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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NoSpringChicken" data-source="post: 1705100" data-attributes="member: 53267">Interesting to hear your experiences with Olympus and Canon, Steve. It's refreshing not hear Olympus getting slated because of the 'small and noisy sensor'. I agree that the real secret to low noise is getting the exposure spot on in the first place. The less post processing an image requires, the better the final results will be. Under exposure in particular seems to be really bad news for noise.I have found that high ISO settings work better when there is reasonable light, in order to increase shutter speed, for example. They are less successful in gloomy conditions, where there is just not enough contrast and colour in the original subject matter. High ISO settings can't work miracles. I have found that with the 70-300 lens my base ISO setting is 400. I only use 200 or 100 when it is really bright or when the subject is very close or with no chance of movement. If I was using a tripod rather than shooting handheld all the time, I could probably use lower settings more frequently than I do.Here are a couple of shots at ISO 800. The Sanderling was taken in bright sunlight but the high ISO allowed me to use a fast shutter speed to capture this speedy little bird dashing about. The Marsh Tit was taken under typical, winter light.'Save for Web' has stripped out the exif data, so the settings are:Sanderling - ISO 800, 1/8000 sec, f/5.6, 300mmMarsh Tit - ISO 800, 1/250 sec, f/6.3, 300mmRon</blockquote>

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