Iso 1600

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by JeffH

That's a really nice shot Roger.

For those interested in using high ISOs, Wildlife/Nature Pro John Devries (of 'Ophrys Photography') has an excellent article in the hints and tips section of his website -

Wildlife and nature photography hints an tips - working at high ISO

Jeff

an interesting article, luckily it confirms what I already do (and said above). But it's interesting that he tries to keep his shutter above 1/500 for small birds. Unless I'm shooting in full sun I think I would nearly always need ISO 1600 to get these sorts of shutterspeeds at this time of year.

The other top tip which he failed to mention was to use a 500mm f4 lens with a 1.4 converter. This gives you so much reach that the bird will be large in the frame and hence packed full of detail. If the bird is smaller in the frame it obviously needs cropping but I tend to find that images are far less 'croppable' when using a high ISO since the fine detail just isn't there.

Mat

[willing to learn]

Originally Posted by glsammy

As an example, for these shots we were about as close as our lenses could focus. In my case, that was about 3mtrs.This one would have been roughly the same.

Thanks perhaps I better brush up on my field craft might be easier if I was not the size of a bull elephant
Regards
Colin

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by willing to learn

Thanks perhaps I better brush up on my field craft might be easier if I was not the size of a bull elephant
Regards
Colin

The best tip I can give you is to choose public sites, parks and similar places, NOT nature reserves. The birds in nature reserves tend to be extremely nervous and wary of humans. The parks I visit the birds will literally come down whilst your still putting the food out. I had a chaffinch that was within 2ft of me on Monday, and this isn't a rare event.

[Ollie]

Certainly some interesting replies and theories to test out here. Sorry for not coming in again any sooner on this since I started it but I sat down away from the PC and promptly fell asleep. (been on early shift up at 4:30 am today)
Roger

[Hobjob]

.................... >BLAST BLAST BLAST BLAST .......................

I wish I had read this before taking snow and lapland buntings today in a hurricane

[big bill]

nice shot and not much sign of noise well done

[Brocker]

lovely shot. . . Beautiful clear detail. I quite often shoot at high ISO to enable a faster shutter speed and find it very useful.

[Tobyh]

A great shot there and the info on the linked website was very interesting. Something I'll try this weekend for sure. Im using a 1.4 on a 300 lens from my window and need a bump in my shutter speeds, this will help immensely if i get it right

[GerryNick2]

I have been experimenting with high ISO's for the last two months with my Canon 30D + 100-400mm lens and have been impressed with the results.
ISO 1600 has produced some excellent results to date and the background noise was certainly no worse than the results achieved with ISO 400 film. In my eyes I would say the digital images were superior.

Took it a step further last week and tried the custom ISO 3200 setting. In the past have tended to ignore this setting assuming the results would be a bit disapointing. All I can say is that I was amazed at the results and could see very little difference when compared to ISO 1000 and 1600 shots.

Prints from these shots were also very good. The Epson R800 seems to be very forgiving and tends to smooth out some of the background noise.

As mentioned in the reference article the final touch is to tweak with Noise Ninja. I have down loaded the profiles for the 30D and tend to use these with the default settings and then follow up with the paint brush to remove any smoothing applied to the main image.

If you have not tried it yet give it a go.

Gerry

[d70mpv]

Jeff that link is just fantastic, thanks a great deal for that. Andy Rouse mentioned the same about ISO-fear at the talk I went to i.e. don't be afraid to go high if you need to, better to get a sharp shot than not. He showed a beauty of a bear shot, I seem to remember that was taken at ISO 6400!

The one thing I would say is that I think both the article and certainly Rouse are using full frame cameras. Roger are you using a full frame or crop? Hopefully the newer crops (40D et al) may make up a little for their small sensor sizes with improved high-ISO-handling technology.