The advances in sensor technology in recent years have opened up incredible opportunities for low-light photography. And when you’re doing travel photography, being able to shoot in low light is a must. The quality you can get out of ISO 3200 in today’s cameras, for example, is leaps and bounds better than what it was just 5 years ago. But that doesn’t mean that every ISO setting on a camera is equal.
There’s always some cost. The best all-around image quality is generally around a camera’s lowest native ISO setting. As you go higher up the scale, you lose dynamic, gain noise (or mottling), and can end up with color shifts. Those issues become particularly pronounced as you get up to the top end of the ISO settings. Those are often in what’s known as an “extended” range, where software takes over from the native limits of the sensor hardware to push things that bit further. These extended numbers can make for good marketing copy, but it’s not always clear how useful they are.
The question then becomes: how steep is the cost? Do the downsides become too much to make shooting at the high ISO settings worth the reductions in image quality?
The answer varies camera to camera; some cameras have much better high-ISO performance than others. The answer can also vary shot to shot and is an entirely subjective judgment from photographer to photographer. You might be more willing to overlook noise and color shifts in an urban street scene at night than you would with a portrait session at dusk, for example. One photographer might tolerate quite a lot of image noise, while another (or a stock agency) will reject any visible noise.
The original RAW files for the images in this post are available to subscribers to my newsletter on the RAW file downloads page. The page is password-protected; the password is in the newsletter’s welcome email. The JPG versions linked in the captions stay free.
High ISO on the Fujifilm X-T2
There’s a lot to like about the Fujifilm X-T2, and it’s an excellent all-around choice for travel photography (and lots of other types of photography, for that matter). But I wanted to take a closer look specifically at its high-ISO performance to see how it performs in low-light situations.
The Fujifilm X-T2 has a native ISO range from 200 through 12800, but when you’re shooting still images, it also has some extended options at the high end of 25600 and 51200. I’ve previously posted some sample images shot throughout the X-T2’s ISO range, but here I’m focusing only on the top end, from 6400 up to 51200. I’m sharing them here in case someone else is interested to see some real-world examples of the X-T2’s high-ISO performance.
I shot these all in RAW. Other settings were image size (L / 3:2), grain effect (off), film simulation (Provia/Standard), dynamic range (100), white balance (auto), colorspace (AdobeRGB), and processing options such as shadow town, color, sharpness, and noise reduction all at 0. Normally, I’d do some processing in Lightroom, but the versions you can see embedded in the page here are essentially untouched. If you’d like a closer look, there are two options. You can click on each image to open a full-size JPG version. You can also use the link in each caption to download the original RAW (.arf) file (be warned that they’re approx. 50 MB each).
It’s worth noting that I haven’t applied any external noise reduction to these, either. There are specialized image editing apps available that can do pretty remarkable things in cleaning up image noise at high ISOs (eg. DxO’s DeepPrime and Topaz Photo AI are good places to start; and if you’re shooting RAW, DxO’s PureRAW works a bit differently and isn’t only focused on image noise, but it can yield impressive results).
Examples of the native high ISO of the Fujifilm X-T2
ISO 6400 – ISO 10000
ISO 12800
Examples of the extended high ISO of the Fujifilm X-T2
ISO 25600
ISO 51200
Fixing image quality problems in post
The general rule of thumb in photography is that it’s better to get the shot right at the time of capture rather than trying to fix it later.
That’s a great aspiration, but it’s not always possible to do if you’re shooting in especially challenging conditions or bumping up against limitations or flaws in gear, conditions, or technique.
But it’s worth mentioning that there are some excellent tools available to help address common image quality issues with digital images. And they’re getting better and better all the time as the power of AI machine learning ramps up.
They can deal remarkably well with anything from sensor issues like high-ISO image noise to lens issues like distortion, softness, vignetting, and chromatic aberration. (Note: I’m focusing here on corrections related to image quality, not image enhancement tools — that’s a different kettle of fish.)
All-round image processing apps like Lightroom Classic and Capture One have solid tools built in that are very good places to start.
But it’s also possible to take it much further with more specialized tools.
If you shoot in challenging conditions regularly and find room for improvement in the image quality coming out of the camera, these might well be worth a look (and they have free trials). Some are stand-alone apps; some integrate into image editing suites such as Lightroom Classic.
Some of these work only with RAW files, and those are the ones I’ve had the best results with. But there are also good options if you’re working with JPG or TIFF files.
