It's an interesting issue. I shot film for a zillion years, and it's always seemed to me the most gee-whiz aspect of digital cameras is the ability to change ISO with a switch. Who, a couple of decades ago, would have thought of today's ISO? Here's the lowly D3200 at "Hi1," its only "hi" range, which translates to about ISO 12800. The lens is an old manual 35/2.8 K, and it's hand held at 1/2 second, unprocessed except for down sizing.
It's possible to cut the noise considerably if you overexpose by a stop or two and then crank it down in post, but I can't hand hold over 1/2 second, and I figured a tripod would be cheating.