F70EXR -- Low to High ISO Ladders

I've been thinking that the F70EXR seems to be surprisingly low in noise. It seems to create relatively smooth looking results. right up to 3200ISO. The latter takes quite the hit on detail, of course, but still looks ok for web sized images.

Anyway, there's nothing quite like the ISO ladder to show you the degradation as ISO changes. The key, of course, is to change only that variable. Keep everything else the same. Of course, you will need to compensate for raising ISO by shortening shutter speeds in order to keep exposures identical.

I shot the ladder twice ... once at 5mp and again at 10mp. I used manual mode, since I needed long shutter speeds and the auto modes will not drop below 1/4s. Sheesh ...

Anyway, without further delay ...

The 10mp ladder goes from 100 to 1600 ISO ...


The 5mp ladder goes from 100 to 3200 ISO ...


What I see here is that the 10mp images are decent at 100 through 400 ISO, but chroma noise really ramps up at 800 ISO. The 5mp images hold on right through to 3200 ISO.

I still don't see much of a reason to shoot 10mp ... YMMV of course.