ISO Story - Canon 5D2 vs 500D vs 40D

[trigger]

After using the 1000D for travel I offloaded it to my brother. He in turn, to my surprised offloaded that and got a 500D

Tonight while taking shots I noticed that he was doing so at ISO1600. I said thats going to be pretty noisy. He said he didnt notice .... I thought right a x1.6 entry level camera with 15MP into that tiny sensor and you didnt notice?

So i did a test.

5D2 vs 500D vs 40D on the 35mm 1.4mmL @ 5.6


Original Image



Samples


ISO100
500D

5d2

40D



ISO200
500D

5d2

40D


ISO400
500D

5d2

40D


ISO800
500D

5d2

40D


ISO1600
500D

5d2

40D


ISO3200
500D

5d2

40D


ISO6400
500D

5d2


ISO12800
500D

5d2


ISO25600
5d2



Observations:

ISO100-200: Not much difference

ISO400-800: Starting to show a bit of colour noise on the crop sensors

ISO1600: visible noise on both crops and slight luminous noise on the 5d2

ISO-3200: The 500D showing a bit more colour noise then the 40D but this is where its ISO ends for the Semi-pro.

ISO6400: beginning to see colour noise on the 5d2. The 500d keeps on going but with significant colour noise.

ISO12800: 500D Noise is very significant and almost unusable. Even with NR such as NNinja it would make it very blurry. 5d2 noise still usable with heavy NR

ISO25600: 5d2 Unusable with this level of noise

Summary:

Noise is not visibly different to the 40d. But the little 500D goes to ISO6400 with salvageable images. The 5D2, from these images we see 1-2 stops advantage noise wise. I am very impressed with the 500D. Why?

Lets put this in perspective. this is a 15MP consumer / small SLR. Have a look at the detail compared to the 40D and 5d2! All those pixels cramped into a small sensor = noise. But as we can see here its comparable to the 40D.

I would take this camera on travel any day. With HD 720 video, it comes as bonus. But that is a story for anther time ....