High ISO weekend - aim to get "usable images".

Cagey75 said:
Why would anyone use auto ISO?? It takes a split second to gauge a scene, decide you need to up it or not, and set it to go. For me, the less input the camera has into choosing exposures, the better.
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As joe has said above mate, its a godsend i use it for weddings and chritning i shoot, and sports and motorsport and wildlife, the only thing i dont is when in the studio as i know the lighting is constant,

Nikons auto iso realy is very very good and i 99% the time is spot on.
 
joescrivens said:
Auto iSo is a godsend.

Try shooting in conditions where the light and dark differences ar changing constantly and you have no time to think about settings, like at a wedding. Setting a minimum shutter speed and then allowing your iOS to jump around as needed is a match made in heaven

By the way if in this thread I write iOS, just ignore it, my iPad is obsessed with changing iso to either ISP or iOS and I can no longer be bothered to keep editing my text.
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Gigs, that is the ultimate test for your controls. ISO/Shutter speeds/Aperture. Never mind weddings, any gig, whether it's in a local bar or on a bigger stage, where you cannot use flash - will challenge your skills and camera/lenses. I actually find a wedding much easier. No church is going to be near as challenging as any gig venue.

I've never once used auto ISO, as I find that the camera will push it up at times when you could easily have kept it a stop, or more, lower.
 
Cagey75 said:
Gigs, that is the ultimate test for your controls. ISO/Shutter speeds/Aperture. Never mind weddings, any gig, whether it's in a local bar or on a bigger stage, where you cannot use flash - will challenge your skills and camera/lenses. I actually find a wedding much easier. No church is going to be near as challenging as any gig venue.

I've never once used auto ISO, as I find that the camera will push it up at times when you could easily have kept it a stop, or more, lower.
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The light may change more but at a gig you are not under the same pressure to catch moments that are must haves on the only wedding day of the couples life. Gigs come and go and can be reshot at the next venue. Nowhere near the same pressure.
 
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scottthehat said:
As joe has said above mate, its a godsend i use it for weddings and chritning i shoot, and sports and motorsport and wildlife, the only thing i dont is when in the studio as i know the lighting is constant,

Nikons auto iso realy is very very good and i 99% the time is spot on.
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All I know is,on my old D90, it would shove the ISO up and keep it at whatever I set as max, in even the slightest hint of shadow.

I'll give it a whirl on the D800 tomorrow and see if I change my mind on it. I'm always willing to try at least ;)

joe: you not heard of the 3 songs and you're out ruling? :D that's pressure, if a band is paying you to get great shots of them perform. AT a wedding you can kinda fake it. If you missed the kiss, well, do it again! Same with most important moments. People/photographers stress out worse than bridezillas over these things.
 
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Cagey75 said:
Gigs, that is the ultimate test for your controls. ISO/Shutter speeds/Aperture. Never mind weddings, any gig, whether it's in a local bar or on a bigger stage, where you cannot use flash - will challenge your skills and camera/lenses. I actually find a wedding much easier. No church is going to be near as challenging as any gig venue.

I've never once used auto ISO, as I find that the camera will push it up at times when you could easily have kept it a stop, or more, lower.
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the lighting at gigs doesnt really change to much does it come on.

give birding a try and tell me that auto iso is not a god send.
 
Wha??? How many gigs have you shot? :lol: It changes by the second. And they always use those horrific over-green/red/blue lights. Everything is black bar what these coloured lights illuminate and they swing all over the place. Nightmare for your metering as they constantly change the direction and level/strength of the lighting too. You have to try it some time. Any [decent] pub gig will do it. See how you get on ;)

Example, from |Fri night:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cagey75/8039903000/in/photostream

Can switch to this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cagey75/8039903458/in/photostream

In seconds.

Now tell me there's a more dynamic scenario at a wedding or birding? ;) I'm not challenging on different types of photography, I'll try them all! I just know from experience that gigs are the most challenging I've done to date. that includes Wedding, christening, street, portraiture, macro ...
 
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scottthehat said:
another quick one iso 25600 d700
straight from raw.
SJB_4396straightfromraw.jpg

quick dirty edit.
SJB_4396straightfromrrawedit2.jpg
Click to expand...

Just seen this on the laptop Scott.

If I didn't know better I'd have thought the edit was shot at 1600!
 
Cagey75 said:
Wha??? How many gigs have you shot? :lol: It changes by the second. And they always use those horrific over-green/red/blue lights. Nightmare for your metering as they constantly change the direction and level/strength of the lighting too. You have to try it some time. Any [decent] pub gig will do it. See how you get on ;)
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Ive done some plays thats about it, Gigs the lightning never goes black and the lighting must be at a pretty constant level depiste some lights going off and some on.


Another example of auto iso being great is in sports stadiums where you have bright spots and dark spots caused from stadium shadow.

as i said give auto is a real go use back button focus and see how you love it.
 
That ^^ is impressive. meant to say that earlier but got side-tracked.


