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Nick, took you longer to write out that self destruction then to read the post didnt it

Bob, i understand that post that u posted and i m intrested in this, i started to think about this when you started the native ISO thread or some one ellse about the D300...after trying to undertant that link that you posted on serveral Nikon models and thier ISO whilst with the Cannon camera there as well, i really dont understand that diagram/table at all, so my cameras native ISO should be 100 (acorading to the table) if i interpretated it well enought?

EDIT: and from looking at that thread how come the D40x has a better Saturation e, then all other Nikon camers expect the D3? doesnt that make you wonder a bit? or i m a lost here when it comes to staring at that table?

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The "LO" case is just the scenario in the graph where, when the selected ISO is lower than native, the S/N ratio actually decreases again and you probably end up with blown highlights. My take on the "HI" case (and it's only a guess) is that it's provided in case you desperately need it but by marking it thus the manufacturer is effectively saying "nothing to do with us, squire".

Bob.

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Works I guess , to my mind, the HI1.0 of ISO3200 is always pictured to be behind warning signs and flashing lights.

I wonder if manufacturers "optimize" the camera's native ISO? For example, the Canon 1D would have a native ISO of 800, it being a sports photographer's camera.

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Hi alex168,

Well, unfortunately that table doesn't include a measured ISO for the D40x, just the manufacturer stated 'base' ISO. If you would like to work it out the instructions and software needed are here. If you do then please post the results in this thread.

In general, I would treat the results in that table with some caution. The only two camera models where there are two entries (the D3 and the D300) seem to have produced surprisingly different results in some of the columns but the measured ISO results are pretty consistent. It's a shame the manufacturers don't publish the numbers themselves but I guess they think we don't need to know.

Bob.

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Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Well i m going to drop an email to Nikon, and ask? has anyone though about that? And you might want to do the same for Cannon?

Edit: i m going to call them isntead and find out, now i wonder what native ISO is in swedish

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UPDATE: after giving the tech support a call here in sweden to speak about the native ISO of my camera this is how the coverstaion whent

"Welcome to Nikon tech support how can i help"
"Hello my name is alex, and i was wondernig about the Nativo ISO of my D40x"
"Hmmmm"
"Do you knw what native ISO is"
"No, i dont"
"Here i explained a bit about the native ISO"
"He siad yeah i think i understand now"
"Ok, good so what can you tell me"
"Yeah we dont have that avliable at all"
"How come, i dont really know its not something some one has ever asked"
"Dont you think this is a bit odd, because myself as photographer i want to obtaine the best quality of an image as possbile and not knowthing this fact i can get good shot but not perfect ones"
"Yeah that is ture, but i m sorry i dont ahve anything on that"
"How come youd dont have this info avaliable for your costumers, is there anywhere i can get this information or turn to"
"Have you checked the nikon.com website"
"Of course, thats why i m calling"
"Well here in Europe you wont find that inforamtion, maybe you should try Nikon USA, they love statistics (haha)"
"Ok, bye"

Was a lill longer but that was pretty much it: in conclusion so to speak the guy had no info avaliable waht so ever and stated that this is a info that just inst avlaibale and i had the feeling that this could bea converstaion that would have gone about for hours so i just didnt bother anymore. Seems to me as if this is a mistery!

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Yup, that's what happens when you take support personnel out of their comfort zone. As Gordon said earlier, the manufacturers make it pretty clear that these "lower than base" ISO numbers shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary. As the D40x doesn't have such a setting I think you are safe.

Bob.

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I understood Bobs explanation perfectly...nothing really hard about it.


Its just like underclocking a cpu, you would THINK that by underclocking it would become cooler and more stable, NOT the case, and if anything can make it more unstable than overclocking.


(something like that anyway lol!)


Also - to throw something in the mix here.

Canon 40D has Highlight Tone Priority and only lets me select the lowest ISO as ISO 2oo ... not 200 or 100. Any reason for this? As I thought increasing the ISO above the native (on the 40D being ISO 100) would decrease Dynamic Range and Contrast.

Any takers on that one

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Hi Daniel,

My assumption is that by limiting you to a minimum ISO of 200 Canon are effectively providing roughly an extra stop of headroom before full-well capacity is reached. That wouldn't be possible if ISO 100 were settable because of the nature of 'base' or native ISO as discussed above.

If the camera always had complete authority to set whatever shutter speed and aperture it wanted this wouldn't be necessary as the camera could either decrease the shutter speed or increase the f-number to underexpose the image and so protect the highlights from blowing due to full-well capacity being reached. The underexposure could then be corrected by amplifying the signal before the image is stored on the CF card. The trouble is that the camera cannot sensibly lie about either shutter speed or aperture else you'd have photographers complaining about incorrect motion blur or flash sync or, in the case of aperture, incorrect depth of field. So all Canon can do is allow you to set ISO 200 as a minimum.

I'm certainly no expert on this and I find good information is pretty hard to find. I'm also, as long term members know, just a happy snapper at heart so that might explain why I'm at a loss to know why anyone would want to enable HTP. Surely a 'pro' would far rather deliberately underexpose an image manually by an amount of his or her choosing and then correct the underexposure in post-processing? That would potentially allow for a finer degree of control than the apparent 1eV that I'm assuming that HTP imposes.

Bob.

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Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hey everybody,

I think this is a great subject , and in fact i was just listening to a podcast called TWiP(this week in photography) and they where talkin about this very thing. I would have posted it now but I am having a hard time finding it, and I wasn't sure if it was okay to post the link once I find it.

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Nikon D50, Nikon 50mm f/1.8

great topic, and makes perfect sense.

alex, our cameras are virtually the same and weither my untested suspicions mean anything to you, ive always felt ISO 200 was better for some reason than the rest. this would make sense if this is all correct.

guess ill go do some tests.

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I personally would'nt mind having access to lower ISO's although at a cost of quality.. I mean, my camera starts at 200, and I find that's not optimal for longer exposures in daylight. Means for instance I cannot use f/1,8 in daylight. (I am getting a ND soon) but ISO 64 or 100 would do the trick.

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That'll be fine, I'm sure.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Bob I understand what you are posting on, but I think that getting that data from the camera company will be hard as I would guess that the data we would want is closely guarded. But if we new this it would make it possible to compare cameras at there best quality shot the sensor could give.

Thats a LOL

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