Tad contraversial M Mode

[YangMills]

From that link. Generally speaking, you should keep your ISO as low as you can, to prevent ISO noise. What he says is not incorrect but there is more to it. It is always best to keep it down. You should read the responses. Particularly these ones.

High ISO doesn't cause noise
Noise becomes apparent as the result of insufficient exposure

What is the physical cause of increasing noise at high ISO?

Which is the physical cause of the increasing noise at high iso? I know that Iso represents the sensor/film sensitivity to light: at lower iso we need an higher exposure time to get the image of the

photo.stackexchange.com

I have seen other links articles about this but I couldn't find any. Appropriate shutter speeds and correct exposures are key.

This is absolutely correct. In fact, if you are shooting in RAW, provided you don’t blow highlights it doesn’t really matter what ISO you or the camera chooses within reason. There is little to no difference between turning up the ISO in the camera or lifting the lightness of the shot in the RAW converter. What affects the noise is the exposure in the camera - minimising noise is served by maximising exposure (ie maximising aperture and exposure time) within the limits of the required depth of focus and avoiding motion blur. For a given exposure, the R5 and R6 are pretty much ISO invariant above ISO400.

 

[Chris Summers]

Just doing some reading came across this cut ad paste

Let me just make a quick but VERY IMPORTANT point here about using Manual Mode: Unless you're under fixed, studio lighting, using complex flash setups or in a few other fairly niche situations, believe it or not, Manual mode is an incredibly archaic, slow and cumbersome mode to operate in. Modern cameras all have automatic light meters for a reason - so that you don't have to keep fumbling and scrolling through settings just because the lighting has changed since your last shot! There is a tragic misnomer in some photography circles that 'Real photographers use Manual Mode' or that if you're not in Manual Mode, you're in some way not getting the full creative control out of your camera. Believe me, nothing could be further from the truth - and it is a mistake to think that way, and you are doing yourself and your photography a disservice by believing it. Most people who say or who (infuriatingly) teach that Manual Mode is the 'proper' way to go, simply don't understand how modes like Aperture Mode actually work (i.e. it's not taking any creative control away from you, it's simply speeding up the process by finding the other half of a balancing equation for you, to instantly give you whatever exposure level you've asked for - you're still in complete control of the outcome.). Yes there are times when Manual mode is necessary - and I use it when I need to - but I (and the majority of Geographic magazine photographers, for example) actually take most of my photos in Aperture mode, somewhat less in Shutter Speed mode, and only a fraction using in Manual mode. Usually, manual mode just slows you down.

Scott Kelby said the same thing a few months ago on his youtube channel, The Grid. Hey, I grew up with match needle metering on my cameras and a lot of cameras with no meter so I set everything using a Gossen Luna Pro light meter. I almost always shoot in P or now FV and only used T and A for when I needed direct control of aperture and shutter speed. I only use M for when I use studio strobes or off camera flash units or for things like astrophotography.

 

[Only RF]

Well worth a watch… Link.

Phil

That was good. Thanks

 

[Only RF]

Sorry for going off topic a bit but there is some good information building up in this thread.

I've never been afraid of high ISO. In 2009 I had my 7D for a short period of time. A work buddy asked me to shoot his sons football game. It was an evening game and that that day I learned the meaning of a fast lens. I had an 300 L F4 IS and I had to shoot at 12,800 to just get the SS up to 1/500. Some motion blur on the feet and hands but it showed a little movement. Some shots lower. All I used was PS for NR. the 8 by 10's came out OK and they loved them. I might import this one in LrC just out of curiosity.

 

[Only RF]

These days modern sensors. My R7 at ISO 20000. I had a good exposure which helped and I ran this through LrC Denoise AI. I would have preferred a lower ISO because there is some IQ loss as the ISO's get that high. I had a fast SS because I was trying to catch them taking off and landing. That football shot was not cropped which also helped. This one is and it is usable.

• Canon EOS R7
• RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
• 500.0 mm
• ƒ/7.1
• 1/5000 sec
• ISO 20000

• Canon EOS R7
• RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
• 500.0 mm
• ƒ/7.1
• 1/5000 sec
• ISO 20000

 

[YangMills]

These days modern sensors. My R7 at ISO 20000. I had a good exposure which helped and I ran this through LrC Denoise AI. I would have preferred a lower ISO because there is some IQ loss as the ISO's get that high. I had a fast SS because I was trying to catch them taking off and landing. That football shot was not cropped which also helped. This one is and it is usable.

Absolutely, but it's not the high ISO per se that causes the noise and loss of detail. Both the high ISO and the noise are (mostly) a consequence of low exposure (light energy per unit area on the sensor). So high ISO and noise can be and often are correlated because they are both a consequence of low exposure. For example, say you had set the same aperture and shutter speed as above but set the ISO to 800, your image would look very dark (4 stops underexposed). But if you then lifted the lightness of the RAW image in LR with the "exposure" slider, you would get pretty much the same result as you got with ISO 20000. With modern sensors, most of the noise comes from shot noise (ie photon noise in the original exposure) which is baked into the analogue image before A/D conversion and before the camera applies an ISO. Changing the ISO for a given exposure changes the lightness of the of the image but not the noise (mostly). Of course, if you're shooting jpeg then getting the correct lightness in camera is important because you have much less leeway to adjust the lightness in post. But if you're shooting RAW, the moral of the tale is to maximise aperture and exposure time in order to maximise sensor exposure, subject to not blowing highlights, stopping motion and giving you the DoF you need, and let the ISO do what it will. (Other sources of noise such as read noise can be affected by choice of ISO, but are much less significant in modern sensors).

 

[Only RF]

Absolutely, but it's not the high ISO per se that causes the noise and loss of detail. Both the high ISO and the noise are (mostly) a consequence of low exposure (light energy per unit area on the sensor). So high ISO and noise can be and often are correlated because they are both a consequence of low exposure. For example, say you had set the same aperture and shutter speed as above but set the ISO to 800, your image would look very dark (4 stops underexposed). But if you then lifted the lightness of the RAW image in LR with the "exposure" slider, you would get pretty much the same result as you got with ISO 20000. With modern sensors, most of the noise comes from shot noise (ie photon noise in the original exposure) which is baked into the analogue image before A/D conversion and before the camera applies an ISO. Changing the ISO for a given exposure changes the lightness of the of the image but not the noise (mostly). Of course, if you're shooting jpeg then getting the correct lightness in camera is important because you have much less leeway to adjust the lightness in post. But if you're shooting RAW, the moral of the tale is to maximise aperture and exposure time in order to maximise sensor exposure, subject to not blowing highlights, stopping motion and giving you the DoF you need, and let the ISO do what it will. (Other sources of noise such as read noise can be affected by choice of ISO, but are much less significant in modern sensors).

Thanks for the detailed response.

 

[Grahamk]

Very interesting video suggested by Phil. I shoot Tv mostly (for wildlife and sports cars) but switch to Av for portraits/landscapes. Have yet to experiment with Fv.

 

[Only RF]

Very interesting video suggested by Phil. I shoot Tv mostly (for wildlife and sports cars) but switch to Av for portraits/landscapes. Have yet to experiment with Fv.

In my DSLR days when I shot wildlife I used Av. I would leave Aperture alone but I would increase or decrease ISO manually to get the SS to where I wanted it. Just a different approach with the to achieve the same results.

 

[ctitanic]

C1 in AV, C2 in TV and C3 in TV and burst for BIF.