I am sooooo totally jealous of your d700, soo jealous

When I set up for nature shots with the D300 on a tripod, several speedlights and a long lens waiting for the right moment in nature, often things happening right around you can be missed. I carry a lightweight D40x with the inexpensive 55-200mm VR attached for the quick click. This was pushing the little D40x at ISO 1600, natural light on one such moment.

Show off =)

D80 at ISO 3200, f/2.8, 1/50s at 200mm (Oh yes I regularly practice my grip, hold, and breathing to use slower shutter speeds when I need to), and a well placed mirror for a nice rim light!



EDIT: A note on high ISO. If you can over expose the image by at least a half stop you get less noise. It's that whole expose to the right thing. I would rather shoot an image at ISO 3200 and slightly over expose it, than shoot the image at ISO1600 correctly exposed. Just don't loose the highlights. It's a fine line to walk, but works very well on the D80. That is why I have always said the D80 never had an over exposure issue. it just exposes to the right!

I like how you word "Cruising past the amazing lava flow in Hawaii a couple of nights ago"

It's as if you where on your way to the corner store to pick up a loaf of bread.

Wandering around downtown Disney where they have live music and I found this guy by himself, a stool and a small amp. He had one light which was pretty dim. I shot this at 1600 ISO and should have it shot it at 3200 but my D80 really puts out the noise at 3200. Nowdays I use Noiseware but I did not have it at the time.

The lighting is pretty much what I saw. Post was done in Lightroom and CS3.

I just did a double take. as a regular reader of Moose Peterson's blog, he posted a shot almost exactly like this one the other day

www.moosenewsblog.com/archives/2008/08/13/the-photograph-...

John: I just want to make sure I'm reading this right (I'll have to try it next time im shooting low light) There is less noise when a picture is overexposed with a higher ISO than when it is properly exposed at a lower ISO? So shooting with a D50, if I can get "the shot" with ISO 800, its better to shoot in ISO 1600 and then just bring it back down in post?

follow-up, So the lower end of the histogram is affected more by noise than the higher end?

It is more like this.. digital cameras put much more information in the highlights than the shadows.. hence the phrase, "expose to the right" referring to the right hand side of the histogram which reflects the highlights. Unlike the old days of film where one exposed for the shadows, this will blow out digital highlights to solid white (255)

So if you "overexpose" your image in low light, you push in more data to the right so as you correct the exposure, you pull more data back into the mid tones and shadows. There are limits to this of course, just like in anything. It's all a balancing act of what you want and what you can really get.

When you do this, make sure you are on manual so the camera does not compensate for your upping the ISO by stopping down the aperture for example.

I would also suggest that this technique might work better in RAW then JPEG. RAW has much more data to work with in post production than JPEG. Perhaps someone else can address that? All I shoot for the most part is raw so I just do not work with JPEG very much so I dont know how successful this technique would be on JPEG.

wybnormal is right on the money. You have to do this in RAW to get the best benefit. It has to do electronically with the sensor's signal to noise ratio. But yes in my experience with my D80 (I stress this because different sensors may be different) When I am up to ISO 1600 and just getting the image I will go to Hi 1 (ISO3200) and then bring it back down in post. I check the histogram to make sure I don't nuke the highlights.

I recommend every doing some tests on stationary items, color, whit, black all in the same frame. Expose correctly, then take the same picture at a higher iso, over expose as much as you can with out loosing highlights, then bring it back down in post. Thats what i did.

That makes sense. Thanks.

Most of my music images that I have shown were all shot at the highest limit for ISO. With film you could push the ISO but you then had the evil grain to contend with. With digital especially the D3 you can push the limit even though there is no light to shoot in. You don't have to steady yourself to get the sharp shot. I have been shooting now with great results at 125 to 200 of a sec at f/4 to 5.6 at ISO 3200 and the lighting is so low the before digital I would cry. Now shooting with the D3 while viewing and shooting I always say to myself "I wish I had this camera 20 years ago"

Shot of Joe Walsh with a Nikon D3 Camera ISO 6400 125 sec F/4

@richard: did you do any noise reduction even a little? cause this picture is soooooo clean.. unbelievable what these high end camera can do

This is not even a RAW image it is a high jpg straight from the camera with no touch ups.

