In the past week, I’ve continued to explore the low light capabilities of the Nikon D700 after the sun has set. After all, the early evening is one of the times when the D700 with its high tech light-gathering sensor should be very useful. And isn’t the big draw of the D700 its “advertised” high ISO performance?
To help satisfy my curiosity, I made a few simple, inpromptu tests. Here’s the first:
- Choose a colorful subject: how about a red children’s wagon?
- Wait until it’s fairly dark outside: after 9PM Eastern Daylight Time
- Use a quality, high speed lens: the Nikor 50mm f/1.4 fits this bill
- Vary the ISO setting and shoot
- Shoot jpeg, fine quality images
I’ll let the photos do the talking:
 ISO 1600 1/25 f/2.5 time: 9:03PM |
 ISO 3200 1/40 f/3.2 time: 9:03PM |
 ISO 6400 1/50 f/3.5 time: 9:03PM |
Based on the red wagon, I conclude that any of the photos made with the above ISO settings are pretty impressive considering the lighting conditions. If you enlarge any of the images, you’ll see that the reds are saturated, the lettering is sharp and the noise level very good. The D700 has easily passed my first test.
A week later, I continue testing. The calendar is now saying mid-August so the daylight is fading earlier than when I first photographed the wagon. The time is about 8:45 PM. Instead of a red wagon, I am now shooting a dark barberque grill in my backyard. I’ve chosen the grill because it has writing on the front - good for comparing resolution at the different ISO settings.
 ISO 1600 1/50 f/1.4 time: 8:46PM click to see full image |
 ISO 3200 1/50 f/2.0 time: 8:47PM click to see full image |
 ISO 6400 1/50 f/2.8 time: 8:47PM click to see full image |
I conclude that for shooting the dark subject with white lettering, the D700 seems to perform best at ISO 3200. At this setting, the sharpness of the text is high and the noise level is acceptable. At ISO 1600, there is a lot of noise surrounding the white lettering. At ISO 6400, the lettering is losing its sharpness. This test isn’t as impressive as the red wagon test, but the light is lower and the subject darker. Yet at ISO 3200, the photo is acceptable considering the time of day.
As a note, all of the photos here are unretouched, only cropped to fit into this article. You can view the original full-size photo by clicking on the individual image.
For most of my picturetaking, I capture using jpeg fine, so all of these images are in the jpeg format rather than RAW. It’s possible that by using RAW, you may be able to squeeze a little noise from images shot in such low light.
There was nothing very scientific with these two tests. As I mentioned, I was just curious to see how my new Nikon D700 performs in very low light. So far, Im quite impressed. Why not devise your own test to share with other picturetakers?
August 15th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
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August 16th, 2008 at 7:18 am
You are correct when you say this test is nothing scientific. Your test of the grill shows purple fringing, this is a lens characteristic visible at high contrast areas (in this case, white on black), and it has nothing to do with the sensor noise performance.
The reason why you’re seeing less of that purple fringing around the text at 3200 and 6400 is because you’re stopping down the lens from 1.4 to 2.0 and 2.8 in last two shots.
August 16th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Thanks Gus for your explanation of what you feel is causing the fringing. I’m surprised to see that this lens performs worse at f/2.8 than at f/2.0
August 17th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
[...] are for you! First up, Arnie’s journal has a newborn D700 update! D700 comparability shots at ISO 1600, 3200 and 6400. Arnie is beatific making acquirable full-size JPEGs on his blog… And how does the D700 [...]