How Many Samples You Like?

[Notiusweb]

I flipped between 500 s/px and 16,000 s/px renders recently to test my card temps.
And whereas I hadn't considered setting a low goal of 500 s/px in the past, I began to find that at 1920 x 1080 my eyes really can't tell the difference between a 500 s/px render and a 16,000 s/px render.

What sample rate targets do you feel work for you? (ie 500, 1000, 2000, etc...)
Wonder if there is a number at a resolution or model type where continued render is wasted.

[glimpse]

I'd say it depends on scene & settings, but if You are happy with the result, noOne could say You anything more =)..

I usually leave the shot to render setting max samples way too high somewhere in 32 64k & then save out progress as I go.. & see how it improves with equal steps in time or samples. Last step is increasing resolution twice & render for roughly same time as You choose to be ok =) You can do some work on that res & scale down..-that's my choise, but maybe others can recomend different approach.

[itsallgoode9]

size of your image affects this dramatically. My renders are usually 8000 pixels and sometimes they look fine at just a couple hundred samples. As well, your content makes a big difference in the amount of samples you need as well. An interior will probably need alot more samples than a glossy product shot, for example. As you go along, you'll probably start to get a feel for these variations and be able to estimate how many samples your after.

[Notiusweb]

Tom, I saw your site, very cool! The renders you have look really great.
You think depth of field creates less sample requirement for a render, as in blurry doesn't have to be as high sample as something focused? Or does a blurred image wind up needing the same render time to look natural.

[itsallgoode9]

DOF is longer to clear. out of focus, bright specular highlights especially take a very long time and in some cases just won't clear up. I'm not sure if there is actually more noise in the out of focus area or it's just easier to notice the noise in an area with more flat smooth colors vs an area with alot of visual detail, which sort of hides alot of noise.