Nikon D70 Noise

The tables below show a series of dark frames with different exposure time and sensor sensitivity, taken at 22° Celsius. The camera settings were: optimize image = normal, long exposure noise reduction = no, image quality = raw, white balance = direct sunlight. Except resizing or cropping and converting from 16bit NEF to 8bit PNG was no further image processing done.

Scaled Full Frame

The 3008x2000 px raw dark frames have been resized to 150x100px for comparison. As one can clearly see, there is a strong noise source in one corner that rapidly increases with long exposures. This is probably caused by the heat of a microchip. After several long exposures one can feel that the camera gets warm. If the heat noise in the image corner has become white, the image cannot be repaired by subtracting a dark frame. The maximum possible exposure time without loosing data depends on the ISO sensitivity.

ISO 200 ISO 400 ISO 800 ISO 1600
1 sec 1s @ ISO200 1s @ ISO400 1s @ ISO800 1s @ ISO1600
2 sec 2s @ ISO200 2s @ ISO400 2s @ ISO800 2s @ ISO1600
4 sec 4s @ ISO200 4s @ ISO400 4s @ ISO800 4s @ ISO1600
8 sec 8s @ ISO200 8s @ ISO400 8s @ ISO800 8s @ ISO1600
15 sec 15s @ ISO200 15s @ ISO400 15s @ ISO800 15s @ ISO1600
30 sec 30s @ ISO200 30s @ ISO400 30s @ ISO800 30s @ ISO1600
1 min 1m @ ISO200 1m @ ISO400 1m @ ISO800 1m @ ISO1600
2 min 2m @ ISO200 2m @ ISO400 2m @ ISO800 2m @ ISO1600
4 min 4m @ ISO200 4m @ ISO400 4m @ ISO800 4m @ ISO1600
8 min 8m @ ISO200 8m @ ISO400 8m @ ISO800 8m @ ISO1600
15 min 15m @ ISO200 15m @ ISO400 15m @ ISO800 15m @ ISO1600
30 min 30m @ ISO200 30m @ ISO400 30m @ ISO800 30m @ ISO1600

1:1 Center Crop

The table below shows a 150x100 pixel crop in the center of the raw image and should represent the average noise of the CCD chip. One can see that the average noise is not bad, except for the rapid noise increase after one second with ISO 1600. It would be much better if Nikon D70 didn't had this misplaced heat source that causes the bright corner.

ISO 200 ISO 400 ISO 800 ISO 1600
1 sec 1s @ ISO200 1s @ ISO400 1s @ ISO800 1s @ ISO1600
2 sec 2s @ ISO200 2s @ ISO400 2s @ ISO800 2s @ ISO1600
4 sec 4s @ ISO200 4s @ ISO400 4s @ ISO800 4s @ ISO1600
8 sec 8s @ ISO200 8s @ ISO400 8s @ ISO800 8s @ ISO1600
15 sec 15s @ ISO200 15s @ ISO400 15s @ ISO800 15s @ ISO1600
30 sec 30s @ ISO200 30s @ ISO400 30s @ ISO800 30s @ ISO1600
1 min 1m @ ISO200 1m @ ISO400 1m @ ISO800 1m @ ISO1600
2 min 2m @ ISO200 2m @ ISO400 2m @ ISO800 2m @ ISO1600
4 min 4m @ ISO200 4m @ ISO400 4m @ ISO800 4m @ ISO1600
8 min 8m @ ISO200 8m @ ISO400 8m @ ISO800 8m @ ISO1600
15 min 15m @ ISO200 15m @ ISO400 15m @ ISO800 15m @ ISO1600
30 min 30m @ ISO200 30m @ ISO400 30m @ ISO800 30m @ ISO1600