ISO Performance at low ISOs (ISO 100-800)
Let’s take a look at how the Nikon D810 performs at low ISOs. Here are some crops at ISO 64, 100, 200, 400 and 800 at pixel level:
The images look very nice with no noticeable noise between ISO 64 and ISO 400. At ISO 800, we can see a slight hint of noise, but it does not affect any details or colors.
23) High ISO Performance (ISO 1600-51200)
High ISO performance is a very important measure of DSLR sensor quality for low-light photography. Here is how the Nikon D810 performs at high ISO levels between ISO 1600 and 51200:
Every step up in ISO adds a slight amount of grain. We can see those shadow areas start to get impacted at ISO 3200.
At ISO 6400 there is a lot more noise throughout the image, but the shadow areas still look relatively clean. Unfortunately, ISO 12800 basically doubles the amount of noise and the shadow areas are now badly affected.
The last two ISO settings, ISO 25600 and 51200 are pretty much useless, thanks to the severe loss of colors and details. You might get an OK image at ISO 25600 if you are willing to heavily down-sample, but I don’t think you will get far at ISO 51200, as it looks bad even at sRAW, which has 1/4 the resolution.
It is hard to judge the performance of the Nikon D810 without direct comparisons to other professional cameras, which is why you should definitely check out the next page.
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