SHOW OFF! :-)
When you die Richard, leave your D3 to me in your will!

This one is not so hot, but remember I was shooting without a tripod, camera was panned, and no VR lens, on a cloudy late afternoon, at high speed! I was pretty proud of the shot for those reasons.(yes lots of noise, but a D50 and no Capture Nx2 to clean it up with)

I want a D3 T.T

cant wait for the D700! Although from the reviews I saw that its the same as D300, and D3's sensor. I loved how the D300 handles the high ISO! was using the Auto ISO recently, they all came pretty good. I dont have the shots on flickr.
Similarly the below shot was on Auto ISO and it chose the number 1600! for both images
-- from sharaff - (?)
Shot from Nikon D300. Lens: Sigma APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG/HSM. Aperture f/4. Shutter 1/80 sec. Auto ISO (these were at ISO 1600) EV +0.3. Aperture Priority. Custom White Balance.

Very cool images of a variety of reasons to bump your ISO. I like how BioArt & GSTrader good use of a higher ISO to achieve a faster shutter speed to capture action.
John Leonard good use of a higher ISO to capture a gritty look to the image image. In the film days, I would shoot a high ISO B&W (3200) for the grainy, contrasty effect.
wybenormal, I really like the rimlighting in your image. It's amazing how most of the image is black and yet the lit are is so strong that there is no chance that your viewer doesn't know what the image is. Excellent.
Richard, you are the king of low light and high ISO shooting. I imagine you are ecstatic with the D3. I know I am and my normal ISO settings are as low as I can get away with. I tell you, I never could have captured the same look of flowing lave from a moving boat at night with my film camera that I did with the D700.
Sharaff, if you love what the D300 can do with low light you will really swoon over the D700. It has the same sensor as the D3 and does it deliver.
Keep em coming....

One more from me from the same night as my last image.

ISO 3200, f/2.8, 1/125 at 70mm

I really like the framing on this shot

The D300 handles high ISO pretty well too - here's a shot at ISO 6400, 125mm, f/4.8, 1/50th sec

I there when I shoot at high iso wth my D80 I use the excellent program neatimage to remove the noise.

Some great shots

I took this while on holiday with my D200



ISO 3200, f/2.8 at 17 mm

Pro-AM boxing, single overhead light. Normally, either noise or motion blur is too prominent for strong pictures.

I know this is a dumb question, but where any of these pics taken with a flash too? I have the Nikon D70 and I am pretty new at photography. I take some sports pictures of my son at night and they come out blurry or grainy, I have 70-200 vr lens too and I still get noise and motion blur! HELP!!

Hi garcia1378

My shot was not taken with any flash and most of these shots are also without flash. What we have all done is use the camera's high ISO values to become more sesative to light, hence dark/night shots appearing far brighter/clearer but when the ISO is too high then you get noise.

One of the benefits of High ISo is that the shutter speed is increased at this is what helps to stop blurr.

The D70 is a great camera and the 70-200 is very good too but sports photograohy in low light is very hard to capture withouth flash and even high ISO values may not always help.

I'd buy some flash of increase the ISO value to around 800 and above.

Good luck

Thanks Digital Kid I will try that!

ISO 3200

To garcia1378

You can definitely take full advantage of higher ISO with flash. The shot I posted today was at ISO 3200, 270mm, 1/2000th sec on a D300 with the SB-800 Speedlight.

It was shot at daybreak with the sun just coming up over the horizon - it is my favorite natural light, but at that position of the sun, fill flash can really make a difference.


Try using the high ISO setting with a fill flash - you'll like it!!!

D80 1/30th sec f/5.6 @ 300mm iso3200 (well, 4000 really as 3200 -1/3 ev then pushed back up to try to get some shutter speed above 1/10th@300mm)

Nightmare conditions: pitch black South African night, horrible orange light from our guide's hand-held torch, slow f/5.6 @ 300mm w/ VR. Shot in raw, converted to dng in LR1, colour noise reduction 100, purple and magenta channels desaturated removed 80% of the noise)

Wow that is a awesome pic, Okay I have a SB-600 I will try it with that. thanks Bioart

Shooting with a D50, I get a lot of noise and grain at high iso, so I try to adjust my style to make the better of it..

laurieexcell i cant wait for the d700! real soon! eheh

ISO 3200

Tamron 17-50

D200

I'm getting a bit more cautious about ISO 3200 on my D40 as of late as I started to feel the pics I got on it just weren't something to show off.

