Photo of the Week - Week 4

This week's topic - shooting at a high ISO.

I typically try to shoot the lowest ISO possible (usually 100) in order to get the cleanest image possible. That said, sometimes it just isn't possible to shoot that low. Since I haven't used my higher ISO settings that much on my camera, I figured I needed to play around with it a bit and try to push my camera a bit to see what it can do.

I usually shoot in manual mode and changing the ISO was just one extra thing to do. Besides, I usually want to shoot at ISO 100 so that just left me with the aperture and shutter speed to get the exposure I wanted. However, one of the reasons I bought my new camera last spring was (supposedly) to be able to shoot cleaner images at a high ISO. This past week I finally got around to it and have found some rules of thumb I like for shooting decent images at a higher ISO.

My general settings have been to shoot in Aperture Priority mode (Av), with the exposure compensation set to over expose slightly: +1/3 to +1 stop.

I did use Canon Digital Photo Professional 3.8.1 (came with the camera) to reduce the chromatic noise just a little bit, but not much. When I previously shot higher ISOs, I would use Noiseware, but I generally used much stronger noise reduction.

Follow the links through to view the full-size image via Flickr.

Shutter Speed: 1/5s
Aperture: F8.0
ISO:1600
Exposure Compensation: +1
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Shutter Speed: 1/500s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: +1/3
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Shutter Speed: 1/20s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: +1
Focal Length: 47mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

The trade-off: With the noise reduction, the image may not be as sharp as one shot at ISO 100 with no noise reduction. But then, I don't plan on printing any of these poster-sized ... so that works for me.

But just as an example, contrast the above images (full-size view) with the below, which is shot at a low ISO and lit with a softbox:

Shutter Speed: 1/100s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO:100

Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

Photo of the Week - Week 3

I finally got the rest of my Christmas presents and got a chance to play around with one of them - a 24" square softbox for my flashes. I've been using shoot-through umbrellas and my homemade beauty dish, but have wanted a softbox for a while. I'll post some other pictures another time, but wanted to get one posted.


Shutter Speed: 1/200s
Aperture: F4.0
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm
Flash: 1/4 power, through softbox

True to its name, a softbox gives nice, soft light that just wraps around your subject. In the above shot it's about two feet from her, above and slightly to the left, as you can tell by the highlight in her eye.

I had been shooting some pictures of the cats - surprisingly enough, they hung out and let me snap a few photos of them - when Natalie came by. She insisted that she wanted to take "lots" of pictures, most of which were her jumping through the air. After a while, she laid down and relaxed on the couch, which is when I got this picture. Just a bit of post-production to make it black and white (red filter) and to add a slight vignette.

New Black and White Gallery

On my Zenfolio storefront web site, I have added a black and white gallery, with some of my black and white images. I'll be adding to this as time goes on, but just wanted to put something out there now!

There are some images in here that are not in other galleries.

Photo of the Week - Week 2

We finally were able to make it to the Panecillo, a prominent landmark here in Quito. I had tried to go there before with some friends who were visiting from out of town, but despite driving for way too long, we never made it. I decided that the Panecillo was a kind of mythical place that one could never reach. This time, however, some local friends guided us. I have to admit, however, that in all the long time I drove around unsuccessfully, I never once saw the roads we went on ... it was a whole neighborhood painted a kind of orangish-red.

Anyway, I had been trying to imagine the kind of images I wanted to make, should I ever actually get to the Panecillo. It's a large statue situated on a hill and overlooks the Old Town. If you've seen photos from Quito, there is probably a photo of this statue in there somewhere. I wanted to get photos of this icon that were not the standard, iconic photos. Having never been there, plus having five small kids in tow, meant this would have to be more of a recon photo shoot, though I did get some images I liked.

My thought was to really change the perspective of my shots - try and look at the statue from a different point of view than the standard. The idea I had was to lay on the ground and look up at the statue, as well as pulling in tighter for more detail shots. Here's one of the resulting images:



Shutter Speed: 1/60s
Aperture: F13
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 70mm
Lens: Canon 70-200mm L
Camera mounted on a tripod

In many of the other shots, I was able to get some good clouds in the background, which really add to the shots. In this one, however, no clouds, just plain blue sky. I wanted something to modify this and give something of a back lit appearance to the statue. I added a lomo effect, which gives a slight vignette to the edges of the frame. This time around, it worked well to achieve the look I wanted for this particular image.

The only other post-processing I did was to use the clone tool to get rid of the lightning rod sticking out of her head; just too distracting.

Photo of the Week - Week 1

Here's the first post of the new year and my new goal ...

Flash and Movement

Taking pictures with flash while the subject is moving can sometimes be a bit tricky; most flashes will have a maximum sync speed of 1/250 second, while kids will often be moving much fast than that ... If you've coughed up the money for a brand-name flash, then you can do high-speed sync, which will allow you to get to much higher shutter speeds. Another discussion for another time; I'm using more economically-priced flashes and remote flash triggers.

Timing - If you get your timing right, then you can mitigate ay effects of movement and the use of flash. Basically, your subject is moving slow enough that you won't get ghosting (see next part).

Shutter Speed: 1/320s
Aperture: F5.6
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

In the above photo, I got him right at the apex of his swing - he's slowed down enough that he's essentially not moving, though just for a split second, so the timing is crucial. His father is holding the flash, which is at 1/8 power, with a diffuser cap on it, about three feet from his face, with the flash sideways (long side up and down to match the subject's body angle). Confession: I lucked out with the higher shutter speed - usually anything above 1/250s gives me a black band across the bottom of the frame. It may have been because the flash was at such a low power it gives me that extra bit of light but doesn't do too much more to the exposure of the frame. In other words, I get the highlights in the eyes, but the overall exposure is pretty close to what it would be without the flash. I wish I could say it was all planned out that way, but it wasn't ...

And now for something different ....

Shutter Speed: 1/15s
Aperture: F6.3
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Lens: Tamron 17-55mm

In this case, the subject was spinning around and dancing when I make this exposure. The slow shutter speed will accentuate motion, giving me some blur/ghosting. The flash in this case fires when the shutter opens, at the beginning of the exposure, giving me part of the image that is well-exposed and in focus. As the shutter remains open other parts of the image are exposed, though not as much as with the initial flash. You can also set the flash to fire at the end of the exposure, right before the shutter closes. This is helpful if you want to "burn in" a dark background but then have a subject you want to expose with a flash.

The tricky part is making sure that part of the image that is well-exposed and in focus is the part you want, in this case the face. Since I wanted to convey movement in this image, it's going to be different than a crisp, static shot.