Shot at ISO 6400 on Nikon D5100 I am on a number of different photography forums and regularly answer questions. A lot of people's questions surround a common theme that they get blurry photos and don't know how to fix that. After gathering more information it is usually because their shutter speed is too low and they are getting blur from either camera movement or the subject moved. This is very common when shooting indoors. Or maybe they are trying to shoot a Friday night football game. The common answer I hear a lot from others posting is to immediately go with a very fast lens and shoot down at f/1.8 to f/2 aperture. This is one possible solution. However, this also means that the depth of field is going to get more shallow. That can be a real problem at times. Several years ago that was just about the only solid solution. However in the last few years camera manufacturers have been able to really push the boundaries of the higher end of image sensor sensitivity, or more commonly named high ISO. When I first started with digital SLR cameras I had a Nikon D80. It looked really good at ISO 100 through about ISO 400. At ISO 800 it was starting to get pretty noisy. And beyond that it was basically unusable. If memory serves me right it actually topped out at ISO 1600. Compared to film it was pretty good though since most film was ISO 100 to 400. There are a few faster film stocks out there, but they have quite a bit of grain though.
Shot on Nikon D5100 at ISO 2200 using Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8 and 1/320th shutter speed My next camera was a D5100. This camera topped out at ISO 25600. I found that it looked really good even at ISO 6400. Now I am sure some people reading this are feeling their blood pressure rise and heart beating faster. There are some that pixel peep who cannot handle even a couple spots of digital noise when they look really close at the image. Or they will read DXOMarks and quote statistics. I am much more pragmatic about photography though. I know that I cannot get perfect in all situations. And often it is better to get the shot even with a bit of noise than walk away with nothing. This is especially true when shooting things like sports. When you are trying to shoot that Friday night football game then you need the shutter speed to get the shot. To fully stop action with people running you need to be at least 1/500th of a second or faster. I will shoot at roughly 1/320th of a second because I like the organic feel of a slight bit of motion blur to bring the image alive.
A high school gym would be another example of sports photography where you would need the higher ISO to get the shot. Gyms seem really bright until you actually try to do some photography of a basketball game. I know some people will put on their flash. But there are a couple problems with this. First, the effective range of the flash will be roughly 15 feet to 20 feet. Second, you have the whole inverse square law thing going on of how fast the power of light falls off. Third, you can actually freak out the players and affect the game if you are popping flash on the sidelines. But if you can shoot a higher ISO then you are golden.
A high school gym would be another example of sports photography where you would need the higher ISO to get the shot. Gyms seem really bright until you actually try to do some photography of a basketball game. I know some people will put on their flash. But there are a couple problems with this. First, the effective range of the flash will be roughly 15 feet to 20 feet. Second, you have the whole inverse square law thing going on of how fast the power of light falls off. Third, you can actually freak out the players and affect the game if you are popping flash on the sidelines. But if you can shoot a higher ISO then you are golden.
Did you say auto ISO??
Shot on Nikon D5100 at ISO 1250 In recent years cameras have started to include a feature called auto ISO. When I first saw it I felt it was one of the dumbest features on a camera. On a lot of cameras I am still not a fan of the feature. However, some have put in a really good implementation. Nikon is one of those. On the Nikon you can set the auto ISO so that it will start with the ISO you initially set (say 100), and you set the slowest shutter speed you want to use if possible and the maximum ISO you are comfortable with. Then say your shooting in aperture priority and set your aperture to f/3.5, your maximum aperture is 6400, and the lowest shutter speed is 1/100th of a second. The camera will set the shutter speed to what it needs for a good exposure. If it gets down the 1/100th of a second at f/3.5 and ISO 100 then it will start to increase the ISO until it hits ISO 6400. At that point it will lower the shutter speed more. So you are giving the camera information on your desired minimum shutter speed and maximum ISO. It will absolutely live by the highest ISO when it gets there and then lower shutter speed only after it hits that ceiling.
I have made some 16 by 20 prints of the high ISO images like what is in this article and they look even more stunning in print than they do on the computer screen. If you have never gotten a large sized print of any of your work I highly encourage you to do so. There is something so amazing about how it will look in print!
This is a really good feature when you are shooting in a fast moving environment with quickly changing lighting. The football field in our town is notoriously unevenly lit. It changes by as much as three full stops from center field and the end zone. So if you have a fast breaking play you can easily be off on exposure if you are trying to set it manually. So as much as I like the control of shooting in manual, there are times that the camera is just much faster and more capable. And with auto ISO it can work even better for me.
I have made some 16 by 20 prints of the high ISO images like what is in this article and they look even more stunning in print than they do on the computer screen. If you have never gotten a large sized print of any of your work I highly encourage you to do so. There is something so amazing about how it will look in print!
This is a really good feature when you are shooting in a fast moving environment with quickly changing lighting. The football field in our town is notoriously unevenly lit. It changes by as much as three full stops from center field and the end zone. So if you have a fast breaking play you can easily be off on exposure if you are trying to set it manually. So as much as I like the control of shooting in manual, there are times that the camera is just much faster and more capable. And with auto ISO it can work even better for me.
Picking a camera for ISO
Obviously there is nothing better than hands on use of the camera. However, it is nice to do a bit of research at the beginning on line to see what is out there. One of the best tools I have found on line is the Studio Shot Comparison on DPReview to take an initial look. With this tool you can pick up to 4 different camera models and they will show side by side close ups from a larger test image. You can set the ISO and also select what part of the larger image is being zoomed in on. Keep in mind that you are doing some serious pixel peeping and you will see noise. But you can look to see how much difference there is between a Nikon D7100, a Canon Rebel T5, a Sony A6300, and a Nikon D610 for example. And you can work your way up through the different ISO levels too.
Once you have it narrowed down to two or three cameras then go to a camera store with a memory card in hand and shoot some photos. Or if you have friends that have the cameras you are considering get together with them and get some sample shots. Shoot at ISO 100 and 200 and 400 right up to the top of what the camera will do. Another option is go rent each of the cameras for a week. Run them through the paces. Shoot at all different ISOs and in all the different situations you regularly shoot in.
Don't forget to consider other features of the cameras too. For example, if you are doing a lot of sports photography and want fast frame rate along with the high ISO then you would very well maybe lean to the Nikon D500 with 10 fps, a buffer of 200 raw images, and max ISO of 1,640,000 (yes I typed that in right). If you don't need fast frame rate maybe the Nikon D7200 will do just fine. Also, if you are going to use auto ISO how does the camera implement the feature? Is it going to work how you will like? So consider all your needs.
Once you have it narrowed down to two or three cameras then go to a camera store with a memory card in hand and shoot some photos. Or if you have friends that have the cameras you are considering get together with them and get some sample shots. Shoot at ISO 100 and 200 and 400 right up to the top of what the camera will do. Another option is go rent each of the cameras for a week. Run them through the paces. Shoot at all different ISOs and in all the different situations you regularly shoot in.
Don't forget to consider other features of the cameras too. For example, if you are doing a lot of sports photography and want fast frame rate along with the high ISO then you would very well maybe lean to the Nikon D500 with 10 fps, a buffer of 200 raw images, and max ISO of 1,640,000 (yes I typed that in right). If you don't need fast frame rate maybe the Nikon D7200 will do just fine. Also, if you are going to use auto ISO how does the camera implement the feature? Is it going to work how you will like? So consider all your needs.
Final notes
So one of the things I always teach my students in my classes is they need to take their camera, put it on a tripod, and shoot a scene through the ISO range. Go in full stop increments. So ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, etc. Notice you just double the number each time for a full stop change. Use a tripod so you get the exact same image each time. This is a good one to do on aperture priority mode and set to say f/8 so you get good depth of field and a really clear image. Typically somewhere around f/8 to f/11 is the sweet spot in most lenses for the most crystal clear image with the least amount of distortion. By the way I tell students to do the same thing walking through aperture settings to watch the depth of field using different focal lengths, and to use different focal lengths on the same image moving the camera back so you can see the effects of the changes in angle of view.
The other thing to remember is that there is some really good noise reduction software to help in post processing. The noise reduction feature native to Lightroom is actually pretty darn good. But there are some other third party products you could consider too. But one of the things that will happen when you apply noise reduction is the image will always become at least a little less sharp in the process. That is not a bad thing per se. And I have even used noise reduction as a skin smoothing technique in the past.
The other thing to remember is that there is some really good noise reduction software to help in post processing. The noise reduction feature native to Lightroom is actually pretty darn good. But there are some other third party products you could consider too. But one of the things that will happen when you apply noise reduction is the image will always become at least a little less sharp in the process. That is not a bad thing per se. And I have even used noise reduction as a skin smoothing technique in the past.
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