Photography means drawing with light not darkness!!

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Maurice - sorry if you feel your photographic ability was maligned! I need high ISO for sports and other low-light events (weddings spring to mind) - not that I'm a pro - but I agree with you that for static or controllable subjects, the "landscape, art and architecture" that you list, high ISO performance rarely matters much - at least if you're not concerned with the wind's effect on foliage. You're quite right, therefore, that the fixation on ISO performance makes little difference to some styles of photography; it's applying this statement to <i>all</i> styles of photography that's contentious. It's a good thing that we all use cameras differently. (Heck, <i>someone</i> thinks the D700/D800 ISO button is in a sensible place and didn't think it was worth making it possible to map it to one of the buttons you can reach with your right hand. Someone thinks the left hand side of the lens mount is a sensible place for a focus mode selector. I assume they're just different from me, even though for my style of shooting they would appear to be idiots.)<br />

<br />

Thomas: I think it's the "very often" that matters. I've very rarely used my D700 at Hi2, but on the rare occasions that I've used it, I've been very glad it's there. Frequent is not the same as important! Capabilities that are there "just in case" are sometimes the most critical.</p>

[orcama60]

<p>I do agree Thomas. If you want to have it available when you need it, it is better than not. I am not against anybody to buy this camera. If you want to have a ferrari and have the money, go for it. Problem is most likely you will not be able to drive it at any speed higher than 80, otherwise, the police will ticket you, but I guess it is better to have it than not. I do agree to this.<br>

If somebody in this thread is a dedicated sport photography ( not shooting kids running in the back yard ), I would like to see a picture in which an ISO 6400 ( f/4 - f/5.6 ) was used and how much of speed did you get out of that. Other than that, for portraiture, landscaping, architecture, studio photography, macro, etc, do we really need to shoot at high ISO ? <br>

Let me correct that for landscaping, you don't need to shoot at f/1.4 but f/8 +, just because I said f/1.4 I don't want you to think I meant to shoot at f/1.4 for landscaping. </p>

[dan_south]

I just spent the weekend testing a 5D Mk III. I took lots of shots at ISO 12,800 at f/4 - f/8. Wider apertures would not

have yielded a useful image given the extremely limited depth of field. I can think of plenty or high ISO applications.

 

Low light is not the absence of light.

[orcama60]

<p>Andrew, never felt like that. Perhaps it was me that did not explain for what type of photography we needed it hight ISO. Different opinions are welcome and this is the way to learn and thank you for your statement. Making a mistake is good. </p>

[orcama60]

<p>Yes Dan, you are right. Are you a dedicated sport photography ? How much of speed will you get a f/5.6 ISO 6400 ? If you are, can you post a picture shot a pro football game please ?</p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>it's hard to complain when someone makes a camera measurably better in some way.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A great post Andrew but I'll disagree (quasi-facetiously) with this part because seeing it done here demonstrates how easy it actually is. </p>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>If somebody in this thread is a dedicated sport photography ( not shooting kids running in the back yard ), I would like to see a picture in which an ISO 6400 ( f/4 - f/5.6 ) was used and how much of speed did you get out of that.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What relevance is the subject matter when it is the phenomenon and effect to be reviewed? Judging by this thread there seems to be a narrow vision of how things ought to be.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>High ISO for landscaping ? I don't see the need but If I am wrong, please, explain why you may need high ISO to shoot a landscape ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>One example, I pulled aside, not long ago, on a busy road to shoot a dramatic but fleeting scene with dark stormy clouds and rather dark ground. There was no time for ideal parking, tripods and other set ups. While the ISO was not super high, it did the trick and an adequate image of an uncommon scene was achieved. Using more limited sensors would have resulted in less desirable results or none at all.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>Maurice, no offense, but some of your questions seem so simplistic, they verge on "Borat"-style parody.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>the new D800 / D4 are leading everyone to buy this equipment based on the idea to shoot at higher ISO values, but in reality, we know that we do not need to shoot at ISO 6400 much less above that value. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>"We"? Maurice, if no one ever needed to shoot at 6400 cameras wouldnt go that high. also, high ISO on this level was introduced a generation ago with the D3/D3s.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Is it not better to have a faster lens mounted in your camera rather than shooting at higher ISO ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>there is no "better," because there is no one shooting situation. fast lenses have their limits, too. with a D3s, i can shoot with a relatively slow lens, like my 15-30, at high ISOs in dim situations and get away with it. or, with my 24-70 or 70-200, i can use the High iSO capability to stop down to f/4 for better sharpness and detail, or maintain a fast shutter like 1/250 to freeze motion--in low-lit conditions. i have a 50/1.4 and an 85/1.4, but primes are inconvenient in situations where you have constantly moving subjects, like concert photography. they simply dont make 1.4 lenses at every single focal length, and if they did, it would be cost-prohibitive.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Should not be better to turn on some light or use a flash instead ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>flash is not always allowed.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>simply, just quit and come back when available light is present at the scene, no ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>no. what if you're only there for a short time? also, you cant just tell a musician, his band, tour manager, etc., to come back the next day when you have better light.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>buying this camera just because it will let us shoot at higher ISO, I don't think is a good idea.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>i must have missed the part where someone held a gun to your head and forced you to buy the latest camera and shoot at high ISOs.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Would not be better to use for example, a f/1.4 lens and a tripod and shoot at ISO 800 / 1600 ( max ) rather than use a f/2.8 lens handheld and shoot at ISO 6,400 + ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>first of all, if i'm using a tripod,i'm shooting at shutter speeds far below what i can handhold. which means 1.4 or 2.8 is irrelevant, since i can just shoot a long exposure. and if i shoot a long exposure, i'm probably shooting at base ISO. second of all, unless it's a seated portrait, i'm not using a tripod for people photography. and you cant bring tripods into a club or concert venue where you will be interacting with the crowd.</p>

