The importance of shutter speed is something that we can sometimes undervalue by attempting to use ISO values that are too low when creating photographs. We may read articles or view videos that are adamant that we should always shoot at low ISO values. While this can be appropriate in specific situations, using a low ISO and sacrificing shutter speed as a trade-off, can be problematic.
Category Archives: Low Light Photography
ISO-10000 BIF Test
I recently did an ISO-10000 BIF test to experiment with the Severe Noise capability of Topaz Denoise AI when capturing a bird taking flight. My subject was a robin perched deep inside a pine tree in very dark shade. The sequence of images was captured using my E-M1X’s Pro Capture H technology. My standard small bird Pro Capture H settings were used, i.e. both Pre Shutter Frames and Frame Limiter were set to 15, utilizing a frame rate of 60 fps.
High ISO Heron In-Flight
This article features a small selection high ISO heron in-flight images. As regular readers will know, I often push my camera gear past what can reasonably be expected, simply to see what will happen.
Longhouse at Crawford Lake
A couple of days ago my wife and I made a quick visit to the longhouse at Crawford Lake Conservation Area, as well as taking a short forest hike. This article shares some handheld, longer exposure images of the interior of the longhouse.
Handheld Before Sunrise
This article shares a selection of photographs that I captured handheld before sunrise at LaSalle Park in Burlington, Ontario. I must admit that it felt a bit odd to head off during the wee hours of an early November morning to capture some landscape images without a tripod.
E-M1X ISO Invariance Test
This article shares the results of an Olympus OM-D E-M1X ISO invariance test. My base image for this test was a tripod assisted photograph captured at ISO-6400. I then took successive images at ISO-3200, ISO-1600, ISO-800, ISO-400 and ISO-200 while shooting in Manual mode.
Progressive ISO Test
Regardless of the brand or format of camera that you may own, you may want to do a progressive ISO test with it. This allows a photographer to compare the performance of a particular camera and lens throughout its ISO range.
Raffaele Rubattino Ferry Night Photography
My wife and I just returned from doing a two week bus tour of Italy. Part of our adventure was an overnight sail from Naples to Palermo aboard the Raffaele Rubattino ferry. This article, Raffaele Rubattino Ferry Night Photography, shares a selection of images and provides some tips about night photography aboard cruise ships.
High ISO ETTR Test
Before we get into this article I’d like to thank one of our readers, Motografia, for providing the creative spark for this article. During a recent visit to Bird Kingdom I decided to try a high ISO ETTR test. The term ETTR stands for ‘expose to the right’. This is a somewhat controversial technique in which a photographer purposely exposes an image ‘to the right’ in order to maximize highlight details.
Doing Your Own ISO Invariance Test
There’s plenty of discussion today about ISO invariance and to what degree certain cameras may be ISO invariant. This is a highly technical subject and readers who are interested in exploring this topic in-depth should research it by reading articles on more technically oriented sites. As regular readers know, I’m an experiential/experimental type of photographer, rather than being technically oriented.
In a nutshell, if a camera has perfect ISO invariance (which no camera does) there will not be any penalty in terms of noise when lightening your image in post as compared to originally capturing your image at a higher ISO. This article shares some sample images captured with Nikon 1 V2, V3 and J5 cameras, while doing a simple ISO invariance test. I’d like to thank one of our readers, William Jones, for providing the creative spark for this article.