ISO Noise? E450 Not So bad

The E420-E450 are entry level cameras and the main criticism against them is noise at high ISO. The image above is taken at ......can you guess? An overcast winters' day, handheld. Good capture of tonal depth, true? Muted colours, but near to real as I saw them.

Compared to using an OM series with the 1980s slow and colour altering zooms, then the E450 is positively way out there ...if you have a time machine.

Today people don't keep cameras or any other electronics very long really. Product user-cycles and the marketing life cycles are just a matter of two or three years. Also, comparability and user advice on the internet leads to PNS-envy. People publish shots of the office block over the way at night, an umremarkable sunset taken hand-held, and so on and tell you that high ISO performance is a must. well to get that and good dynamic range AND tonal depth AND 5 fps, you need to splash the cash.

Admittedly, you will get better sports shots, maybe a the cost of fps though!

Get real: you can buy the Olympus E450 for less than most " mid to top end" compacts from Canikon: it has limitations: you need a tripod and desire a monopod.

Noisy Night Shots?

Well, use a tripod. ISO 100 is always a setting you can limit the camera to.



Noise in the Day versus Hand Held Camera Shake


A detail from the first image.


Can you guess the ISO yet?

A little bit of grain gives it away as higher than 100 or 200, but this is actually 800, allowing for a reasonable shot in poor light with little noise: handheld.


Shot Two 1600 ISO



The grain is there and the noise is in "banding" or super-pixelisation and red flecking. However as a small internet image it would be completely acceptable, given there had been better light in the first place!

ISO 200

The issue here is not ISO, it is a dark image at just 1/25th of a second. Solution? A tripod before you trade-in for an E620. Good tonal depth giving a feeling of realism, while it is under exposed and not worth saving by curve work to be honest.


ISO 100



This is actually brighter, but one of maybe 12 shots to get enough sharpness at 1/10th sec while handheld. The issue here is DOF: it needs a bit more DOF to give roundness to the front apple which is the subject of the image. This means a high f stop....and manual IS ... viz a vis a tripod.