<p>bottom line is, if you dont need to shoot at high ISOs, dont. if a d4 or d800 has other features you need, pick one up. but why waste our time telling us what we should shoot because that's how you shoot?</p><div></div>

[eric_arnold]

<blockquote>

<p>But again, for my photography style, I prefer to have a f/1.4, good tripod, remote and a D300 to get what I want. High ISO for landscaping ? I don't see the need but If I am wrong, please, explain why you may need high ISO to shoot a landscape ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>for most landscape shots, you dont even need a fast lens, much less high ISO. but i think the point people have been trying to make is that the d800 has more resolution for landscapers, more cropping ability for wildlife shooters, and excellent high-ISO for available-light shooters--at a price point thousands below the previous generation's models, D3s and D3x, which were two different cameras. for a lot of people, those are compelling reasons to buy the camera. what the d800 doesnt do so well is sports since you're limited to 4fps or 5 in DX mode (which is still as good as the d200). that's why there's the d4. both models do video in a better implementation of the last gen.</p>

<p>anyway, if Maurice can do everything he needs to with a d300, then there's no need for him to upgrade.</p>

[scott_ferris]

<p>EV0, I think the image was worth taking. That would be f2.8, iso 3200, 1/4 sec, this is the absolute limit of the gear I had with me, that was principally dedicated to landscape work. A faster lens would not have helped as I needed the dof. But how useful is a fast lens for landscapes anyway?</p>

<p>I came from a long time film background and rarely shoot above 200 iso, I would never have carried iso 1600 film to have attempted the image below.</p>

<p>My take is, if your camera has the capability many people will use it.</p><div></div>

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>But how useful is a fast lens for landscapes anyway?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>For landscapes with as much possible depth of field, not much. For those where narrow is desired, for creative uses such as isolating a certain subject or area, fairly. I think this quote is at odds with the rest of the post, namely, the excellent point that 'if a camera has the capability many people will use it.</p>

<p>My criteria for choosing camera gear (aside from budget and other realities) is whether it will help me get better images. Sometimes older or lesser technology works and is more able to be used in a certain situations. Sometimes I use fancier gear, because I can and some attributes will improve the outcome in some way. If I'm limited in what I do, its because of reality, not notions that some features are to be looked down on or praised in general. Its what works in a given situation.</p>

 

[ford_kristo]

<p>I would love to shoot at 6400 ISO for wildlife action.<br>

This allows extreme shutter speeds and much greater depth of field.<br>

BUT - higher ISO = noise, noise, noise.</p>

[andylynn]

<p>You don't <em>have</em> to shoot at high ISO. But maybe you <em>want</em> to shoot at high ISO. Indoors without flash, street at night, indoor sports, concerts and plays - there are many applications. Many of these are things you could shoot at slower ISO with a flash like everybody always did, but when you can do without a flash you have more options. Since you can't get a DSLR these days without high ISO options, you might as well use them.</p>

