I know this isn't relevant to your thread Karl, but it I'd just like to say that Anna sent me a pic she took of me in Romania. And I uploaded it to Flickr, and had a look at the Exif settings her camera was on at the time. Her ISO was set to 2000. What's the highest ISO it can be set to?
If I set my ISO to 1600, it has noise up the bum, and yet with hers you wouldn't even know.
Enlighten me please, before I go on a murderous rampage.
What camera is it you have, McMoist? I've completely forgot! If it's one of the XXXD series, the noise reduction in camera isn't that great. However, if you're shooting at night (landscape, that is), then just use a tripod and a slow shutter speed. That way you can keep the ISO at a low number and have minimal noise.
If you do want to reduce noise even more, there are some programs out there to help this. One is called Noise Ninja. I've never used it, but it does what it says. Not sure if it degrades image quality as a whole though.
As for the Canon EOS 7D, it's highest setting is 6400 - at this you will still notice noise. Even at 1600 you get noise, but it's not as noticeable as that on the camera you have.
The Canon EOS 5D Mk II has even better noise reduction, but it's only slightly. It also goes much higher - up to 32000.
It will go up to 3200, that's the great thing about the 7D, it can handle high ISO settings without too much grain
It's 6400, Annarack. I just checked. I thought it was 6400, but when you said 3200 I had to check to see if I was right or wrong.
But yes, the Canon EOS 7D handles noise remarkably.