Noise is one of the most important things that a photographer must consider whenever he plans on purchasing a new digital camera. A photographer will always think about how well their camera can deal with noise even when they are shooting using high ISO levels. It is the one of the few things that will determine if their picture will be printable without any distracting artifacts showing or if their pictures will turn out to be wonderful, grain-free images. The fact of the matter is, the “noisier” the picture, the worse it is as a picture—unless that's the effect you're really aiming for. But for most photographers and photo enthusiasts, generally, less noise in your pictures are better.
So, now that you've learned that noise is quite unappealing to photographs, it is now time for us to ask: in the realm of digital photography, which of the manufacturers produces less noise. For this particular debate, we will go back to the age-old debate of Canon vs. Nikon since professional photographers and budding enthusiasts mostly choose between the two brands.
The fact of the matter is, Nikon and Canon have very similar image quality and they are able to manage photos pretty well with their superior, world class technologies. One of the reasons why Canon and Nikon are able to go at it head to head is that both brands are highly competitive. This only means that if the other is excelling at some part, the other will eventually work to achieve the same quality or precision in the long run. The important thing is that for the two brands, they will go at it until one develops a type of technology that will ultimately shatter the competition. But since these camera brands have been closely monitoring each other's progress and technology innovations, an emerging winner will be unlikely in the near future.
The differences in noise in the various ISO levels in a Canon 30D are almost negligible being saturation the only foreseeable problem that one would run into. With regard to the differences in noise, both brands exhibited superb image quality and handled the different levels of noise quite excellently without sacrificing image quality and sharpness. The important thing is that your DSLR or digital camera is able to pick up detail even when you are in the darkest condition or environment. Rather than bicker about who has less noise, the more important things that Nikon and Canon should fight about are their colors, their fps (frames per second), accuracy and speed.
The bottom line is this: digital cameras, especially those which fall in the DSLR range, are able to produce images which have less noise. Knowing this, it is important that consumers should not focus about which brand produces the less noise but on the other aspects of the camera's functions. The sooner that people will drop the noise debate, the sooner that they will be able to focus on the more important things that a person should expect from a digital SLR.