Your Canon Photos No. 27: 5th to 11th November 2023

Steve,

Yes, lower ISO levels work well and is what we should try to use. The problem I have living in a rainy and cloudy climate, is that the lighting can dramatically change and it is quite dark sometimes. I'm also taking a lot of pictures of people and wildlife that move a lot. The other day, it was interesting when I was taking street scenes in the city with building shadows. Using Auto ISO, one photo was ISO8000. I was shocked. My eye/brain didn't tell me it was that dark, but the camera knew better. I have only a very short time to make a decision like within seconds or fractions of seconds to make a decision. Now, if a person was taking photos of a landscape scene where everything was stationary and time was not a factor, then a person could use a tripod and take those photos at ISO100.

Dig,

Yes. Handling motion in dim light is a tough nut to crack.

Steve

Steve,

Last year I took pictures at two night-time Christmas parades without a flash. Some of the best pictures were when I had a short focal length like 18mm. I set the shutter speed to 1/50th of a second and the aperture was wide open at F3.5 for my lens. With Auto ISO, the ISO levels ranged from about 3200 to 12800. Not all of the photos turned out as good as I would have liked. If I take pictures like that this December, I going to try to use very short focal lengths and get closer to the subjects. It would be interesting if I got a full frame camera and took pictures with it in such similar conditions; the photos should turn out better.

Mine might be another approach in the mix 😋
As mentioned when shooting film I will use the ISO setting read by the camera (DX coded film) or manual set the ISO to the mentioned ISO setting on the film canister or packaging. This will be 99% of the films. I seldom change that setting and when I do It will be the whole film and developing will be changed to adapt for the changed ISO setting.
A basic film rule (more or less) the lower the ISO the lower the grain will be. That is also the basic rule (more or less again) with digital, the lower ISO settings will have cleaner less "grainy" (noisy) images.

When I and my better half are shooting digital we both use the following basis "rules"
Starting point is 400 ISO, depending on the situation the ISO will be changed if needed.
Shooting in the sun on the beach or on a clear day the ISO goes down
Shooting under darker circumstances we raise the ISO.
Shooting wide angle to short tele lenses we most use a lower ISO
With the longer tele lenses we use a higher ISO

And with the recent sensors you can go high if needed, I've shot these deer at 12800 ISO with a Canon Eos 6D mark II
(Only some basic processing settings used in Canon's DPP)

Fallow deer doe and fawn by Photobygms, on Flickr

Photobygms,

Thanks for sharing with us your ISO12800 photo from your full frame camera. The deer looks really nice at that high of an ISO.

Today's color is red.

Steve Thomas

Hi Paul, Thank You.

Hi Digirame, Thank You.

I don't normally see the Mandarins along the river but I guess they're expanding their home base which is a good thing. Sometimes when we're lucky the birds/ducks will approach us, this Grebe swam close to shore and I got it with the trusty 300mm my goto lens. Unless I'm carrying two cameras I tend to keep the Tamron 70-300 on the 7D mkII and swap out to other lenses when needed.

Hi David, Thank You.

Hi David,

Amazing transformation, I can see a few instances where that could work when printing. 👍

Hi Photobygms,

Super photo of the Deer and fawn. Love the Dragonfly as well. 👍

Beautiful colours Steve, that's intense red. 👍

Lovely colors and light!

Steve,

I love that bright red color. Did you take that at ISO100? There's enough light etc. I was just curious, since that is what we recently were talking about. Dprevived does not always show the EXIF data (it comes and goes), which is why I'm glad I keep using my computer program to display it.

Edit: Oh, I now see the ISO levels (the EXIF data came back). That's plenty low enough.

Someone recently told me some good taking lenses, stopped down with added extension might be better (at least sharper) than a dedicated macro lens... While I can't confirm that so far from my quick tests, I feel like results look interesting nonetheless...

A tool through and through... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Here's a shot with a dedicated macro/repro lens, supposedly close to 90 years old. Can you see why I'm in doubt about the above statement?

Dangerous game by simple.joy, on Flickr

Simplejoy,

I know very little about lenses, since I only use a few of them. I do like the second picture better. What do you think about doing comparative tests with the same items and conditions etc.?

You're right of course... that makes a lot of sense in order to know which lens really IS better. But I usually don't want to do that right away, when I get a new lens or use one in an unusual way the first time. Why? Because it limits my thinking to "lens test mode" and I can say (at least for myself) once I'm in there I tend to lack most creative thinking. I usually want to know if a lens has something interesting and unique to bring to the table before I want to know how it fares in a direct comparison.

But once the 'testing a lens on its own merits' is done, I like to do direct comparisons on the same subjects as well!