The D700 is awesome. I looked at gig shots from one of my fav band's [Pearl Jam] photographer. She uses a D700 with a 70-200, and an old 24-85 or something. She gets cracking images at ISO 3200-6400, seriously clean for that level. They have brill lighting though, and she gets to shoot from the pit/stage/behind stage etc ...

here's the group:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pearljamofficial/

It was those gig shots made me hunger for a D700, decided in the end on the D800 when I heard it was every bit as good on the ISO front.
 
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It's probably better than the D800 at higher levels alright, straight off cam. But if you downsize the D800 images to match, they're the same.
 
Cagey75 said:
It's probably better than the D800 at higher levels alright, straight off cam. But if you downsize the D800 images to match, they're the same.
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what iso noise wise.
the d700 does alright for resolution against the d800e.
d700 upscaled to match d800.

full images
d700
D700INBI00100-1.jpg

d800
D800EINBI00100.jpg

crop d700
D700INBI00100crop.jpg

crop d800
D800EINBI00100crop.jpg
 
Where did you find that photo of my ex wife when I had her stuffed.

Oops, sorry, no banter, only serious posts.

On a serious note you should probably just link them since you don't own the pics
 
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HI
Just been looking on Flickr at the Pearl Jam official photos. In the exif data it shows ISO at 6400 yet a shutter speed of around 1/2500.....why would it not be better to lower the shutter speed thus lowering the ISO. Yep i understand 1/2500 would freeze any action but wouldn't 1/600 or similar be fast enough? Genuine question btw the photographers way better than me, just trying to understand the reasoning. Was it because of the focal length of the lens..although in some of the shots that wasn't particularly long.
Thanks
JohnyT
 
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Johnytuono said:
HI
Just been looking on Flickr at the Pearl Jam official photos. In the exif data it shows ISO at 6400 yet a shutter speed of around 1/2500.....why would it not be better to lower the shutter speed thus lowering the ISO. Yep i understand 1/2500 would freeze any action but wouldn't 1/600 or similar be fast enough? Genuine question btw the photographers way better than me, just trying to understand the reasoning. Was it because of the focal length of the lens..although in some of the shots that wasn't particularly long.
Thanks
JohnyT
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If I were shooting a high profile band, with that camera, and that lens....I ISO would probably be at the back of my mind - 6400 will retain so much detail, who cares? Noise in gig shots is acceptable and expected - I'm sure the photographer was more concerned about getting the fastest shutter for the sharpest image possible (I imagine).

That'd be my answer anyway :)
 
Same here. Freeze the action first, when you know your camera can cope with high ISO, use it. That is the point of it. To get faster shutter speeds/cancel out any blurring. I'm sure she could have cut to ISO 2000 or 3200 on many shots, but why? She's got clear images at 6400, and not had to worry about shutter speeds because of it :)
 
scottthehat said:
what iso noise wise.
the d700 does alright for resolution against the d800e.
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Yeah, I was only talking ISO. I know the D700 is fantastic outside of that already. It's one of the best cameras ever made IMHO. Do you know how long I drooled over them?? :D The only reason I got the D800 was because I had the chance to. Simples.
 
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scottthehat said:
another quick one iso 25600 d700
straight from raw.
SJB_4396straightfromraw.jpg

quick dirty edit.
SJB_4396straightfromrrawedit2.jpg
Click to expand...

Very impressive... wish my canon 7D could handle noise as well as this.

However one thing I've learnt very quickly is that in well lit environments high ISO's aren't too big an issue as the pixels hide in the shadows.

Go shoot in a church without flash and try exposing all the different elements correctly... last weekend I had light pouring in from one side of the church and hitting the brides dress, so to avoid blowing it out I had to under exposed everything else which created a lot of shadow and pixels breeding like bacteria.

Upped the levels in photoshop and there they are all grinning back at me. Happens all the time.

So whilst high ISO tests are all well and good the chances are that in a real world situation the results will quite often be more noisy than these.
 
ajax_andy said:
Very impressive... wish my canon 7D could handle noise as well as this.

However one thing I've learnt very quickly is that in well lit environments high ISO's aren't too big an issue as the pixels hide in the shadows.

Go shoot in a church without flash and try exposing all the different elements correctly... last weekend I had light pouring in from one side of the church and hitting the brides dress, so to avoid blowing it out I had to under exposed everything else which created a lot of shadow and pixels breeding like bacteria.

Upped the levels in photoshop and there they are all grinning back at me. Happens all the time.

So whilst high ISO tests are all well and good the chances are that in a real world situation the results will quite often be more noisy than these.
Click to expand...

Do you have an example RAW file you could upload? I'd like to try and see what could be done...
 
ajax_andy said:
So whilst high ISO tests are all well and good the chances are that in a real world situation the results will quite often be more noisy than these.
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We know all this, the 5 previous pages go into detail about it. This test is to show what high iso shots can achieve no matter what light conditions are.

ps...if you are struggling with the 7d high iso noise.....get a Nikon d3.
 
Phil Young said:
Do you have an example RAW file you could upload? I'd like to try and see what could be done...
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No sorry I'm on my work pc for the dreaded day job.

