Low light performance of D300

In a previous post I included a 3200 ISO shot of a woman traveling on a ferry at night. The exposure levels were quite low (EV 5 = Which is ten stops less light than daylight), but still not very impressive according to some. So in this post, which will deal with the low light performance of the D300, I have included an example in even lower lighting.

Compared with the D200
The big difference between this camera and the D200 is that even though I could get some good results with the D200 at 1600 ISO, this was not a constant. Reasons for this were that:

1. the metering may be off resulting in underexposed images with tonnes of noise
2. the low light levels didn't help the AF resulting in slightly unfocused images
   
3. the noise was horrible looking without the use of noise reduction and even when used, a lot of detail had to be sacrificed.

so these three reasons were why I never could use anything over 800 ISO since performance was haphazard.

This is one of the better images from the D200 at an Orthodox baptism.

Device: Nikon D200
Lens: VR 24-120mm F/3,5-5,6G
Focal Length: 120mm
Aperture: F/5,6
Shutter Speed: 1/40s
Sensitivity: ISO 1600

This 100% crop shows the quality of the D200. There is no noise reduction nor sharpening applied.

This is a D300 image taken under similar lighting conditions as the previous D200 example.

Device: Nikon D300
Lens: VR 105mm F/2,8G
Focal Length: 105mm
Focus Mode: AF-S
Aperture: F/5,6
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
Sensitivity: ISO 1600

This 100% crop shows the quality of the D300. There is no noise reduction nor sharpening applied.

The problem with my D200 was it couldn’t guarantee me the same performance under the same conditions so I had to limit my ISO to 800 (where noise was “good”).
The D300 on the other hand, is more reliable at producing good clean shots at 1600 ISO and thankfully up until now, it seems to perform at a constant nailing exposure and focusing plus delivering clean images with very good noise levels even at the extremes of low lighting as seen in the following example.

This statuette is lit by two small candles. There is some spill light coming through the door behind me from the hall way and I’m amazed at how easy it is to focus in such low lighting. The exposure is f/3 @ 1/13 sec and this is equivalent to 2 EV (corrected after being spotted by a friendly visitor). This is pretty low lighting and I doubt anyone would want to shoot in these conditions. If this isn’t impressive I don’t know what is (OK, leave the D3 out of this!).

Device: Nikon D300
Lens: VR 105mm F/2,8G
Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: F/3
Shutter Speed: 1/13s
Sensitivity: ISO 3200

This 100% crop shows the quality of the D300 at 3200 ISO. Some noise reduction and sharpening are applied.

Also of note is the remarkable noise performance of the 3200 ISO setting. Some noise reduction is applied, but of course I never dreamt that I could shoot at such settings. Still, my limit is 1600 ISO.

Now, the examples I’m posting represent what the camera is capable of. This does not mean that it will produce these kinds of results all the time. My D200 example above is what I may expect from a 10 frame try – not very good. The D300 example above is what I may expect from a 4 frame try – not bad and a big improvement.

Happy shooting!