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>A great post Andrew but I'll disagree (quasi-facetiously) with this part because seeing it done here demonstrates how easy it actually is.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think we might be related. That's the sort of thing I do!</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>John, Steve, you are technically correct. Which is the best form of correct. :-)<br />

<br />

I agree that larger apertures are only occasionally useful for landscapes - but <i>are</i> occasionally useful for landscapes (and as I recall, Bjørn has made the same point in the past about using a 200 f/2 for landscape shots). Higher ISOs... well, they certainly help with star shots if you don't have a tracking mount. My shot-that-got-away, which would have been London under moonlight rising out of a thick fog (I didn't have a camera with me) would probably have been made by resting the camera on a car in mildly windy conditions - ISO would have helped. And, of course, sometimes landscapes contain moving content (e.g. leaves, water, fauna). Not, I admit, always - which is why I want to get a 5x4 for landscape work - but sometimes. I'll take the capabilities that I can get, for <i>any</i> form of photography.<br />

<br />

Unfortunately I've not got access to my photo catalogue here (I really must pay Flickr some money) so I can't dredge up an ISO 6400 sporting shot for Maurice. I'll have some taken as the sun went down at Wimbledon, though - my 150-500 being the biggest lens I had at the time and was prepared to carry in as an amateur, and I was using it wide open (which is, admittedly, f/5-6.3) and stabilised under those lighting conditions. Football - especially the American kind (I'm assuming this is what was requested) - is not so much my sport, though!</p>

[lachaine]

<p>"Low light" has been selling lenses for a long time, and now it's the cameras themselves being sold on the basis of "low light". "Low light" is the first thing that every new "photographer" suddenly needs. For some reason, the minute someone gets a camera, an irresistible urge is acquired to use it handheld in the dark.</p>

<p>Most of the interesting dark pictures I see could have been taken with any camera and an f/2 lens, given a person behind the camera who knows what he's doing. I don't see any high ISO pictures here that couldn't have.</p>

<p>That don't sell cameras, though.</p>

[ed_avis2]

<blockquote>For some reason, the minute someone gets a camera, an irresistible urge is acquired to use it handheld in the dark.</blockquote>

<p>The human eye can see well enough in candlelight, and without mounting your face on a tripod. So why shouldn't cameras be able to do the same? New photographers have the expectation that if the eye can see a scene, the camera should be able to photograph it. Those with more experience know that this isn't always possible, but that is a limitation of the technology available up to now, not something intrinsic to the art of photography. It is only because of past equipment limitations that we refer to such scenes as 'low light' and treat it as some special feature a camera may have. For the human eye it's nothing remarkable.</p>

 

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Quite - my friend wanting a compact "that isn't so noisy in the dark" has exactly this expectation. The human eye is optically pretty shoddy in many ways, but it's pretty good as low light systems go. Even if it's for the minority of shots, I suspect the majority of photographers have at some point been in a low light scenario where they wished they could shoot. Not necessarily landscapes, but something worth photographing.<br />

<br />

The snaps I took at Wimbledon as the light was failing were at f/6.3 (wide open on the 150-500) and 500mm, ISO 6400 and probably at 1/100s partly so I could hand-hold (with stabilisation) and partly to freeze the moving tennis players - in better light, I should have been using a significantly shorter shutter speed, since I actually got more motion than I wanted (and I wanted <i>some</i> to capture the ball moving). At f/2, I'd have had just over three stops more light, which would have got me to ISO 800. On my Eos 300D, that would still have been pretty noisy, and I'd have had the small problem of trying to use (allowing for the crop factor) an adapted Nikon 300mm f/2. And getting it through security, obviously. If I'd used the 500 f/4 (AI-p) I subsequently acquired (partly because my Sigma was so iffy at 500mm - there seems to be a lot of variation in this lens), I might have dropped to ISO 3200, but 500mm f/2 lenses are a bit hard to source, and the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 isn't most people's idea of a convenient lens. I don't claim to know what I'm doing, but I do know that "faster glass" wouldn't have helped. Sometimes the sensor matters, however much we always tell people to spend money on the glass.</p>

[johne37179]

I have been taking photographs for over 50 years. When I started and for maybe the first 20 years I thought I needed the

fastest lenses I could buy. My years as an advertising photographer taught me that I never shot that lenses wide open. If

you look at the great images from Adams, Westin, Karsh, whoever, none are shot with wide overtures. The fastest lens I

own today is a 3.5, but I never shoot it there. I love shooting at high ISO because I can use my lenses where they are

best, f8 to f11.

