Shooting in low light situations. Advice please

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Always take the ISO as high as you need. High ISO doesn't really cause noise; under-exposure at high ISO REVEALS noise when the image levels are adjusted in post-processing. Or in other words, when shooting at high ISO you need to push the exposure to the limit -- you can't afford the (roughly) 2 stop safety margin that the camera enjoys when shooting a reflective scene at base ISO.

Under-exposing at a lower ISO and then attempting to fix in PP will give you more noise.

Generally, noise is only an issue when photographers stress over their images at 100% magnifications; when you look at the entire image, it'll look fine.

All of the above is the "B" answer by the way - the "A" answer is to use a flash.

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Colin, I'm a newbie when it comes to digital cameras and have been reading reviews, books, etc. trying to get up to speed so I was interested in your answer. I have a Nikon P7700 and have read that the image quality of the camera suffers when ISO gets beyond say 800. I've been hesitant to go further because I would like my photos to be well processed (in camera). At low levels would I likely be disappointed with the quality at ISO 1600 versus ISO 800?

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Originally Posted by Disles1

Colin, I'm a newbie when it comes to digital cameras and have been reading reviews, books, etc. trying to get up to speed so I was interested in your answer. I have a Nikon P7700 and have read that the image quality of the camera suffers when ISO gets beyond say 800. I've been hesitant to go further because I would like my photos to be well processed (in camera). At low levels would I likely be disappointed with the quality at ISO 1600 versus ISO 800?

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Hi Ken,

Let me start by saying I don't know your camera ...

We all want well-processed photos, but photography is always about managing limitations - and choosing the best compromise. With regards to ISO, generally, we'll always want to use the lowest ISO possible, but if there's not enough light we either have to raise the ISO or increase the aperture or lower the shutter-speed ... and often the aperture will already be at its maximum and lowering the shutterspeed any further may give you camera shake or motion blur. So you have to decide if you'd rather have some noise in the photo (which generally isn't noticeable when looking at the entire image) or subject motion / camera shake (which generally is noticeable).

So sometimes the noise is the lesser of 2 evils.

Short answer regarding 1600 is "just try it" :)

BTW...

People who saw I hate flash are often saying, I really don't know how to use flash.

It is really quite easy to bounce flash and get a result that looks quite a bit like it was shot using available light. I strive to get images that don't look like flash has been used...

http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Pets/MALT...ill%2008-L.jpg

http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Pets/MALT...ill%2001-L.jpg

I shot the above when I was covering a local TV news cameraman shooting a story on one of our rescue dogs... I used a Canon 600EX-RT flash on the hotshoe of my Canon 7D. I bounced the flash and modified the light with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro. IMO the image looks like it was shot using available light but, it is actually much better than the image would look with only the overhead available light for illumination...

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Originally Posted by rpcrowe

BTW...

People who saw I hate flash are often saying, I really don't know how to use flash.

It is really quite easy to bounce flash and get a result that looks quite a bit like it was shot using available light. I strive to get images that don't look like flash has been used...

http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Pets/MALT...ill%2008-L.jpg

http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Pets/MALT...ill%2001-L.jpg

I shot the above when I was covering a local TV news cameraman shooting a story on one of our rescue dogs... I used a Canon 600EX-RT flash on the hotshoe of my Canon 7D. I bounced the flash and modified the light with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro. IMO the image looks like it was shot using available light but, it is actually much better than the image would look with only the overhead available light for illumination...

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Out of interest Richard, have you managed to fool the metering with the new 600EX-RT yet? (I haven't - it's been ridiculously accurate).

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

LOL - most of the time when I hear photographers say "they prefer natural light" my first thought is "they don't know how to use flash"!

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True! I am one of them because my flash does not have most of the TTL functions with my camera. :o
Keith, listen to Neil and get the best flash you can afford. The more power the better. ;)

Long exposure is the key to shoot in night. But you need a really still camera to shoot with long exposure settings. Try using a tripod or a steady base for your camera.

I decided to do something radical and see what resulted. I set my camera at ISO 25,600 with a 2" exposure at f/1.4 in a room with no lights (doors closed and drapes drawn) except for three LED lights on appliances (two are white/green and one is blue) and a dim crack under a door behind me at floor level. Lens is 50mm. No flash was used. I cranked the exposure more than 3 stops above the recommended setting. The resulting image (without changing exposure in software) was pretty clean in terms of noise at a size suitable for posting online. The room was so dark that the LED on the microwave looks like a beacon by comparison. The 100% version of the image still had a lot of noise showing. Here's the image right from the camera (except for resizing for posting on this thread). I hand held the 2" exposure so blur is obvious. The room was so dark I set a manual focus before turning off the light because I couldn't otherwise see to focus the camera.

This is no beauty, of course, but for purpose of looking at noise when a ridiculously high ISO is used under near black circumstances, I think it is an interesting exercise. The camera is a Canon 5D Mark III. The lens is not an L series lens, but it has the lowest f-stop among my lenses. I probably should have used a tripod to get rid of the blur, but I didn't want to bother setting it up just to satisfy my curiosity about noise.

http://i60.tinypic.com/jjxlds.jpg

Another thing you can do is take multiple shots on a tripod at high ISO and then stack them; basically you need to divide the ISO by 100 and that's the number of shots you'll need to produce something close to what the image would look like at ISO 100 (and you can do other combinations like 64 shots would give you similar noise to ISO 400).

It's a fun thing to try :)