http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D3S/D3SA7.HTM

The detail holds up well at higher ISO. For those photographers who are forced to shoot under demanding lighting for their client Nikon's latest generation sensor performs very well in these examples. I personally class high ISO as 800 but only because I cover sport in daylight hours 99.9% of the time.

A recent discussion at LL about high ISO offerings being necessary reminded me of when I covered the Solheim Cup 2000 at Loch Lomond. The winning putt was made on the 17th green in the late evening as a result of rain delays (torrential at times). It was so dark that we were forced to use flash in combination with pushed (very) film to capture the final celebrations. I also recall other moments such as Tiger Woods putting to win the American express championship at Valderama late into the evening, again we were required to use flash in order to capture his final celebration and the trophy picture.

At that time I was using a combination of transparency film and the relatively new kid on the block Nikon D1, a ground breaking camera for its day (10 megapixel sensor sampled to 2.7 megapixels output). Images taken of the Solheim Cup celebrations at the D1's high ISO settings, without flash, were unusable (for me at least) - how things have changed with modern sensors.

Prior to digital I used Fuji Velvia at 40 ISO, until the light forced me to either push process to 80 ISO, or reluctantly remove Velvia from the camera and substitute it for Provia (pushed one stop 160 ISO). When The D1 arrived its 200 base ISO spoilt me for choice in comparison to film. Through extensive R&D I am glad that the latest generation sensors offer higher ISO's to photographers to enable them the opportunity to capture important moments at higher quality than ever imaginable with 35mm film, pushed, or not, and with the option on not being forced to use flash - when permitted to use.

Thanks. The ISO 102,400 sample is about as good as I hoped for: 100% pixel peepers will be derisive, but photo editors wanting to put a moderate sized image in the newspaper or on a web-site after a bit of NR will be thrilled at getting a usable shot in a situation that was hopeless until recently.

I was impressed at how clean some of the 2500 ISO images were on a crisp monitor. Most of the noise in the 6400 samples will vanish in magazine repro as the ink spreads.

The latest issue of "Chasseur d'Images" has a D3S portfolio shot by Vincent Munier this Summer

http://www.chassimages.com/numeros/numero.xml
http://www.vincentmunier.com/ (see the D3S section)

There are some very impressive night shots, which would have been impossible without the extreme ISO abilitiy of the camera.

(apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere)