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Low light/poor met photography

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Allymcmurdo
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Low light/poor met photography

Post by Allymcmurdo » Fri Feb 02, 2018 8:58 am

Morning all.
I'm after a little advice with regards to shooting when when it gets a little inclement.
I visited Cad East on Wednesday. Forecast wasn't great but gave it a go anyway. I'm still quite new to photography and I really struggled with the light.

I normally shoot in manual but at 1/800- 1250 with the lens wide open things were pretty dark as you'd expect.I went for shutter priority with +3 compensation iso 400 which was still pretty dark. Is this just the norm and then correct the exposure in post processing? I wasn't really happy to drop the shutter speed for fast jets. I'm not good enough.
I'm also conscious of cranking the iso up and introducing lots of noise which seems to be what happens on a crop sensor. I've used the noise reduction luminance slider in LR in the past but I find you lose a lot of detail.


Any advice greatly received
Last edited by Allymcmurdo on Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pen Pusher
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Pen Pusher » Fri Feb 02, 2018 11:06 am

You haven't said what camera you are using. Look online for reviews for your camera and note what the max ISO the reviewers get before 'noise' becomes an issue and then set your ISO at that.

I manually adjust shutter speed and aperture for the conditions I'm shooting in but use 'AUTO ISO' and have it set at a max of ISO 12800 on my Sony camera's, and let the camera decide what the best ISO setting is, as I know that is basically 12800 is the point at which 'noise' starts to become an issue. For a Sony :whistle: :D

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slogen51
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by slogen51 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:08 pm

What lens are you using , can it open to F2.8?

I haven't been to the north Wales low level area but maybe you can slow the shutter to 1/400 - 1/500 if you are panning with the jet and have image stabilization turned on while at the same time compensating +1 stops or more

If it's dark it's dark - Strike Eagles will look dark but you can still record some great composition. I guess it boils down to practice and talking to the other folk up there.

I must make the effort to go there one day but I have heard it's very hit or miss?

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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Sparts99 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:20 pm

"I've sued the noise reduction luminance slider in LR in the past but I find you lose a lot of detail." Used?

The noise reducer on its own will kill the detail, you need to know how to use the other sliders in that panel properly and then you can get some surprising results. Search out the tutorials on line relevant to your version of LR, the Adobe ones are really good. One of the bodies I use for gig photography is the dreaded Canon 7D, but I can go up to 3200 ASA on 'L' lenses and get decent the pics fine after a bit of work in LR, with my 50/1.4 I can't go above 1600.
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Allymcmurdo
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Allymcmurdo » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:48 am

Thank you for the replies chaps.
The lens is a Canon 100-400L so will only open to F4.5/5.6

I'll have a look at those tutorials today Sparts99, thanks.
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Rotörhead
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Rotörhead » Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:48 pm

Were you at shutter priority with the shutter speed still set to 1/800 - 1/1250 and ISO 400? If it was still dark with +3 stops compensation then you're probably 'maxing out' what your camera can do, you'll have to lower the shutter speed or bump up the ISO as the lens can't open any wider. I've found the 100-400 to be quite a tricky lens for low light situations, it really doesn't seem to let a lot of light in. You would probably be fine going a little lower than 1/800 given the conditions, I don't usually go higher than 1/800 even on a sunny day with lots of light available. Keep the practice up with panning and it'll get easier and you'll be able to drop the shutter speed down a bit lower.

As for noise reduction in post - I like to use Nik Dfine 2, which applies the noise reduction as a layer over the top of the original image in Photoshop. The benefit of this means you can selectively reduce noise on the areas where the noise is worst, but you can mask off the areas where you don't want detail to be lost. This works best for me because you can have as many different strengths of noise reduction going on at the same time as you want.
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Viper28
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Viper28 » Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:58 pm

+3EV is insane amounts of compensation for Cad East even on dull days because whatever light there is is behind you most of the day. +1/3rd or 2/3rd should be enough. I would suggest you change your metering mode to something like partial or spot, so that it meters more of the plane and not off the background.

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Richard B
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Richard B » Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:23 pm

Keep upping the iso, 800 should be ok on most newish camera bodies.
Even higher on some. A little noise is still better then no shot and a wasted day on the hills.
Best to go with a plan B. And experiment rather then sticking it out allday on plan A.

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Thunder
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Thunder » Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:09 pm

Going by the description of the settings you were using, I would look at the metering settings. Select partial or centre weighted metering. Also make sure the OS is switched on on the lens, this should allow you on the Canon 100-400 to drop down to 1/400 and maintain an aperture of F8 using AV priority at ISO 400 even in dull conditions. Shoot in RAW format as well, as the camera will alter the final image to what it thinks is best if shooting in JPEG and you never get to see the true image.

If you can, post up a picture with the attached EXIF data, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

As a beginner get off full manual and let the camera do most of the work.

Allymcmurdo
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Allymcmurdo » Sun Feb 04, 2018 8:46 pm

Thank you so much for the advice so far. I think I was worried about experimenting too far and missing shots, with it being my first trip there.
The Eagles did enough passes to allow me to play with shutter speeds but I guess at the time you never know if it's going to be your last shot of the day.
I've tried a few test shots since using various ISO speeds and it only really starts to make a marked difference by ISO1600. I think under exposing at such a high shutter speed has done the more harm than a raised ISO would have. I'll chalk it up to experience and try again on my next week of rest days.
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Wallace
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Re: Low light/poor met photography

Post by Wallace » Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:31 am

There are times when you just "can't polish a t*rd."

If the conditions are lousy then no amount of adjustments are going to make up for the inadequacies of your camera of lens.

Personally, I'm not infatuated with noise, it's a fact of life if you want the shot, ten you are having to live with it. If you can't get the shutter fast enough the go for lens blur shots and you have nothing to loose and everything to gain by experimenting.
Failing all that go for a good monochrome, you can get away with a bit of noise there but remember to look for contrast to make the monochrome work.

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