High ISO photos

With my tax return being much larger than I expected this year, I've been contemplating buying a new camera body for my lenses.  Yes I know, I only got this camera last April, but now that I've been using a DSLR for several months, I'm finding there are some things I need that a higher-end body would be better for.

Namely? Indoor agility shots.  I can't complain at all about how my outdoor agility shots come out with this camera.




But my early indoor shots looked like this:



Ouch.  That photo was taken at ISO3200, the highest setting on this particular camera.  And needless to say, it came out so grainy it was almost useless.  I gave up on trying to get shots of dogs in the agility barn.  Someone recently pointed out, however, that I really wasn't giving my camera a fair shake.  I had it set to Program mode, which came up with some weird settings now that I look at the photo (f/8?  Why on earth would I want it set to f/8?).  Last night I decided to try for some higher ISO photos.

The basic set-up I used was my 50mm lens, set wide open at f/1.7.  I shot in RAW instead of JPG.  Here's my favourite shot from the night.  This was taken at ISO1600 and processed in Adobe Lightroom.

 


This one was taken at ISO3200.  Quite a difference from the one up above!

  


I still plan to get the A580 (unless something newer and better comes out), but at least I know this camera isn't quite as bad at taking higher ISO photos as I thought it was.