Dji Mini 3 Pro ISO performance
I usually shoot at the base ISO of 100, but I wanted to know what is the highest usable ISO of the Dji Mini 3 Pro
Most of the time when the sun is out or just setting there is no reason to raise the ISO from the base ISO of 100. However the dark winter months are ahead of us and I like to photograph winter landscapes in low light. For example in moonlight. Then I probably have to raise the ISO above the ISO100 to keep shutter speed reasonable.
Raising the ISO hurts image quality by increasing image noise, lowering dynamic range and making colors more muted.
But how far can I raise it before the image quality detoriates too much?
Let’s find out!
Test images
I shot series of images in manual mode with different settings always keeping the total exposure the same. So every time I doubled the ISO I halved the shutter speed.
Original RAW files were used.
All of the images have identical adjustments done in Adobe Camera Raw:
lights -50
shadows +50
saturation +20
sharpness 50
noise reduction 20
color noise reduction 20
Looking at the images, I was surprised how small the difference is from ISO100 to ISO800.
ISO1600 starts to show some noise and ISO3200 and ISO6400 are noisy.
Lets take a closer look.
In closer inspection the ISO800 image starts to show some noise and the ISO3200 and ISO6400 images are very noisy.
Conclusion
Looking at these test images I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Dji Mini 3 Pros camera sensor.
There’s hardly any difference in image quality from ISO100 to ISO400
ISO800 starts to show some noise, but it’s at acceptable level
ISO1600 shows little loss of contrast and detail and noise really starts to show
ISO3200 loses even more contrast and detail, really noisy
ISO6400 unusable
The base ISO of Dji Mini 3 Pro is 100 and there’s no second base ISO like many modern cameras
So I think that I’m comfortable pushing the ISO up to ISO800, maybe even ISO1600 if absolutely necessary, but higher than that and the image quality starts to detoriate too much for my liking.
Now all I need is snow and a moonlit landscape and I’m good to go!
