In case you missed it, I got a new toy earlier this week, a Nikon D700. One of the main reasons I switched from Canon to Nikon was the superior high ISO performance of Nikon cameras. I decided to do a couple of tests today. I waited until the room was sufficiently dark, cranked the ISO on the camera, and shot away.
On my Canon cameras, I would rarely shoot with my ISO above 800. Occasionally I would go up to 1600 in really low light conditions, but the noise, or grain, was just a little too much for my taste at that level.
I started my tests with the D700 at ISO 4000, well above what I would consider acceptable from my Canon 5D or 40D. I was astonished by the results. While I did notice some noise, it's nowhere near the level I would get from the Canon cameras at 1600. Here are the pictures I took at ISO 4000
Since I was satisfied with the results at ISO 4000, I decided to crank it up to 6400 and see what I got. The result: noise. While the pics did turn out quite noisy, ISO 6400 seems a bit extreme, and I will probably never have to use it. Of course, if I do, I can always do some noise reduction in my post processing if needed. Here are some of the pics I took at ISO 6400:
