High ISO

[jamesmd]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Hi all

 

I'm practicing 640 and 1200 and my conclusion is that its better to expose for high lights and then open a stop , this way I get noise lower and when working with shot l,ower exp and get rid of some of the noise .

 

Is this stupid or does it make any sense ?

 

If it is stupid , whats the way to go ?

 

Thanks

 

James

[carstenw]

I guess it makes sense, but if you have a stop to open in the first place, then why are you using high ISO? I have done similar experiments to increase high ISO quality, also with a traditional tungsten filter, for example, to avoid noise in the blue channel, but all of them require the extra stop, which negates the need for high ISO in the first place.

 

IMO, the best way to use high ISO is to find out the absolute minimum exposure, and then choose the lowest ISO which will give you that.

[Advertisement]

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

[jamesmd]

sometimes I prefer to go 640 and have a little more speed and DOF , and its an easier combination for 640. And if I overexpose a little I get less noise.

 

absolute min exp , I think I got it , expose whit gray card , but with external meter ? please could you explain to me ? thanks Carstenw.

 

james

[jamesmd]

here is jut a test with 1200 ISO first is normal , 2nd 1 stop , 3rd 2 stops . and after exp lowered in aperture , just a fast thing to try .

[jamesmd]

sorry its 1:1 crop

 

James

[mmk60]

The 1st photo looks lighter and also shows some camera shake?? Did you take those with your camera on the tripod?

 

m

[jamesmd]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

no tripod , just a quickie I did for noise , yes a little moved ,

 

James

[carstenw]

sometimes I prefer to go 640 and have a little more speed and DOF , and its an easier combination for 640. And if I overexpose a little I get less noise.

 

absolute min exp , I think I got it , expose whit gray card , but with external meter ? please could you explain to me ? thanks Carstenw.

 

james

I see what you mean now. You are calling it overexposing and then pulling it down, but this is the same as the "expose right" strategy for dealing with digital cameras, ie. set the exposure so that the histogram is as far to the right as possible, without clipping important areas. If anything is truly overexposed, that area is lost forever, and that is the danger with this strategy.

 

The Leica M8 with its clever encoding of 16 bits of information into 8, requires the usage of the "expose right" strategy less than other cameras, but you could be right that one stop helps.

 

To get back to what I meant, if there is enough light to over-expose by one stop, then there is also enough light to expose normally, but lower the ISO setting one stop. That may give you less noise than your strategy. Try it, ie. shoot the same scene two ways: one stop over-exposed at some high ISO setting, perhaps 640, and then again, not over-exposed, but one ISO stop lower. See which looks better.

 

In my experience, using the lowest possible ISO has always won over various tricks.

[jamesmd]

Hi Carsten , yes you are right . But , at least now I understand better , nothing like trying out things and help . Thanks.

 

James

[carstenw]

Yes, it is always a good thing to try it out! One learns much more about the system that way.