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.