 

There is that rare shot when I want a shallow depth of field, but that is really rare, and Photoshop may do as well or better

in achieving that than a fast lens.

[john_h.1]

<blockquote>

<p>Most of the interesting dark pictures I see could have been taken with any camera and an f/2 lens, given a person behind the camera who knows what he's doing. I don't see any high ISO pictures here that couldn't have.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Does this mean people shouldn't purchase higher ISO capable cameras or is it just some sort of isolated observation? Does it matter how the image was made when it "could have been taken" either way?</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>John - I did mean to raise the point that choice of aperture to get the maximum resolution out of a D800 might make better ISO performance more important (although obviously upping the ISO can cause softening too if you're trying to hide noise). The consensus seems to be that by f/8 you're losing resolution and that f/5.6 would be better if your lens can keep up - but most lenses don't reach their optimal performance until that point anyway (so shooting wider would lose quality). Of course, if Nikon could kindly release a range of lenses that are as good at f/2 as the current 200mm f/2 is at f/5.6, that would help! (I'm intrigued that Shun reported his 500 f/4 wasn't good enough wide open to satisfy a D7000 sensor, so clearly "the best" isn't there yet.)<br />

<br />

That said, I shoot (non-landscapes) at wide apertures a lot - mostly because I do a lot of shooting where I <i>want</i> to lose the background (so I'm not extrapolating my shooting behaviour to everyone else). If I were shooting a 10x8 like Ansel, with correspondingly reduced depth of field, correspondingly reduced impact on diffraction, under typically brightish lighting and with landscapes that don't move much, I'd shoot at f/64 as well. Especially if I didn't have to worry about spots of dust on the sensor (dust on the film is one thing, but at least you change the film every exposure...)</p>

[orcama60]

<p>No offense taken and if I made you angry for my question or statement, then I am sorry. The fact for me is that after I have read everything here, I have learned a lot from you guys. Thank you so much for your time. </p>

[DB_Gallery]

<blockquote>

<p>Well guys, I did not start this to qualify myself as a photographer using your opinion as a thermometer. Everybody is entitle to his own opinion and I am ok with those against mine. For sports photography I have no doubt that you need to use high ISO to get at least 1/250 ( 1/500 ) or more of a second to freeze the action, but for landscaping, art photography, architecture, etc I don't see the need in my humble opinion. Photojournalism mainly use the flash but I do agree that for sport, we need a high ISO performance. <br />Nevertheless, I do appreciate everything you said. This is the reason we do have a forum, to learn from others and or make our point about something. But again, for my photography style, I prefer to have a f/1.4, good tripod, remote and a D300 to get what I want. High ISO for landscaping ? I don't see the need but If I am wrong, please, explain why you may need high ISO to shoot a landscape ? Please explain cause I maybe be wrong and I would like to learn from you guys.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No offense, but you are not using your imagination then, I have sold several "Landscapes" that were shot as ISO 3,200. And this "We" stuff in the first post, only applies to some, not all. You can be sure that if you give me a camera that will shoot ISO 100K plus without a lot of noise, I will use it to great effect. On what you may ask? Let me just say when the sun is up, it overpowers all other light as anyone would expect. But once it goes down, millions of other light sources start pouring in and can lead to incredible results. <br>

I don't digital for landcapes much, prefer to sell people prints made in my darkroom, but for adverting, I use digital and I use higher ISO ranges a ton. </p>

[DB_Gallery]

<blockquote>

<p>I have been taking photographs for over 50 years. When I started and for maybe the first 20 years I thought I needed the fastest lenses I could buy. My years as an advertising photographer taught me that I never shot that lenses wide open. If you look at the great images from Adams, Westin, Karsh, whoever, none are shot with wide overtures. The fastest lens I own today is a 3.5, but I never shoot it there. I love shooting at high ISO because I can use my lenses where they are best, f8 to f11.<br /> There is that rare shot when I want a shallow depth of field, but that is really rare, and Photoshop may do as well or better in achieving that than a fast lens.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Wow John, back in the day huh...I have shot entire ad campaigns at F1.4-2.0...as recent as last week, stunning results, great day rates and happy clients, an none of that fake-O-rama photoshop stuff needed, just getting it right in camera every time....<br>

<br />Only been shooting for 36 years, times, they are a changing bro...:-)</p>

[CvhKaar]

'Photography means drawing with light not darkness"..

 

Exactly, so you need a dark background to be able to see the "light drawing", since white on white looks like nothing much..... :-)