Advice on late dusk shot with moving light

Question

Once a year, for two days, the Split Rock lighthouse in MN lights up its lens. A bunch of photographers are there for the event.
The light comes on during dusk. A bit later than dusk, actually, so there is not a whole lot of light. The beam moves in a 360 pano.
I am using a Canon 40D, and because of the low light situation, I cranked the ISO up to 800, which introduces noise, especially at night, with longer shutter speeds.
I shot the scene with the light moving around, and used the continuous mode when the light came to face the lens, so as to capture the reflection off of the water.
I wasn't thinking this at the time, but I probably could have taken multiple shots of the light as it passed in front of the lens, then hopefully found several of them, then stacked the images to reduce noise.
What I'd like to do is lower the noise in these kinds of shots.
But, with a moving light source, I'm not sure what is the better way to do that.
Could you please suggest some ways to accomplish this task?
Thanks.
Al

Answer 1

> It stinks and it has lots of noise in low light levels ISO 800 is just impossible if you haven't notice then it speaks of why you can't see the obvious.
<br />
<br />Thank you, Wade - for yet another moronic comment.
<br />
<br />While the D3 is
<br />b marginally
<br />better at ISO 800 vs the 1Ds II, if one is "impossible" at ISO 800, so is the other. Hard to find a direct comparison, but here's some select screen shot samples from DPReview.
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=11bisg2BQ69RlUYLATnmi1a6dg6a8s0" /></a>
<img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/11bisg2BQ69RlUYLATnmi1a6dg6a8s0_thumb.jpg" border="0" />
<br />
<br />Yep, at first glance the D3 looks
<br />i slightly
<br />better but you have to realize a couple of things.
<br />
<br />First, the D3 statue portion (blue channel) is
<br />i softer
<br /> compared to the 1DsII. (my guess is it has stronger noise reduction employed than the 1DsII) You can't have overall in-camera noise reduction which also doesn't affect image sharpness. The noise in the 1DsII is "sharper" - but so is the image. A couple of points of Gaussian blur on the 1DsII ... or sharpening on the D3 would make the tiny noise difference even tinier.
<br />
<br />Secondly, looking at the grey patch on the 1DsII, notice that the noise is mostly in the form of color noise which extremely easy to get rid of - so much so that I never have to move the sliders in ACR/Lightroom off the default setting of 25. It's in the RAW image, but because of the default reduction in ACR, color noise is non-existant on either of my 1DsII bodies - even at ISO 1600. (Luminance noise has a greater impact on image sharpness and is much harder to get rid of - it can quickly create utter mush of an image if not used with care.)
<br />
<br />Third, there's a huge difference between pixel-peeping at 100% + views and real-world usability. Real-world usability is all that matters.
<br />
<br />There's no question that D3 is the undisputed champ when it comes to high ISO performance. However, that doesn't even
<br />b begin
<br />to start happening until ISO 1600.
<br />
<br />I appreciate that you're a mere newbie in this brave new world of digital but please ... stop proving you don't have a clue.
<br />
<br />I appreciate the info, Peter. Thanks!
<br />
<br />-phil