D60 - natural ISO sensitivity

[ElizabethAtkinson]

I am doing a photography workshop and as part of my work I need to find the natural or neutral ISO sensitivity (which the D60 is at its happiest and provides the best images that it is capable of doing).

I was told I can find this information on the intranet by googling - wrong, well I couldn't find it anyhow.

Would anyone out there know the natural/neutral ISO value for the D60 camera sensor (which apparently doesn't necessarily need to be the lowest value the camera can reach).

Thanks.

[arthurking83]

D60 uses the old D200's 10Mp sensor, so native base ISO should be ISO100.

In general(well at least with Nikon camera's) Native ISO is always the lowest NUMBERED ISO value.

So if you're camera can do ISO200, and ISO Lo1, then even though it can technically do ISO100(which is Lo1) ISO200 is still the native(or base) ISO.
The ISO levels that are marked 'Lo1' , Lo 0.3 or Lo 0.7 may be lower in value but are not calibrated ISO settings.

There are some specific reasons why you wouldn't want to use an ISO value lower than base ISO, but that's not part of the question.

:)

[super duper]

In general(well at least with Nikon camera's) Native ISO is always the lowest NUMBERED ISO value.

So if you're camera can do ISO200, and ISO Lo1, then even though it can technically do ISO100(which is Lo1) ISO200 is still the native(or base) ISO.
The ISO levels that are marked 'Lo1' , Lo 0.3 or Lo 0.7 may be lower in value but are not calibrated ISO settings.

There are some specific reasons why you wouldn't want to use an ISO value lower than base ISO, but that's not part of the question.


My D300s manual sayes to mainly use at ISO 200. but the lowest available numbered ISO is 100. And, if you don't mind me picking your brain further, why are lower ISOs (ie Lo1 etc) bad?

[arthurking83]

So the D300s has ISO 100, instead of ISO Lo1?.. or does it have ISO 100 and ISO Lo1?(which therefore means that Lo1 is equal to ISO 50.

Anyhow..

why using non calibrated ISO's is 'bad' is kind of trivial, but could be important.

There is already a thread floating around on the topic of ISO, but in brief(LOL.. something foreign to me!!)

Short story:
Lo1 ISO doesn't allow you as much flexibility to recover highlight detail.

Long story:
When you set to Lo1, instead of the camera shooting at ISO100(I'm using the D300 as the example, but the workings of ISO are the same for all cameras), when you set to Lo1, what happens is that the camera takes the exposure at ISO200(the base/native ISO) and then the camera processes the image with -1Ev compensation.
Obviously it's exposing more brightly at ISO200 than it would normally do so, otherwise your ISO Lo1 image will turn out too dark.
But that's where the problem is, in the ISO200 step. Because it has to expose at ISO200 and then process the image, the ISO200 image has to be exposed with +1Ev compensation, so that the camera can then create the correct exposure level for the resulting ISO Lo1 file.
Of course all this is automagic, and quick, so you never know what's happening and there is never any delay in shooting. But the final result is that the highlights may not be either as easy to recover or as detailed when using ISO Lo1 compared to ISO200.
On the other hand the shadow detail is easier and cleaner to recover in Lo1 compared to ISO200, so I'm always shooting for the highlights, even if they're unimportant.
That is, I'll allow them to blow to a degree for certain images, but I'm always mindful of this situation.

having said that, I still use ISO Lo1 most of the time, unless I absolutely have to blow the highlights which I know will be recoverable in PP.
I know that CaptureNX and ViewNX can recover highlight detail by up to about -2Ev if I use ISO200, whereas if I use Lo1, this is simply not possible.
I reckon just under -1Ev compensation is about the maximum you could recover(with 100% quality that is).

Note, main reason I don't tend to use ISO200 on the D300 is that I try to keep post processing to an absolute minimum, and a lot of that sems to be in sharpening/USM.
If I use ISO200, I never do any overall sharpening(just a habit I've picked up) as the blue channel seems to pick up a lot of graininess with a medium amount of sharpening(blue skies are the obvious example).
There is a noticeable difference if I use ISO Lo1 when I do wholesale USM on the image and there is neglible to nil graining in blue skies when I use Lo1.
if I use ISO200, I always tend to do selective USM over the detail parts of the image... Boring tedious and not really a lot of fun and excitement... well not compared to going out and capturing more images!!

I don't have a lot of experience with higher ISO's.. such as Hi1 and so forth... I use them, but only in AutoISO mode.
I never really study the resultant images with any care as I'm just relieved to get any images at all!

[super duper]

So the D300s has ISO 100, instead of ISO Lo1?.. or does it have ISO 100 and ISO Lo1?(which therefore means that Lo1 is equal to ISO 50

Whoops, I just doubled checked and it doesn't have ISO 100, just Lo1.

Thanks for the explanation :D