Iso 1600

[Ollie]

Hi all.
On Monday this week I was out with Graham (glsammy) and Ben (Tormentil) on a photo trip to Rufford Park and Sherwood Forest.

I was altering ISO settings fairly frequently due to the changing light conditions and for some daft reason, a mistake on my part I went to ISO 1600. I only took four photos before I realised why I was getting such great shutter speeds and quickly switched back to ISO 800 or 400 thinking to myself well those four won't be any good there will be too much noise in them.

When I downloaded and processed them I was surprised to find one pretty decent image of a Long-tailed Tit taken at ISO 1600 which I have posted below. The image has been edited by cropping and sharpening a little and having Neat Image run over the background but not the bird itself. To my eyes at least there is very little noise on the bird itself, certainly much less than I would have expected at ISO 1600.

I was using flash and did wonder if that helped as being a novice with flash I am not clued up much on it. Anyway any comments or thoughts on the flash theory would be welcomed.
Roger

[mh68]

Thats turned out quite well for a 1600 iso shot Roger.As you say noise levels arent too bad at all. I`ve found while testing my S2 that at 1600iso it pays to overexpose by up to 1 stop to help tame the noise, then bring the exposure back down when editing. Perhaps if your flash was set for a lower iso this is what happened here, and it helped minimise the noise? Was the original unedited shot overexposed at all?

Mark H

[glsammy]

I can't see any noise Roger. Worked really well.
I doubt your flash was doing very much, just a little to balance the image, as your shutter speed was 1/2000 @ F8.0. It would have still be pretty decent at ISO 400.
I've noticed that if the light isn't too poor, as it wasn't here, ISO 1600 is quite effective at giving much better shutter speeds with little if any quality reduction.
Why this is I've no idea!
I think this deserves some more experimenting.

[Ollie]

Originally Posted by mh68

Thats turned out quite well for a 1600 iso shot Roger.As you say noise levels arent too bad at all. I`ve found while testing my S2 that at 1600iso it pays to overexpose by up to 1 stop to help tame the noise, then bring the exposure back down when editing. Perhaps if your flash was set for a lower iso this is what happened here, and it helped minimise the noise? Was the original unedited shot overexposed at all?

Mark H

Hi Mark
The original unedited shot was under exposed by - 2/3rds of a stop (I routinely under expose by this amount) and the flash was on High Speed Sync mode if that helps
Roger

[matt_xyz]

that shot does look good for ISO1600. I think it's simply because the image was erring on the side of being overexposed, presumably due to the flash (even though your camera was set to -2/3). As long as you avoid underexposing, noise levels are kept at a manageable level.

Matt

[mh68]

Originally Posted by Ollie

Hi Mark
The original unedited shot was under exposed by - 2/3rds of a stop (I routinely under expose by this amount) and the flash was on High Speed Sync mode if that helps
Roger

Right, gotcha. Unless you brightened the image up in editing (which you didnt mention doing in your first post, so i`d imagine exposure was left as is) the flash probably brought the shadows up sufficiently to lower the noise levels. I`ve found the worst scenario for noise is to have to brighten an underexposed image, so if you didnt have to do it on this shot, that would have helped too.
It just shows though, that high ISOs like this can still give nice results and arent to be avoided at all costs.

Mark H

[willing to learn]

Nice Pic plenty of detail what ever you did it worked well. How close do you need to be to get a decent sharp sized image of a small bird with a 400mm lens I find unless you are at least 20ft with the 300mm a small bird remains very small in the overall frame.
Regards
Colin
Interested as I have a 100 to 400mm lens on order will it give me a little more scope.

[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

[glsammy]

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

Very interesting. Supports my comment that high ISO can work with good light. I must have a go at this, the basic principle is to go to over expose against my normal instinct to under expose.
Back to RAW again for a test session!

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by willing to learn

Nice Pic plenty of detail what ever you did it worked well. How close do you need to be to get a decent sharp sized image of a small bird with a 400mm lens I find unless you are at least 20ft with the 300mm a small bird remains very small in the overall frame.
Regards
Colin
Interested as I have a 100 to 400mm lens on order will it give me a little more scope.

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.

[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.

[Ollie]

Originally Posted by 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.

Mine is the 400D with the 1.6 crop factor sensor
Roger

[willing to learn]

I tried it today thats till I knocked it of AV to TV with out realisingIt a shame as I went to a local wood armed with a handfull of food pinched of our the african grey. Waited and might have got some good shots of a Nuthatch if i had checked the camera,
The Robin was taken at 1600 iso deep in the wood freehand.



The nuthatch shot in TV as i must have caught it by mistake still theres next time

[JeffH]

Originally Posted by d70mpv

Jeff that link is just fantastic, thanks a great deal for that........

It's a pleasure..... - as you may have seen, that website has lots of good hints and tips and how nice to see a Pro sharing such info with us amateurs in such an accessible (and free ) manner.

Jeff