Quality Images at Higher ISOs

I am a natural light photographer. I choose to use only available light for all my photographs. When I shot film professionally I used a lot of flash for the weddings and family portraits I shot. I know how to properly use flash.

With today's DSLR technology the amount of light required for low noise portraits continues to drop. Below is a sample of a portrait taken at 4800 ISO without flash. I did use noise reduction software yet the quality of the finished image remains high.

Nice image.

Man, things sure have improved over 800/1600 asa film hasn't it? One of these days, I'll get a newer body.. I'll probably still haul lighting though, the additional control's worth it (although certainly not for candid stuff). Nice and clean!!!!!

Did you smooth her face? What a cutiepie

BrianLachoreVPI said:

Did you smooth her face? What a cutiepie

Click to expand...

I had no reason to smooth her face as her complexion was flawless.

Oh to have a 3-4 year old's skin again - LOL. I have a 3.5 year old myself.

Was that on a tripod? If not, I'm a lot more impressed at the fact that there's not more blurring considering that :

1. It's hard to keep a child still
2. The shutter speed is at 1/30th

I have a fairly good technique (breathing and bracing if no tripod is present) for getting things without much blur, but you're not ever going to get a person perfectly still at that shutter speed.

But I'm with you Bob, I much prefer natural light and only ever resort to bounced flash if I really need it. Unfortunately, the low light performance of my D300 is very long in the tooth these days, especially compared to the D7000, D700 etc etc... I can really only go up to ISO 1250 with the help of Lightroom's noise reduction without losing too much detail.

I'm not too bothered with a bit of noise, and certainly can go up to 3200, but probably not in too much of a dimly lit space. Makes me sad because, everything else about the D300 is so much better (IMO) than most of the other things I've tried on the current market.

Here's the D300 a few winters ago shooting at ISO 3200. (there was an underground electrical fire caused by salt making contact with some bare wire. Later on, the fire turned into very pretty blues, greens and purples. Highly toxic of course!)

No in camera noise reduction 1/25th f 4.5 @ 70mm. (no tripod or image stabilization either) Just a touch of noise reduction in Lightroom before doing the B&W conversion in Silver Efex Pro.



Very cute subject you've got there btw!

Doug

Doug b - I use my Nikkor 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 VRII a lot because the VR capability allows me to hand hold low light shots at 1/20". I own 3-4 great tripods and use them where I can. This was a church Christmas banquet where the only lighting came from a few strands of clear white Christmas bulbs hung from the center of the ceiling. I often shoot such affairs and never use a flash so that I can remain completely candid. The first little girl I posted was sitting with her grandmother at my dining table. She was shy and looked away when I pointed the camera in her direction. I kept trying and managed that one good shot by pre-composing and firing quickly.

The photo below was quite a crop from the original. Her grandfather, the pastor of this church, was holding her in his arms. I found her face adorable. Again, it was shot at 1/20", handheld, at 4800 ISO. Tripods in that environment were not practical.

Jared's granddaughter



Original

i do mainly bird photography , my canon 50d doesn't mind higher iso but my 7d likes lower iso ..