Thread: High ISO, noise, megapixels and etc.

For my everyday shooting needs, the biggest hurdle I have is shadow noise at low ISO. I guess this is related somewhat to high ISO as well, but anything above ISO 400 represents only about 10 percent of my photos. Even at 1/30 second exposure, I see noise in the shadows with my E-PL2. I know that the OMD has greatly improved shadow noise and dynamic range, but this technology isn't there yet even on the 1/1.7" compact cameras. I'm hoping we get there soon.

Over time you start to establish your own definition and minimum thresholds of image quality, and develop your own tastes in whether a particular camera's output looks good to you regardless of what the empirical measures of IQ tell you. If you could rank image quality purely on dynamic range, noise, etc it would make things very easy, but that is not the case. I think that it is okay if those thresholds change over time as technology changes, even if you have the proof hanging on your walls or on your hard drive/s that the abiity to produce high quality images is not a new phenomona.

Never mind.

Why do I feel compelled to respond here ... but don't really have anything to say?

After a certain base-level of dynamic range, the more you add the less significant the additional dynamic range becomes.

Noise is different, noise is a distraction. The more noise the greater the distraction ... soooo ... the greater the noise the greater the visual impact one's image must contain to overcome the distraction of said noise. (Which is why high noise and landscapes are generally unsuccessful.)

I like noise because dealing with noise, man-handling noise, wrestling noise to a manageable and acceptable level requires skill and experience and sorta separates the men from the boys.

ISO is such a nice means to control shutter, aperture and capture the image you previsualize.

Gary

it's interesting to notice that the pursuit of more-better-sharper-whatever becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end, just as the acquisition of the (often rather aesthetic in themselves) cameras easily becomes an end in itself. Note that I say "an" end, not "the" end. People can have multiple motivations.

I've stopped being interested in "better" specs. When I found myself staring endlessly at 100% zooms of corners of my pictures in the quest for "sharpness" it suddenly seemed quite absurd. Only I and similar obsessives would ever judge my photos on that basis. If I printed them, no-one was ever going to go over them with a loupe as part of their aesthetic judgment of the picture. No one whose opinion mattered to me anyway ...

I also see something rather curious (it may simply be my way of looking at the world) in that - as image capture devices are ever more sophisticated, and especially as people become more skilled at processing their (say) XPro1 or DpM images - the end results start to look quite peculiar to me: The images I am seeing apparently contain more detail and sharpness than my own vision can manage if I look at the same scene "live". They begin to appear cinematic, oddly frozen and abstracted. Perhaps a new way of seeing is emerging.

These days I'm far more likely to add grain digitally for effect than to worry about it in an image. Nor am I personally interested in turning night into day. That's not to say I don't appreciate technological progress. If it weren't for the improvements in DR and ISO in the EM5 I wouldn't be using m4/3 today.

But often the persuit of technological improvement is simply because of lazy technique. 5 axis IBIS is great, but I've practiced enough to be able to handhold my M9 and a 50mm lens at 1/15th of a second and get sharp images. So my "need" is for only 1600 ISO even in the dimmest environments with a 50mm f1.1. The issue becomes more about subject movement then. Of all the people who moan and moan about the CDAF abilities of m4/3, who actually uses it? And who uses best practices in technique like prefocusing and separating focus and shutter to improve their hit rate. Sure there are some, like Gary, who "need" better CDAF. But he's probably got pretty much flawless technique. So any improvement comes from the camera. But for the rest of us we could do well to stop paying camera manufacturers for a stop higher ISO and learn to hold a camera steady, really steady. Learn how to breathe, how to hold a camera properly, how to squeeze a shutter.

Occasoinally there are times where a particular technology or function really does make a difference. But 90% of the time we could get the same result by learning to get the most out of the craft and to know our cameras better.

gary has said on more than one occasion that it takes time to truely learn to be "one" with the camera you use and that it takes time to use a camera instinctively. We need to apply that to the craft as well. When we are close to perfecting the craft then an improvement in technology can make a real difference.

90% of my failed images are a direct result of poor technique, poor preparation or too much cafiene. 90% of the time I blame those failures on the gear....

Gordon

I used one camera for a year (actually it turned out quite a bit longer in the end, one way and another) PAD project at mu-43, and I noticed myself getting happier with my photography over the period. Knowing exactly what you can (and can't) do with a particular camera is invaluable. I said in another thread that I couldn't understand how people who constantly change cameras could achieve consistency.

And of course, in the last 18 months I seem to have acquired another dozen cameras (all film) and I'm less happy with my consistency with every day that passes ... If I had to earn my living from pictures (as opposed to being a happy snapper), I expect I'd be living in a cardboard box under a bridge

There is definitely something to be said for Don's (Streetshooter) dictum about not letting a camera interrupt your vision ...

Whether I like it or not, I just can't escape the fact that for a given circumstance I can often see and appreciate the difference in output from one camera to the next. Sometimes the difference is just in the signature of one brand/camera/sensor/lens to the next, and sometimes it is because I feel that one camera just produces a better looking image or is better equipped to shoot in that environment. In the latter case, when a camera consistently comes out second best it quickly becomes a camera that I either won't use or have to force myself to use. Neither of those two options is a whole lot of fun.

Last year, with the introduction of the OM-D, I jumped into µ4/3. I have abandoned my FF system in exchange for µ4/3. I can see a difference between the two systems, I can feel a difference when shooting between the two systems. My FF system is superior to µ4/3, but typically, not significantly different. I am quite pleased with the final images I am getting from the OM-D. If I upgrade it will be to a µ4/3 camera which mechanically is superior not necessarily IQ-ly superior.

Just a slant from what I shoot these days

90% of my images are big crops from the centre of the image

I need all the pixels, (and light), that I can get

Depends on what your subject is ........... photographic kit is now pushing all the boundaries, technically

It is an exciting time to be an AP

pixels are coming down in price ........... but quality glass is not ........ for sports and nature photographers equipment will always be expensive