(From DPR) Best high ISO settings for A700

[paulobro]

Many of my attempts at image getting are related to bird captures, in flight or not. 1/1000 is usually my best bet and in an overcast day as when I took those pics, to achieve such shutter speed with my Tam 200-500, even wide opened, ISO6400 is called for.

The shot with the hose was of a 'cave' under the greenery against a wall, in deep shadow. As the blue hose was the best illuminated object there, as attested by several blown highlight spots on it, I'd guess those brown dead leaves somehow managed to reflect some of the incident light coming from the hose.

Agorabasta's standard setting prescribes Sat 0 if NR is off. As it was/is.

Positive, or negative light compensation is not part of the setting, as I understand it.

Those were/are JPEGs, not RAW files. EXIF's intact. Sharp +2, bright +2, Z -1, DR +; those are the settings.

No need for belief. Anyone with an A700 can try these settings and see — as I'm supposing you will once your camera's back...

[agorabasta]

O Paulo,

My settings were - brightness '-2', not '+2'. But that's more about personal preferences and scene specifics. The most important noise-wise are the ZM and 'sharpness' settings. Also, I used DR+ - it's actually producing less noise using DR up to lv+1, than using brightness +2 - that Apical chip is a great piece of hardwired workforce, and no manual raw-processing would produce a consistent 3-D correction surface that Apical creates instead of 2-D curves normally applied to raw data.

Also, I must mention that your example with that hose shows a lot of small items/detail and as such is completely different from the universally-macro stuff posted by your opponent. And those high-ISO macro shots off A700 have been great with no tinkering ever since V2 firmware.

[Dr. Harout]

Agorabasta, nice from you to join us. Welcome to the forum.

[paulobro]

<...> Also, I must mention that your example with that hose shows a lot of small items/detail and as such is completely different from the universally-macro stuff posted by your opponent. <...>

Agorabasta, glad you jumped in.
I certainly wouldn't call Mr. Sonolta my opponent: I'm not fighting for anything, nothing I'm proposing or preaching. Just found your settings to be quite useful on certain circumstances, thought I'd suggest other people try them.

And hey, thanks for sharing them.

Take care.

[paulobro]

Seems Mr. Kilpatrick's opinion regarding best settings for JPEGs on A900 (and, one'd gather, on A700) regarding minimal noise on high ISO are expressed in his last posting on this site's homepage:
http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/10/2 ... -iso-body/

Actions do speak louder than words, now don't they?

[Pirate]

The settings:
Base mode 'standard', saturation 0, sharpness +2, brightness -2, zone matching -1; DR+; high ISO 'off''.

Ahoy!

Would the above settings be a safe bet on A850 with NR done in pp or have there been suggested changes to these settings that would work better?

[agorabasta]

Quoting my myself from two years ago -

The high-ISO settings with the Zone trick:

'Creative style' = 'deep' or 'light' or 'neutral' (the 'standard' is overcontrasty)
'Zone' = -1
'Brightness' = -2 (may use -1)
'Sharpness' = +2 (at higher ISO the effect is mild enough for high values)

The 'high ISO NR' may be set at 'high' for no further PP, otherwise use the 'low' or 'off' (the low is effective enough against hot pixels). I normally leave auto DRO+ active. Use of 'D-R standard' may be much worse if the cam underexposes and tries to compensate. I also use the same settings at lower ISOs with higher manual levels of DRO+. The DRO Lv+2 is very good at ISO640, I often use it indoor.

I normally have AE comp of -1/3EV dialed-in, to me it looks better this way. So the +1/3EV applied by Zone -1 is compensated, and the speed stays the same.

Here is another set of high-DR settings I use on a700 with DRO set to off.

They are safe up to ISO2000 with high-ISO NR set to low.These are the settings I use to squeeze most of raw range into a JPEG. They are specifically for use without DRO+. The DRO+ in a700 uses the existing edges in the image to stitch differently processed parts of image; and in doing so it distorts the edges, creating halos much like those from oversharpening. So when I choose not to tolerate DRO+, I use these.
creative style - "deep"
contrast -3
brightness -2
saturation +1 (and/or +2; that's to your liking)
sharpness +1/+2 (+2 for higher ISO)

[Pirate]

Quoting my myself from two years ago -

The high-ISO settings with the Zone trick:

'Creative style' = 'deep' or 'light' or 'neutral' (the 'standard' is overcontrasty)
'Zone' = -1
'Brightness' = -2 (may use -1)
'Sharpness' = +2 (at higher ISO the effect is mild enough for high values)

The 'high ISO NR' may be set at 'high' for no further PP, otherwise use the 'low' or 'off' (the low is effective enough against hot pixels). I normally leave auto DRO+ active. Use of 'D-R standard' may be much worse if the cam underexposes and tries to compensate. I also use the same settings at lower ISOs with higher manual levels of DRO+. The DRO Lv+2 is very good at ISO640, I often use it indoor.

I normally have AE comp of -1/3EV dialed-in, to me it looks better this way. So the +1/3EV applied by Zone -1 is compensated, and the speed stays the same.

Here is another set of high-DR settings I use on a700 with DRO set to off.

They are safe up to ISO2000 with high-ISO NR set to low.These are the settings I use to squeeze most of raw range into a JPEG. They are specifically for use without DRO+. The DRO+ in a700 uses the existing edges in the image to stitch differently processed parts of image; and in doing so it distorts the edges, creating halos much like those from oversharpening. So when I choose not to tolerate DRO+, I use these.
creative style - "deep"
contrast -3
brightness -2
saturation +1 (and/or +2; that's to your liking)
sharpness +1/+2 (+2 for higher ISO)

Sounds good when explained. Although I don't 'normally' use high ISO in iffy light situations, it's more of a question of putting into MR a 'safe average' set of pre-sets without really having to think about over or under exposing to compensate for the specific MR that's been saved. I've noted that there have been 'suggested' changes to Angoabasta's initial recommended settings, and my query was if that is THE best no-brainer, no-thinker set-up should it be required or if since it was first posted many moons ago if users have found any alternate 'tweaks' to it that may get just a bit better final result to JPEGs, but from what I've seen thus far, your settings are as far as I can tell, the same albeit 2 versions, so although I haven't yet input to my A850 a MR high ISO setting, what I have noted down is:

1. Base mode 'standard', Saturation 0, Sharpness +2, Brightness -2, Zone Matching -1; DR+; High ISO NR 'high'

2. Base mode 'standard', Saturation +1, Sharpness +2 or +3, Brightness -2, Zone Matching -1; DR+; High ISO NR 'high'

On a tangent, for standard JPEG's, I always have the Creative Style setting to 'Deep' with:

Saturation: +1
Sharpness: +1
Brightness: +/- 0
Zone: +1

These settings makes a JPEG as close to a RAW image as I know, but for much higher ISO's, I would expect to have a MR recall capable of ISO 3200-6400, so what would be required to get the best from these 2 high ISO settings or is it a case of setting it to 3200 and dialling-in 6400 manually if required without changing the pre-set MR?