Camera Noise

[ntractv]

I was at a wedding this past weekend and just happened to have the opportunity to chat with the photographer shooting the event who is a loca professional. It was using two Canon 10D units as well as I and he made mention that I should never shoot the camera over 800 ISO due to camera noise. What exactly is camera noise? I didn't want to bother him to much, but, he was quite helpful all evening so I didn't bother going into the noise topic, well, because he was working.

So what is it?

[Darius Wey]

In simple terms, you can think of camera noise as "static" across your picture.

But I suppose the best way is to see it yourself. Have a look at the two pictures in this thread (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=48409) and you will know what I am talking about. It's not hard to work out that the second picture is the better looking one. :D

[flooder]

The short story.

Anytime you involve analog sensors there is going to be noise invovled. When you go to a high ISO ie 3200 you are turning the gain way up on the system. As you increase the gain you increase the Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) and it shows up in the photo.

[ntractv]

I gotcha. So it would be almost the same as when shooting 35mm film. At 3200 it would be much grainer than say at 100/200. Same principle?