Title corrected.

By all means start a new thread, I was a bit surprised that nobody has so far done that.

It would still need updating Bill, because much information isn't written in stone and it fluctuates as the technology moves on. But yes, we do revisit things on a regular basis!

That's not the native ISO though, it's just the comparison settings were chosen as the lowest and ISO 1600.

I understand native ISO for your camera is 200.

There have been no comments, but I really like those last two. The art shot is quirky and says something about art that would not have been far adrift from the ethos of the Doctor Who story "City of Death".

The train shot is just brimming with steam power, a glorious, commanding shot in powerful monochrome.

Terrific stuff.

The native ISO will give the lowest noise and highest sharpness no doubt, but I think you're using the K-5 in which case you don't need to worry at ISO values up to 1600. It's much more important to reduce camera shake and get sharp images when needed.

Photography is an art form though, and low noise may not always be what's needed. When using film the character of films was very different and ISO 100 wasn't a "holy grail" for best results. Films ran down to ISO 25 for finest grain, but with the downside of higher contrast. These films were best when needed, but not for general purposes. ISO 400 films would help to ensure faster shutter speeds and hence less shake, so might be sharper in some situations than slower films.

If it helps, I use ISO 400 routinely on my K-5 and ISO 200 on my K20D. I will dial in any ISO needed in low light situations. Better sharp and noisy than blurred and low noise.

This past week we've been in a small pace called Frosterley, visiting various places in and around Durham. Here's a couple of shots from the first SD card up, from Raby Castle.







It was a great week, but always we're glad to be back.

I also switch off the feature that allows the camera to adjust the presets within small limits. The point of using a fixed setting is that the colour of the light does change. If we want to record this as is then a fixed setting is arguably best.

An example is a red sunset. If we want to see that red in its full glory then Daylight will give us that. AWB will try to reduce the effect to make it "correct".

I set it to the appropriate preset for the current purpose. So generally I use "Daylight".