"Peter" wrote in message
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Thanks for that explanation. My interest as a photo artist is simply to
make a nice picture. When Nikon says I can shoot at a higher ISO with
less noise, I am skeptical. I have a friend who claims he shoot a D300
at ISO 1,600 without little perceptible noise. Yet I have not found that
to be the case on my D300.

If you look closely enough, you will see noise even in ISO 100 images. My
Nikon D5000 has an ISO 3200 setting which produces better results than my
compact camera does at ISO 400. Is it noise-free? No. Is it usable for
the circumstances where I have to use ISO 3200? Most certainly.

If you want to "make a nice picture", ensure you have enough light that
you can shoot at ISO 100 with a small camera, ISO 200-400-800 with your
DSLR, according to what /you/ judge to be noise-free results, at the image
size you will finally be viewing.

Cheers,
David