Sony NEX-7 High ISO in the street

So I dont really ever have to push the ISO setting on the camera to the limit.  But, what if I did ?

Well that would be the result.  ISO16000, f2.8 the shutter also maxing out at 1/4000 of a second. I could have closed the aperture a bit to get the poster a bit less washed out but I didn't want the model in the poster to distract from the subject of the picture.  This was taken from the hip with the sigma 30mm DN lens if you are interested in that part of things.  That shot should give you an idea of the noise that you get in the dark areas at the top of the shot.

Lets go for a worst case scenario with really high ISO

So I still have the 30mm on the camera and I spot a moment that I want to capture, it is happening fast so I need the high shutter speed. At 16000 I can get 1/160 of a second and freeze the scissor hand to get what I wanted.  Unfortunately I also captured a few old man bellies and I am not sure that I want them in the photo.  So now I am forced to crop the image.

Bear in mind that these are jpeg straight from the camera. Because we are going worst case.  If we were to use these pics for anything else then we would be taking the raw file and fixing up the color etc.  You can see there is a little loss in detail here and there but it isn't too distracting.  The colors in the jacket and on the bag have lost some texture and there is a slight impressionist nature to the color application due to the noise.  That said however, This shot is okay. The feeling of the moment is still there.  So if you are wondering what would happen if you did have to go to max ISO this might answer your question.  I would not however recommend the camera as a low light marvel as in some cases  the noise is too much.  But as I mentioned before, I don't really see the need to shoot at ISO 16000 anyway.  If low light really is your thing and you want a compact mirrorless camera, you might want to put a little time into investigating fast lenses as another way of getting the performance that you want.  These are all at f2.8, if you spend up on an f 1.4 or even the f0.95 glass that is available for these cameras (native or with adaptors) you might find the question of super high ISO becomes irrelevant.