100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

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Vox Sciurorum
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p.1 #1 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

I just bought a 5D III, my first Canon. I was experimenting with macro shots and noticed the camera had raised ISO from 100 to 400 (Auto ISO) because I used flash. This is documented somewhere. At first I was annoyed higher ISO = lower quality. Then I read test results showing that there is no meaningful difference in signal to noise from 100 to 400 on the 5d3, unlike Nikon where 100 and 200 test better than 400.

Do I care about the difference between ISO 100 and 400, considering I might be trying to extract detail from shadow in postprocessing?

Nov 15, 2012 at 09:36 PM

abqnmusa
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p.1 #2 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

most likely you will not see a big difference between 100 & 400
-- both should be excellent

you can always set the camera to a set ISO 100, 200, etc.

control the power on the flash in the camera menu

Nov 15, 2012 at 10:05 PM

mitesh
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p.1 #3 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

If you prefer to leave the camera in Auto ISO, you can still set the min and max ISO range for the Auto selection.

Nov 16, 2012 at 12:08 AM

Vox Sciurorum
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p.1 #4 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

I understand how to set the ISO. I'm wondering if I gain anything by lowering ISO from 400 to 100? Based on reading test results I think not, but I'd like to hear from people with experience.

Nov 16, 2012 at 12:14 AM

srxiaoj
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p.1 #5 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

I think 5D III should have a much higher acceptable iso than 400

Nov 16, 2012 at 03:11 PM

lowa2
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p.1 #6 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

lol...shooting anything under and including 6400 is fine on the mk3.

Nov 16, 2012 at 03:15 PM

fqo63ta
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p.1 #7 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

I've been doing product shots at 800 for increased DOF, then a little PP and clean up in Lightroom. They look great.

Nov 16, 2012 at 03:16 PM

mikegrados
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p.1 #8 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

As for detail between 100 and 400, I think you're safe. What you gain, is that you're flash is essentially two stops 'brighter' at the same aperture. This will save you some battery life and a deeper DoF (compensating for the increased levels w/ aperture).

Why not just go manual ISO? Even though the ISO won't change in Auto w/ flash attached, the pre-flash metering might, which would then adjust your flash output - but that's just me, I prefer to have everything in manual so that I don't have to fight the automation trying to outsmart me!

Nov 16, 2012 at 03:29 PM

Monito
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p.1 #9 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

Try the ISO 160, 320, and 640 series. There is some evidence (on 5D2) that 160 is better than 100 and 320 better than 200, etc. 5D3 may be similar.

Nov 16, 2012 at 03:35 PM

lesaus
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p.1 #10 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

Monito wrote:
Try the ISO 160, 320, and 640 series. There is some evidence (on 5D2) that 160 is better than 100 and 320 better than 200, etc. 5D3 may be similar.

I've read reports that show this is true for the 7D, also. Graphs implied that the minimum iso is 160 and that anything less is like pull-processing slide film.

I don't used less than 160 iso for sports and increment in full stops from there as needed.

Nov 16, 2012 at 08:33 PM

splathrop
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p.1 #11 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

My experience has been that higher ISO settings on my 5D II (400 instead of 100, for instance) make little difference when you have plenty of light—as you would from your flash. But when you resort to higher ISO because you are pushing to get images in low natural light, shadow problems show up, and generally force at least some exposure compensation. Quite often a plus 1/3 stop compensation suppresses the problems.

As long as you are keeping your exposures within reason, however, even without compensation you might not see anything troubling unless you make large prints. On the 5D II large prints can be very demanding, even at ISO 200.

I think that's generally true for all digital cameras, but probably to varying degrees. I hope the 5D III does better, because I'm taking delivery of one tomorrow. But I actually don't expect it to be very different. Nothing I have seen in images published online convinces me that there is a major noise advantage for the 5D III, despite what I read in comments. Love to be proved wrong.

Nov 20, 2012 at 05:58 AM

snapsy
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p.1 #12 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

Assuming the same relative exposure an ISO 100 image will capture 4x the amount of light of an ISO 400 image, which means less noise and thus more PP flexibility. You may not always need that flexibility but it's nice to have when you do.

Nov 20, 2012 at 06:24 AM

dgdg
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p.1 #13 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

I don't even think about noise on the 5DIII until I'm over iso 1000. I have family photos indoors at iso 8000 - 10,000 that are just fine for small size prints (ex, 5x7) if they have good focus and exposure.

Nov 20, 2012 at 12:54 PM

JohnBrose
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p.1 #14 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

Instead of asking opinions, why not try shooting the same scene at the different iso's you would normally use and see when the noise/grain becomes too much to you. It's different for everyone and for different subjects. I use my mk2 at 1600 and 3200+ quite a bit.

Nov 20, 2012 at 01:13 PM

jhg photo
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p.1 #15 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

Difference between ISO 100 and 400 is not a real-world issue. Even 800 is very clean.

Nov 20, 2012 at 01:26 PM

Charles Gallo
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p.1 #16 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

Would not sweat it on the 5DIII - with birds, I go higher than that all the time. MUCH cleaner sensor than the 7D I still have

Nov 20, 2012 at 01:55 PM

jerrykur
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p.1 #17 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

I don't worry about ISO until around 12,800.

Nov 20, 2012 at 02:05 PM

Monito
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p.1 #18 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

jerrykur wrote: I don't worry about ISO until around 12,800.

Your usage or standards (don't know which) are clearly very different from many other people (including me).

Nov 20, 2012 at 08:47 PM

Monito
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p.1 #19 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

A lot of the noise that shows up in high ISO pictures (ISO 1600 and above) is due to shooting in low-light situations where those have great dynamic range. This is common in low light situations: think pools of light by local illumination from home table lamps or street lamps and compare that with bright overall lighting in an office for example.

This is why it is frequently claimed that all you have to do is "expose properly" (i.e. not under-expose) to avoid a lot of noise. There is some truth to that, but it is not the whole story.

If you under-expose a low light, low dynamic range scene, you will get more noise. So be sure to give those enough exposure.

However, with a high dynamic range scene, you can expose the highlights hard to the right (lots of good exposure) and still have dark noisy shadows.

Beware of scenes that have inherent high dynamic range and use techniques appropriately (adding light to fill shadows, Expose to the Right, multi-exposure HDR, Zero-Noise 0+4 exposure merge, etc.)

Nov 20, 2012 at 08:53 PM

Vox Sciurorum
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p.1 #20 · 100 vs. 400 ISO on 5d3

JohnBrose wrote:
Instead of asking opinions, why not try shooting the same scene at the different iso's you would normally use and see when the noise/grain becomes too much to you. It's different for everyone and for different subjects. I use my mk2 at 1600 and 3200+ quite a bit.

I'm not thinking of typical scenes, more like fixing mistakes. I just got the MPE-65. From experience with macro shots on previous cameras I'm going to find some crucial detail in a deep crevice the flash doesn't fully illuminate.

On screen a properly exposed image looks fine to well over 3200 ISO. I haven't made any prints yet.

Nov 21, 2012 at 10:19 PM

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