High ISO does NOT cause NOISE! (but f/Stop & Shutter do!)

Great video. The reason high ISO (or ASA for us old people) film lead to grainy images is because the silver halide grains in the film were physically larger than the grains in lower ISO film. I love nerding out on things like that.

So what brand of fil... er, brand of camera was used in the testing? Or is one of the givens that Canon, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, whatever all behave the same?
And why not show a set of properly exposed pictures that vary the ISO/aperture/shutter speed in a range of combinations ALL OF WHICH ARE GOOD EXPOSURES???

Short take away, yeah it is a speedometer, if you need to use high ISO, your probably in a noise creating situation.

But at the same time, High ISO isn't very useful is it unless your editing heavily in post. Iso is not the cause, It's the symptom.

You have no idea about electronics.

I learned something today. Thank you!

This is an eye opener. Thanks

But there clearly IS an ISO dial so it must DO something. But what ???

Thank you a lot 🙏 I have also subscribed

iso EXPOSES noise

Thanks

This blow my mind . How to avoid noise in daylight with short shutter speed and mid f stop

I have been struggling with this, thank you for making it make sense

Just set your max auto iso to 400 and you'll be forced to compensate.

Technically, high ISO gains the noise. But who cares about technical facts. Your point of view is much more usable. You are wonderful tony 😍

Noisy and high ISO images are now a thing of the past. You don't need to worry about it any more. Use Light Room Classic Denoise button in the develop section to remove the noise from your images and free yourself from this photographic restriction. Once you have tried this you will never not use it again.

Then why are my ISO 52,000 astrophotography shots noisy when shot at f/4 with 30n second exposures 🤔

i've been struggling with noise, even in daytime pics with lots of light, i'm still learning to balance all of these shutters, Aperature, ect. Thank you for this video!

Wow you have just crushed my whole photography knowledge and I thank tou

My guy, I have no idea where your 1.59M subscribers came from because you lack a fundamental understanding of cameras.

This could be the silliest thing I've seen!

"High ISO does NOT cause NOISE!"
Trivially true. High ISO amplifies noise. It is not the cause. The cause is primarily thermal noise on the image sensor, exacerbated by tiny pixels (high pixel count, small sensor size).

I think there is a big misconception here. The thing causing noise is simply an under exposed image and trying to recover the shadows digitally. Not the incorrect settings, or so I believe.

So in other words, expose to the right, especially when you are shooting in low light. Is that any different from what we have been being told forever?

Hi, I have Sony a7r3 and Sony 35mm f1.8 and the Sony kit lens 28-70mm.... i took low light images with same shutter speed, same iso and same aperture f4. All at 35mm..... Full frame.... The kit lens had much more noise as the prime lens..... Could you please explain this.... thx. JvR.

Very informative video, thanks a lot. But... if I am shooting sports in a hall with low light and I am forced to use a very short shutterspeed and relative high aperture to get things sharp, then ISO is the thing adding noise, right?

I am just learning, but from what I worked out , you set your max iso at a lower or good setting for your camera so that it forces you to have to change exposure and apature to obtain actual light not just gain.

Really enjoy your videos! You have a very easy way of explaining things. Thank you!

So, would you explain why many refer to explain ISO as Light Speed ?

Great info. But what about filming @ 25 frames and 1/50 shutterspeed?

probably you are saying it later in the vid (hope so)

But it's the lack of light, that causes noise (i think). It's the signal to noise ratio, what's important here.
and with higher iso, they crank up the voltage of the sensor, therefore your noise ratio is higher.

So i guess i am disagreeing with you here. Higher ISO does cause more noise, but the main culprit in the story is the lack of light. And because higher ISO's are being used at lower light environments, it's easy to point your finger at the ISO, it's just a little bit more complicated then that.

I was familiar with the concept but have never seen it explained so succinctly. Well done!

The real question for me is would there be any noise added electronically if I shoot under sufficient lighting, such as in broad daylight, at the high ISOs, such as at > ISO 3600 vs. 100-200 ISO -- or there will be no perceivable difference under such good lighting conditions?

