Feeling sens itive My camera has ISO settings that are much more sensitive than I’ve ever used, because I’ve been told it brings digital noise into a photo. How high is it acceptable to go?
This is very much a personal choice, Michael. There is no law that says you have to behave one way when it comes to photography.
High ISO is one of those areas that confuses and frightens people in equal measure. People are often obsessed with capturing absolutely noise-free images, and that makes them afraid to push into the higher ISOs on their cameras.
Every camera model handles noise in a different way. Many pro-level SLRs show incredibly low levels of digital noise, even at high sensitivities like ISO 3,200. That’s not to say there is no noise present within an image, just that it is distinctly less obvious than a photo taken at the same sensitivity in a lower-priced camera. answerePAhdovtiosor your questions d Ultimately, it’s important to be methodical. Work out when the ISO on your camera starts to become obvious, and try to keep below this point when you are taking images that require fine detail. In most mid-priced SLRs, you can shoot up to ISO 1,600 with the confidence that your pictures won’t be totally full of noise. But sometimes you just need to push the boundaries so that you can take a picture that would be impossible unless you lit the scene with a flash.
After reading your question, I went out and shot with my camera set to ISO 6,400. The image of the swans above is the result of this session. I could barely see the swans, let alone focus on them, as it was very dark. Unless I was shooting long exposures with the camera on a tripod, I’d normally have given up by now, but I took this image handheld, with an exposure of 1/60 sec at f/2.8.
Is it noisy? Yes, of course it is. When you zoom in to view the image at 100%, it’s very obvious – and fine detail has been lost too. But I quite like the creative effect in this instance, so I don’t care. Had I used flash, I’d have ruined the mood. I’m happy to accept the fact that while I lose out on fine detail, I get an image that has captured a moment that would otherwise have passed without the chance of a photo. The lesson is: don’t be afraid to shoot at a high ISO setting if the situation warrants it.