I'm sure we'd all prefer to shoot at ISO 100 but a combination of long lenses and poor light usually conspire to prevent this. So what are the best techniques to reduce noise to a bare minimum?
At the moment I'm using auto iso up to a maximum of ISO 800, shooting in raw and cleaning up images in the photoshop neat image plug-in. On the whole this seems to work fairly well unless I need to severely crop the original image (last resort).
Whilst I believe the most recent models from both Nikon and Canon are notable for their high ISO performance outside of laboratory conditions is there really that much of a difference between the image noise of eg. D200 and D300 or 30D and 40D. In my experience as long as you're shooting raw getting the exposure spot on appears to be the single most important factor in reducing noise.
[QUOTE=ikw101;1121574]In my experience as long as you're shooting raw getting the exposure spot on appears to be the single most important factor in reducing noise.[/QUOTE]
Getting the exposure right really is the key. I've found that when the exposure is spot on at ISO800 I don't need to do any noise reduction. If you're going to get it wrong go a bit over rather than a bit under, brightening an image defintely makes noise worse.
I go along with Peter, I try to expose to the right (without blowing the highlights of course) so that when I process I do not need to push the exposure. If you under expose and push the exposure during processing it will create noise.