Super helpful. I'm anxious to try this with my Sony A7IV as I've been wondering why my low-light concert photos weren't as crisp as I'd have liked.

i think the test should not use Dual gain sensor...

Curious to how this will affect abient light when using a flash. I'm THINKING ISO will increase the ambient (also slower shutter) but using a lower flash, I'm wondering how things will go.

Geez! I just took my iPhone XS into my dark bathroom, so dark I can't make out my face, tried some settings with 1 second shutter, 2500ISO, and it looks like daylight. I am shocked how low of noise and brightness it is. Still noisy, but for a slightly older smartphone, I am very impressed with what a little understanding of cameras can do!

Bottom line is a properly exposed image at iso 100 will have much less noise, more color depth and higher dynamic range than a properly exposed image at iso 6400, just the facts ma'am. Light is the key to a good photograph and your ability to interpret it..

I’d like to see the noise comparison between two shots where you don’t use digital post to increase exposure equivalence. Which may be introducing digital artifacts. The best way to test this, as I see it, is to take 2 manual pictures with the lens cap on. Shoot the two images at base ISO and max ISO. Leave the correct exposure variable out of the mix. Do they booth produce black images or is one black with noise from the sensor?

I found similar results while photographing spiders. I'm happy that you validated my speculatiom

Great information. Thank you for sharing this as has helped changed my perspective. I am attempting to apply this insight to getting better drone footage at night. I have been having trouble getting the right settings to reduce noise while still getting enough brightness in the key areas of the image. The aperture is fixed so its been coming down to adjustments in the shutter speed and ISO. I have also found that that for the Anafi PLOG produces the better footage. And that HDR adds a ton of noise. Do you have any recommended settings for capturing night video via Drone?

Hi Tony, I own a canon r5, I got noise with setting shutter speed: 1/125, iso: 400 and aperture: f5. Similar noise was also present with the same aperture and shutter speed except for the iso which was 6400… what am I doing wrong..? Is this something with Lightroom or the camera is faulty?

Best tip I can give for low light environments is turn on a light. 😜

Thank you so much Tony

Mr. Northrop you have saved me, I have a Canon 90D and Sigma Art 18-35 F/1.8, my pictures always show noise even at base ISO, I was ready to quit and now I have watched and tested what you have said I have got rid of the noise problem. A massive thank you.

What is the maximum magnification at which I should be analysing my pictures for noise or overall quality. I have a Nikon D5300.

I think that while in theory this is true, and perhaps people misinterpret this because they are told this idea that high ISO creates noise (which, in reality, there is some level of noise at ALL ISOs, even ISO 100 or your base ISO, it may just not be detectable by the computer screen) but for many, I think whether it's aperture or shutter speed, any time someone is forced to increase their ISO they view this as the culprit, simply because sometimes you can't use a flash (might be not allowed where you are at), maybe you don't have a fast lens, and maybe moving your subject some where else is not an option either, so you have to increase the ISO and thus, people tend to associate this with noise. But also sometimes these are things we have to accept as well as photographers. Whether it's the ISO, shutter speed or aperture, somtimes we are just forced to shoot in situations where any way you slice it, noise will occur and we have to go from there, doesn't matter necessarily how you divvy it up (say you're shooting wildlife at dawn or dusk and you're lens is already wide open). However, I am curious and always under the impression that if you had to lift shadows in post, that you would tend to lose a bunch of contrast, more so than if you had just shot a a higher ISO. I guess I'll have to play around with my cameras, but going back to the original part of the comment, I think while the technical reasoning is correct, most people will associate all three to be contributors to noise since in some cases, you selected your aperture (perhaps for enough DOF) and you've selected your shutter speed (either for handholding, ie. fast enough to avoid blur, or to freeze motion simply) and so the third element has to be used (ISO) but you may end up with a noisy image regardless, and I guess what I'm saying is that the average photographer views it as a whole and isn't gong to break things down. Obviously we are taught to do things like open up the aperture to let in more light if feasible or if aperture isn't critical for the shot, or increase shutter speed and that ISO is like you said, a speedometer, which is often is portrayed as this in terms of sensitivity of the sensor though.

wow amazing

Thank you so much, this is great!