Nikon D6 High ISO Test

I have owned the Nikon D5 for the past 3 years, the camera has never failed me throughout all my sporting events. It’s quite common for me to shoot sports around ISO 5000-8000 to get my image well exposure. I had even pushed my ISO up to 20000 before when I needed to for dim areas.

The D6 has similar expanded modes to go beyond the native ISO of 102400. The expanded modes allows the camera ISO to go as high as 3276800. In this high ISO comparison, I’ll only be comparing the range up to 102400 which it is more likely that anyone would need. 

In this test, I will be comparing the D6 against its predecessor D5 in 14bits raw files. The test will include various ISO starting from 10000 onwards. High ISO noise reduction was set to ‘Low’ in camera to reduce the color noise with no post-processing done. File was exported as 2048px long edge jpeg. You can also click those images below to view in the full resolution. 

While the new Nikon D6 was using the same sensor as the older model D5, all the images from D6 were sharper in fine details and contrast was also noticeable higher. The older D5 also seems to have a magenta color cast across all the high ISO images when zoom in.