When it comes to ISO, how high can you go? On your Fujifilm camera, how high is too high? 3200? 6400? 12800? 25600?

This article will explore the topic of high-ISO photography on Fujifilm X cameras. Can you bump it more than you think? Will it look good printed? How does it compare to film? Those are the questions that this post intends to answer.

Note: this was a Creative Collective article, but now it’s available to everyone.

This all started by accident. Two accidents, actually. The first one was back in 2019 when I mistakenly chose ISO 51200 instead of Auto-3 ISO on my Fujifilm X-T30, which happily turned into the Ilford HP5 Plus Push Process film simulation recipe. The second accident was similar, and happened in July of this year. I have the front wheel of my Fujifilm X-E4 set to adjust the ISO (because the camera doesn’t have an ISO dial), and I mistakenly pushed it and unknowingly set the ISO to 51200! I snapped what I thought could be a wonderful picture while at an aquarium. A couple of minutes later I realized my mistake—and I initially panicked, because the opportunity came and went. Then I remembered the Ilford HP5 Plus Push Process recipe, which requires a minimum ISO of 25600, and I knew that I could RAW reprocess in-camera the picture with that recipe, which is what I did (except that I set Grain to Weak and Small instead of Strong). You can see the photograph below:

The results, honestly, are pretty darn impressive. Seriously, this is ISO 51200! I remember back in the film days that ISO 400 was considered to be high-ISO—that’s what the “H” stands for in Fujicolor Pro 400H. ISO 3200 was crazy high, and only for extreme situations or the truly brave. The fact that I use ISO 3200 on any of my Fujifilm cameras—going back to X-Trans I—and don’t even think twice about it is a testament to the advancements of digital technology. It’s truly amazing! And it’s not uncommon to go even higher than that. But would my ISO 51200 picture look good enough when viewed larger than internet and social media sizes? Would it look good printed?

With color photography, on X-Trans I & II cameras, I like the results up to ISO 3200. On X-Trans III cameras I like the results all the way to ISO 12800. On X-Trans IV cameras I like the results up to ISO 6400. Black-and-white is another story, though. On X-Trans I & II I like the results up to ISO 6400. On X-Trans III & IV, you can max it out. While some digital cameras are known for their high-ISO performance, and ISO 51200 is no big deal, going that high on an APS-C sized sensor is nothing short of incredible! Fujifilm does not get enough press for just how miraculous this is.

Wanting to see how the aquarium picture would look printed, I sent it off to the lab. I also printed the Dark Cloud Over The Dark Mountain photo because it was captured at ISO 25600 and I was curious how it would compare to ISO 51200. For the fun of it, I also printed a picture captured on actual Ilford Delta 3200 film. I had the lab make 8″ x 12″ prints of all three images.

I captured some images of the prints, which you’ll find below. It’s hard to tell anything by looking at them on the web, so I want to talk about them. First, all three pictures appear good printed at the 8″ x 12″ size. The lab seemed to print the aquarium picture a little darker than I had expected—by maybe 1/3 stop. That was disappointing, but otherwise the quality was good, and I wouldn’t have any issues displaying these on my wall. I think all three could have been printed larger. I suspected that 8″ x 12″ would be the largest that I’d want to print an ISO 51200 exposure before it would degrade, but after examining the print, I do believe it would look fine even larger, perhaps 12″ x 18″. The ISO 25600 exposure could probably do well printed at 16″ x 24″ and maybe larger.

The obvious thing about the ISO 3200 film picture is the size of the grain. It’s huge! This was 35mm film, so the grain from Ilford Delta 3200 in 120 format wouldn’t appear quite so large. This brings up a point about Fujifilm’s faux grain and the digital noise, which is a little film-grain-like on Fujifilm cameras, that I’d like to mention: the size of it is more like medium-format than 35mm. This isn’t universally true—low-ISO films often had extremely fine grain. Generally speaking, however, even with Grain set to Strong and Large at a high-ISO, it’s not going to be anywhere close to the size of 35mm ISO 3200 grain, and not ISO 1600, either, and maybe not even ISO 800. Medium-format film is much larger, so the magnification isn’t nearly so much when printed, and the grain appears finer, and a lot of times I think Fujifilm cameras produce a grain-look that’s more similar to that.

Let’s look at the prints!

Like I said, there’s not much that you can really tell by looking at these pictures of the prints. It’s something you have to view for yourself. If you’ve captured an ultra-high-ISO picture on your Fujifilm camera, try printing it, so that you can see for yourself the surprisingly good quality. I think you’ll be shocked at just how usable these supposedly unusable ISOs actually are.

And that’s the point of this article. Is ISO 51200 or even ISO 25600 ideal? No. If you are after optimal image quality, my advice is to keep the ISO at and below ISO 800. But if a little graininess doesn’t bother you, and you’re not planning on pixel-peeping or printing posters, the photographs captured at these ridiculously high ISOs are sufficiently good. In fact, their graininess and softness actually gives them a more analog-like feel.

While I made the mistake of accidentally shooting at ISO 51200, you might try using high-ISOs on purpose, especially for black-and-white photography. If you are not comfortable going as high as these pictures, start off with something higher than you normally go. For example, if ISO 1600 is your typical max, try ISO 3200. If ISO 3200 is your typical max, go to ISO 6400. And so on. How high can you go? The sky is the limit! Actually, ISO 51200 is the limit, because that’s as high as the camera will go, but you get the point.