Tbh I can fix noise no problem with inverted high pass and a layer mask so I'm not really worried about high iso and noise... it's more annoying than anything as it takes longer than if I didn't have to worry about noise at all (time to buy a 5d Mark iii maybe?)
 
tiler65 said:
We know all this, the 5 previous pages go into detail about it. This test is to show what high iso shots can achieve no matter what light conditions are.

ps...if you are struggling with the 7d high iso noise.....get a Nikon d3.
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I get that... and like I said the pic I quoted was very impressive... I was just balancing the argument by saying that it's a lot easier to get good results in controlled conditions that in real life situations :)
 
ajax_andy said:
I get that... and like I said the pic I quoted was very impressive... I was just balancing the argument by saying that it's a lot easier to get good results in controlled conditions that in real life situations :)
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I disagree to an extent.

No matter on the lighting used, subject captured or speed of shutter you should be able to get decent results with time and effort in PP.

There are a couple of things before that can be achieved though;

A) exposure has be favour the shadows of your subject.

B) the ISO has to be pre-determined "useable" for your needs.

For the sake of argument - I'd shoot wedding pictures at 25600 on my D7000 or equivalent but not 102k on the 5Dmk3.
 
Phil Young said:
I disagree to an extent.

No matter on the lighting used, subject captured or speed of shutter you should be able to get decent results with time and effort in PP.

There are a couple of things before that can be achieved though;

A) exposure has be favour the shadows of your subject.

B) the ISO has to be pre-determined "useable" for your needs.

For the sake of argument - I'd shoot wedding pictures at 25600 on my D7000 or equivalent but not 102k on the 5Dmk3.
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I agree mate... I've not had any issues with unusable images due to high ISO as it's a fairly simple procedure to remove noise from selected areas of the picture. It takes a little time which is my issue, not the difficulty in doing it.

As for a) exposing for the shadows and blowing the dress is a lot harder to fix than exposing for the dress, recovering from the shadows and removing noise IMO

b) you are spot on with though... if you can't handle the noise then either don't do the shoot or find a way to add extra light.

With weddings I'd never usually have to go above 3600 ISO so the 5d mark iii should be fine shouldn't it? I'm not moving over to Nikon so I guess it'll have to be :D
 
Phil Young said:
I disagree to an extent.

No matter on the lighting used, subject captured or speed of shutter you should be able to get decent results with time and effort in PP.

There are a couple of things before that can be achieved though;

A) exposure has be favour the shadows of your subject.

B) the ISO has to be pre-determined "useable" for your needs.

For the sake of argument - I'd shoot wedding pictures at 25600 on my D7000 or equivalent but not 102k on the 5Dmk3.
Click to expand...

it also depends what size you are required to print. Whilst you might be ahppy shooting at 25600 on your d7000 from your results here, if the bride and groom wanted that shot printed A1 size then you'd be screwed.
 
ajax_andy said:
With weddings I'd never usually have to go above 3600 ISO so the 5d mark iii should be fine shouldn't it? I'm not moving over to Nikon so I guess it'll have to be :D
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3600 will not even break a sweat on the mark 3
 
ajax_andy said:
I agree mate... I've not had any issues with unusable images due to high ISO as it's a fairly simple procedure to remove noise from selected areas of the picture. It takes a little time which is my issue, not the difficulty in doing it.

As for a) exposing for the shadows and blowing the dress is a lot harder to fix than exposing for the dress, recovering from the shadows and removing noise IMO

b) you are spot on with though... if you can't handle the noise then either don't do the shoot or find a way to add extra light.

With weddings I'd never usually have to go above 3600 ISO so the 5d mark iii should be fine shouldn't it? I'm not moving over to Nikon so I guess it'll have to be :D
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Thinking about the wedding dress situation...

I'd expose for the dress (maybe a little over - just enough to be able to pull back) and then I'd spend loads of time on clarity and nr for the shadows - agreed it would take a long time (probably 2hrs for 10 images)...but if it had to be done I guess it has to be done...

Anyway I'm not sure that ISO would ever be needed in a church given you have a fast lens...its not as if the bride and groom will be dancing after all :p

I've always preferred shooting without a flash - perhaps its because I knew PP before I knew anything about cameras! Also could be the reason I only just learned how to use TTL flash effectively after 4 years!!
 
joescrivens said:
it also depends what size you are required to print. Whilst you might be ahppy shooting at 25600 on your d7000 from your results here, if the bride and groom wanted that shot printed A1 size then you'd be screwed.
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I'd tell them not to go close :)

Looking at the high res file I've determined it to be fine up to A3 still.

Also - remember your standards vs theirs.
My last wedding was shot with a camera fault producing nothing but soft images.
 
Phil Young said:
Anyway I'm not sure that ISO would ever be needed in a church given you have a fast lens...its not as if the bride and groom will be dancing after all :p
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You haven't been to enough churches then. I was in a relatively bright church the other week and I was at ISO 2500 at 1.4 with a shutter of 1/50.

3600 is more than plausible for a church
 
Phil Young said:
Also - remember your standards vs theirs.
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thats not a good attitude to have. Your standard should be as high as possible, I wouldn't give a customer a product that I didn't personally myself think was of a high standard. It's not just them who will be seeing the work but anyone who looks at it.
 
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