Sunday, August 31, 2008

Low light

At the risk of beating a dead horse:
Some people calling the new Nikon D90 and the new Canon 50D mere evolutionary upgrades, read: "boring".
Some are excited about the video capability of the Nikon.
Surprisingly many don't even mention what for me is the most important development: high-ISO capability.

As an owner of a web site publishing girly pictures, I have seen so many otherwise nice shoots ruined by bad noise in the pictures when they were shot indoors. You really don't want excessive noise in skin tones. And I've seen even more sets ruined by badly managed artificial lighting, because that's a whole science in itself.

Maybe two years ago I got a set which was indoors, but yet which had the liveliness of handheld shooting. I thought "how did he do that?", and found out he had used the then-new Canon 5D. It was new to be able to get smooth images at 1000 ISO, which was just what he had done. This was a big step up for this kind of photography.

And the new cameras are amazing because they take this even further. The Canon has not been tested yet, but I'm sure it's tops. The Nikon I've seen, and it's a small camera at just a thousand bucks, which can take quality photos at not 1000 ISO, but 3200 ISO, nearly two stops more.

For photographers who know how to leverage this, it's big.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't stop beating that dead horse...I have been following your blogs for some time and by reading them...I have learned more about digital cameras and how they work (and checking out their links) than any other way...And... because of your blogs I have even learned a great deal about the modern world we live in as well...

Have a good vacation...

Uncle Ron

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks, Ron.

---
I don't take vacations, I am not good at relaxing.
Anyway, my daily life is not very stressed, so I don't need them.

Monsieur Beep! said...

I couldn't have said it better than Uncle Ron.
I almost prefer your concentrated technical reports to the long test reports they publish in the magazines.

Greetings to the ladies.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Ah, thank you.
I almost despaired after reading the comments on the theonlinephotographer post I had precipitated, about noise reduction. Every single comment was about how noise doesn't matter! :-)

Anonymous said...

Why did you post on Aug. 30...
Take for example now: I am considering a week's vacation in Copenhagen, and I wanted a central location, so I remembered the famous Hotel D'angleterre, which has a fabulous location, right in the middle all the best of Copenhagen.

I guess that was an example.

Sorry...my mistake

(thank you Monsieur Beep)

Uncle Ron

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Oh! Yes, I see what you mean. The thing is, when I do something like that, it's usually centered around a specific purpose, like meeting friends or family, and get some photography done. Not really a "vacation" in the sense of lying around a pool and getting drunk.
And when I do go away, I run the web site like usual.