Low light shooting settings

[Deliberate1]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I am getting acquainted with my new Q - silver, svelte and just beautiful. And coming from an S, it feels feather weight.

I have been testing higher ISO images and do observed a considerable amount of noise at 6400 - at least under the circumstances that I have put the camera to. So it seems to me that it may be best to keep the auto ISO to, say, 3200, then shoot at as close to wide open as possible for the circumstances. With  a stabilization function and absence of any discernible shutter vibration (vs the S mirror slap), I am thinking that it would be best to take full advantage of slower shutter speeds and a fast lens, rather than rely exclusively on the sensor. Naturally, this may not work where there is movement in the scene that you may want to freeze. For those of you who ascribe to this theory, do you program your camera with these settings. I have never done this, but would like to explore that function.

Your thoughts?

Cheers.

David

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[stuny]

I recommend just experimenting to see what works best for you, and taking notes of what you did and how it worked out - Even just your relative ability to do slow shutter speed hand-held will individualize your results.

[falcon468]

I went through the same process.  What I decided to do is put a ceiling on the ISO at 6400; however, I might drop it back to 3200, given your experience, and set the shutter speed for a floor of 1/30 second.  I shoot with the lens at F1.7.  Everything else is automatic. I know that this a very basic comment, but as I said, I went through your same process and this one works for me.

[robgo2]

I went through the same process. What I decided to do is put a ceiling on the ISO at 6400; however, I might drop it back to 3200, given your experience, and set the shutter speed for a floor of 1/30 second. I shoot with the lens at F1.7. Everything else is automatic. I know that this a very basic comment, but as I said, I went through your same process and this one works for me.

Minimum shutter speed depends on whether there is subject movement. If there is none, then I have no qualms shooting at 1/16 sec with IS active. Some people even go down to 1/8 sec.

 

Also, I generally find that noise levels from the Q are manageable at ISO 6400 using good noise reduction software and eschewing aggressive recovery of deep shadows, which tends to be ugly anyway.

Edited January 8, 2018 by robgo2

[Deliberate1]

Also, I generally find that noise levels from the Q are manageable at ISO 6400 using good noise reduction software and eschewing aggressive recovery of deep shadows, which tends to be ugly anyway.

Obliged for yours. What do you use for noise reduction. Frankly, with my CCD sensor Leicas I have just avoided shooting in circumstances that would result in unacceptable noise, or I convert to black and white.

[Sulis]

To me, the biggest problem with the Q noise is the banding - just random noise is fine and can give a shot character in BW (or be masked with grain overlay in Nik Silver Efex Pro). However, the banding issue can ruin shots at quite low ISOs, and is much harder to deal with - Nik's Dfine 2 has a (slightly hidden) debanding option, which does help a bit.

 

Sadly, the Nik suite has been abandoned by Google, so until DxO (I think they bought it) releases it again it will work less and less on more modern machines. I don't know any other programs that can help with it.

[robgo2]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Obliged for yours. What do you use for noise reduction. Frankly, with my CCD sensor Leicas I have just avoided shooting in circumstances that would result in unacceptable noise, or I convert to black and white.

 

My raw converter of choice is Photo Ninja, which contains the very good Noise Ninja module. But for really noisy images, I sometimes resort to DxO with its Prime NR engine. Prime can work miracles in some cases. But as I mentioned in my earlier post, many problems, including banding, can be avoided by not attempting to recover too much detail in deep shadows. When banding occurs, just back off. It's helpful to remember that some of the greatest photos of all time have black or nearly black shadow areas. This may have been due to the limitations of the then existing photographic technology, but the black areas are still powerful visual elements.