See in "Original" to see the noise pattern clearly.
This test shows the best setting if you want a fixed and fast shutter time for instance if you want to freeze movements of branches, grass ....
Here I used the same exposure but varied the ISO settings only and later the exposure was adjusted in Camera Raw 6.3 to give the same brightness. The best setting is to use the highest ISO setting without getting highlight clipping. The funny thing is that there is less highlight clipping at ISO 800 with 1 EV overexposure than at ISO 400. Most highlight clipping is actually happening at ISO 400. I have no explanation for this behaviour.
To minimize noise use the histogram of the camera and expose as much as possible without getting highlight clipping - "expose to the right" is the mantra given everywhere - so nothing new here. Use the "native" ISO settings i.e. ISO 100, 200, 400 ..., the intermediate ISO setting just confuse.
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