Fixing image noise & high ISO artifacts
The newest generation of tools can do some pretty remarkable improvements to image noise. These are some of the best tools for reducing image noise in photos. Most of them include a free trial to test out the results for yourself.
- Lightroom Classic’s Denoise tool. This was quietly added to recent versions of Lightroom Classic, and you can find it in the Develop module’s Detail panel. It only works on RAW files. It doesn’t have some of the more advanced features and more granular controls of some of the other apps here, but if you’re already using Lightroom, it’s a great option to have available.
- DxO PureRAW 5. Like Lightroom Classic’s Denoise tool, it only works on RAW files. It has become my go-to app for this kind of thing. I’m consistently amazed at how it can rescue photos with otherwise dodgy image quality from noise. It can also help with lens distortion, lens vignetting, and lens softness.
- DxO Nik Dfine. This product originated with the Nik Collection, and it focuses on the more traditional approach to digital image noise reduction. Something that’s especially notable about Dfine is that you can use U-point selections for precise application of different settings to different parts of the image.
- ON1 NoNoise AI. Its “deblurring” features are particularly notable, with an emphasis on restoring sharpness that is often a casualty in denoising operations. It works on JPG and TIFF files, and you can create sophisticated masks to apply corrections to specific parts of an image.
- Topaz Labs Photo AI. Topaz Labs used to offer its NoNoise AI as a standalone product, but it has now been integrated alongside several other image improvement tools in its Photo AI app.
Fixing lens-related optical issues
- DxO PureRAW. Again offers an impressive suite of automatic fixes that are applied before you start editing the images.
- DxO ViewPoint. Correcting for lens distortion and geometry skews. Lightroom Classic and Capture One also have excellent built-in tools for this.
- Topaz Labs Photo AI. Topaz Labs used to offer its sharpening tools as a standalone product, but it has now been integrated alongside several other image improvement tools in its Photo AI app.
Wrap-up
I’ve found the performance is really impressive throughout the X-T2’s native ISO range, including 12800. Once you step beyond that into the extended range, as you’d expect, the quality starts to drop off markedly. ISO 25600 is also quite usable, but by 51200 things are heading downhill fast, and it’s not a setting I’d use in everyday shooting. Converting the black and white can hide some of the flaws, but even then it’s more a break-glass-in-emergency type of setting. But that you can get very good quality even up to ISO 12800 is itself impressive.
Price & availability
Now that newer models have replaced it, the Fujifilm X-T2 has become harder to find new in stores. But you can sometimes find them at some of the larger camera retailers.
Buy new
Check current price and availability at:
Buy used
They also quite often turn up on the used market. Some good places to try include:
These images are essentially of still life…meaning multiple exposures can be taken and easily stacked in photoshop to drastically reduce noise. Many cameras have this function built in…called something like “night shot”, where the camera takes several images and combines them in-camera. I don’t know if Fuji cameras offer that mode. Anyway good to see the X-T2 has decent low-light performance, and even a single frame can look good enough, esp if a good noise reduction software is used (DXO Photolab’s “prime” noise reduction for example).
the raw files no longer available :(
Sorry about that, but thanks for letting me know. I moved the cloud storage location recently and misplaced a single character in the process. Should be fixed now–you might need to refresh the page.
I use the X-T2, my 3rd Fuji, I however find anything over 6400 not very good. It could be just my photo skill. Yours look perfectly fine. What sharpness settings you use in LR. I just use the default amount 25 the updated 7.3, amount at 40.
I’ve not added any extra sharpening to any of these, so on the JPGs there’s only Lightroom’s default 25, 1.0, 25. The RAW versions don’t have any.
Interesting looking at the pics – but i was really more interested in the 25600 & 51200 shots. Sometimes, the noise/ grain at the pushed settings can create atmosphere in an image that low noise/ grain just can;t give.
At the end of the day much depends on how the images are going to be used. If they are just going to be used small to illustrate a blog, or even a quarter-page in print then even 512000 could often be just about useable. Especially if the image is downsized to working size (say less than 1200 x 800px).
Apart from ISO, the max usable size will also depend on the subject – lots of deep shadow will show up the noise earlier. A higher key image will usually get away with higher ISO.
Of course larger print sizes are viewed at greater distance so there is point where noise/grain is unimportant as it is not visible at normal viewing distance. Of course pixel peeping will find noise at even low ISO’s in the shadows of short exposures.
Of course the raw processing should also change to reflect final usage.
But it is useful to see that even 51`2000 could have applications but then it is down to the individuals decisons and priorities.