Purpose was to see how well this old camera's performance could be tolerated in the dark high-iso environment of a lighted christmas tree plus table lamp in an otherwise dark apartment. Comments on each picture indicate the noise-reductin settings required in CaptureNX2. The photos themselves were captured via a tripod and the D1x in its default settings. The lens used was a Nikon 35mm f2 AIS manual focus lens.

My conclusion: Hi-1 (iso1600) is pretty easy to noise adjust and with a preset could be easily made ready for use. Hi-2 is more problematic, with severe shadow noise that cannot be entirely eliminated without losing visible sharpness even with low print size or wwb use. But with individual work and balancing sharpness vs. noise, a viewable picture seems achievable.

The thing that makes all this worthwhile is the picture quality otherwise of the D1x. Notice how the color quality holds up right up through iso3200 (Hi-2). These shots have not had color or contrast adjustment whatsoever. In my opinion, until the D3 and D700 burst upon the scene, the D1x (and brother D1h) had the most pleasing picture rendition of any of the Nikon cameras.