia 400X happily accepts pushing. When it’s pushed to +1 stop color became even better; contrast gets slightly higher and there’s hardly noticeable the grain size increase (if any). And it looks way better than Fuji Press 800. More over, during the scanning you always can apply grain reduction option (GEM) without scarifying sharpness. I guess it’s much more convenient way than fighting the noise on digital camera files. </p>