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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tdodd" data-source="post: 1543379" data-attributes="member: 55450">Here's a shot with my 50D, at 1600 ISO. First the whole image without edits, then a crop, exposure boosted by 0.7 stops in Lightroom and a little NR and sharpening. Aperture was f/5.6 and shutter speed was 1/250. Taking the exposure boost into consideration, all in all that means the light levels for this were 6.3 stops dimmer than bright sunshine.  Considering this was an opportunistic shot, shot at 1600 ISO and underexposed, I am not unhappy with the results.EDIT : For kicks I've thrown in three more images, this time at 800 ISO, two with no edits and the last with minor tweaks but no sharpening or NR except LR defaults.I totally agree, when comparing images at the pixel level the 50D is noisier than the 40D. That should surprise nobody. But if you compare equivalent areas of an image, magnified by equal amounts - same physical size in mm/cm - then the differences should be small, with the 50D having the edge for detail - if you use sharp glass, focus accurately and avoid shake/blur.For anyone unhappy with the output from their 50D I would be interested in seeing their original raw file to see how bad the problem really is. Maybe I can offer some advice. There's no rocket science here, and apologies to those of you for whom this is teaching you to suck eggs, but for starters :-- Do not use HTP;- Do not underexpose and then push the exposure in post. In preference, <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml" target="_blank">Expose to the Right</a> and then pull back the levels/curves in post.- Do not expect small pixels to have noise characteristics as good as larger pixels. Do not pixel peep at all. Look at pictures, not pixels. People do things today, with digital, that they would not dream of doing with film. Who, seriously, would blow up a 35mm neg from an 800 ISO film to a 6' wide print and then examine it from 12-18" away? That's the sort of magnification you are effectively applying when you view a 50D file at 100% with a typical monitor. On my 17" 1920x1200 monitor, viewing a 50D file at 33% yields an image that is physically exactly 12x8". Viewing at 50% yields an image too large to fit the screen, but it would be ~18x12" if it did fit, which I think is plenty large enough for viewing from 12-18" away. Viewing at larger magnifications than that just seems a little bit unhelpful.- The higher the ISO the less you should expect to make aggressive crops successfully. If you are using high ISO then you need to fill the frame more. A 100% crop at 100 ISO may very well work nicely. At 1600 ISO it almost certainly will not.- At higher ISOs expect to use noise reduction. Normally I scrape by well enough with Lightroom, often on default settings, but if I need "proper" NR I use Neat Image.- If you are sharpening then make sure you are not sharpening noise as well as details. Use a mask to avoid sharpening the noisiest, least detailed areas.- Sometimes there just isn't enough light to make a good image. Be realistic in your expectations. Sometimes you need to know when not to bother releasing the shutter. The same argument applies for a subject that is too small in the frame. Combining a small subject with poor light = disappointing results.- For those of you who simply can't help comparing 50D pixels with 40D pixels, may I suggest you turn the tables and shoot the 50D in SRAW1 and then compare pixels with pixels, or pictures with pictures.</blockquote>

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