Still, it happens that ISO 3200 is the only way to get a photo. I had gone to a concert in hopes of finally getting a good photo of a favourite artist but found out the place was a cafe and going up to the stage would have been very disturbing to the other guests. Which left me on the edge of the audience with a 30mm prime and nothing in my bag that was fast enough for the crappy lighting.

Needless to say I didn't get any good photo of that artist but while waiting for the next artist I found a seat. Continued to try the 30 but nothing worked so in desperation I got out my trusty E75-150 f/3.5, tuned the ISO up to 3200, set the aperture to widest and supported my elbows on the arms of my chair.

This one of Kajsa Grytt was shot at 150mm and 1/80:

John Stowell at ISO4500

ISO 3200 - f16 - 2 seconds.

Leaning on a lamp post. :)

Just got the D90 and love how it sucks up every ray of light. This shot is ISO 3200 in a very dark bar. The pic shows more light that I could see with my eye.

Shot at ISO 2500 with an ND100 Filter for 25 seconds.

ISO 25600:

Except for 3 or 4 photos in this set, I shot these photos hand-held, no flash, at ISO 3200. Most shutter speeds varied between 1/30th and 1/60th of a second. IIRC, most apertures were around f/4 or f/5.6 if I were lucky. (I shot two photos with flash, but they are awful--as you can see in the set.)

I did apply NR to some but not most photos, particularly to the black backgrounds in this very dimly lit automobile museum. The views that you see in the photos are actually brighter than what you actually see in the museum.

www.flickr.com/photos/21688809@N02/sets/72157614927944141/

There is probably no perfect way to capture the aurora. If you use low ISO you need long exposure time and since the aurora move constantly they will just look like a green smear on the sky. With a shorter exposure you may capture their detail, but then everything will be rather dim. High ISO (here 1000) allows you to use relatively short exposure time and moderate aperture

I love the lion. And the bird in flight ...

ISO6400 f2.8 at 1/20 sky was really dark... trying to get the silhouette


ISO1600 f1.4 at 1/125 too much movement and finding hard to focus with the 50mm at f1.4 slightly grainy due to processing to accentuate tthe fighter's physiques.

I use a high iso alot, i do alot of night photography.

I'm no pro but i was pretty pleased when i took this

Morris County Tournament Final
#32 - Emily Peel

D3 ISO-5000 f2.8 1/500

This was my first real outing with my new D90. I was at the NHRA World Finals in Pomona, Ca. This was the final elimination race in Top Fuel and night was falling. The track was only lit by a few portable floodlights, so I set the ISO to 1600 and fired away.

My favorite reason to bump up the ISO on my camera...I am finally able to accomplish my dream of freezing the action in night games.

ISO 3200


ISO 1250


ISO 6400

I enjoy my D90 because I shoot a lot of pictures in dim lighting, and having the ability to get up to ISO 3200 is really something that expands my potential for pictures. I usually shoot at 2000 because above 2000 or 2200 it gets just a bit too grainy at 3200 unless you can shoot at faster shutter speeds.

ISO 2000


ISO 2000


ISO 2000

I try to use high ISO sparingly due to the grain it introduces. If the picture I'm taking has a frame that is still, I'd much rather have a low ISO and use my tripod with a long exposure.

My new D90 is great in this regard, much better than my D40X was, and I understand its actually better than the more expensive D300 at this as well.

I WISH I could afford a D700. That thing is fantastic in low light.

Just remember, high ISO capability is great, but a good quality fast lens is a better investment :)

This was in a very dimly lit candlepin bowling alley.

Nikon D90 with Nikon 35-70 f/2.8D
f/2.8 ISO:3200 shutter 1/60s



It was dark enough that I was actually having trouble auto-focusing, even with the focus light on. I didn't want to be "that guy" witht he flash, so I tried to avoid using my speedlight whenever possible.

A picture of my lovely friend Saskia.
Tis a tad edited.... but nothing major.

how abt this !

more than your D700, i'm jealous of your 200mmf2.0 O_O

iso 2000