I have received some really good feedback and criticism of the first post on buying gear for concert photography.
This has solely revolved around my statements on Digital ISO and how it works.
Many readers have pointed out in one way or another the inaccuracies in my original statement what constitutes digital noise at high ISO settings. I am grateful to all who have commented either here or on the Flickr Concert Photography group.
I thought I would take this opportunity to thank those people and to follow this up a little bit more to remove any confusion I may have caused.
I would still like to keep this fairly simple as its more technical explanation can be found elsewhere such as this wikipedia post on film speed.
The ISO setting on digital cameras relates to the sensitivity of the image sensor.
The higher the ISO setting on the camera the higher the more sensitive the sensor is to light. The constant development of new sensors means that the quality of an image at higher ISO is continually improving. This means that there is less ‘noise’ or ‘grain’ at higher settings.
My opinion is that it would be unfair to compare this with the ISO rating standards created for film despite its implementation being based upon it.
In my previous post I attempted to describe the adverse affects of digital noise which is associated with high ISO on digital cameras.
Whilst the effects of fuzzy edges or soft images as a result of ‘noise compensation’ are a knock on effect of the ISO you set, it is not the core factor within the workings of Digital ISO and is more to do with how the processor deals with noise reduction.
To try and steer this a little more into the original purpose of these posts, the improvements to digital sensors are passed on through all products over time.
Although the latest pro-market digital bodies will have the best sensor in them right now, the introduction-end market will quite possibly have the ‘best sensor’ from last year or the year before.
It may well be that if you are looking for your first camera this is all you need to get the ball rolling.
