However... there's another aspect: modern cameras and technology enables us to go, photography-wise, "where no one has gone before" - the advance of technology that makes it possible to simply "get the shot". Because after "the best camera is the one you have with you", the best photo is the photo that you made - and if technology enables me to get photos in situations where it wouldn't have been possible before, the camera DOES matter.
It striked me when I was browsing the photos of my hike on the "Kleine Reib'm" (translates from Bavarian dialect to "the small round"). It was morning, I had the polarizer attached to my non-stabilized Tamron 24-135mm lens, to avoid shake at 24mm focal length I chose an exposure time of 1/60s, and since I made my experiences with the shallower depth of field on a full frame sensor I thought "what the heck" and set my aperture to f/16 - the camera, in Auto-ISO mode (which is the best thing since sliced bread in full manual mode I must admit) then chose a sensitivity of... ISO2500?!? Yes, really...
Please click here for a closer evaluation of the photo with 1600 pixels on the long side. No tripod, hand held, all the fun I could have, travelling light weight with a 5.5x zoom lens - my goodness, that is amazing (think of the grainy ISO1600 black & white films for a second, please, OK?). ISO2500.
Yes, I'm already spoiled by the D700 very much I must admit. But it's not limited to the Nikon D700/D3/D3s - they're going "extra high" for sure, but in general, most modern cameras produce VERY usable results even at ISO1600. And noooo, that wasn't quite so with my old Nikon D70s (and as of writing this, that camera is only 6 years old, it was introduced in 2004). With my D700, I can make photos in low light situations, and hand held, were I could not have made any photos with my D70s, or my Fuji S5pro. Or in a lazy and more comfortable way, without hauling the tripod around on a 9 hour hike, like above...
Or look at it the other way around: image stabilization. It's either built into most modern cameras, or into the lenses. The gain is something in the range of 2 to 4 stops. For the above photo, it means I could've made that photo at something like 1/10s and get a steady image - hand held of course (which also meant I could've used something as low as ISO640).
Here's to the advance of technology. Cheers! :)
OMG, ALEX BEAUTIFUL PICS! I LOVE YOUR SITE SO FAR.
ReplyDeleteWUNDERBAR! IS THAT HOW YOU SAY IT IN GERMAN?
GOD BLESS, SALLY (from TEXAS)
:)
ReplyDeleteYes Sally, that's how you say it in German. More photos from that hike are in my web album (still not finished processing and uploading the photos, though).
http://picasaweb.google.com/antermoia/KleineReibMSeptember2010#
Well-reasoned, Alex. And I agree with you that the camera matters -- I could never get such a result as this one with my little Canon G2. But, also, I am no longer able to go where there are such scenes to photograph. So I'm glad I can get to look at what you're sharing with us and enjoy both your landscapes and your macros.
ReplyDeleteModern cameras are just amazing in their breadth of uses at high ISO that we could only have dreamed off in earlier times indeed. I don't shy away from ISO 1600 or even 3200 on my lowly D300. A D700 would be even better.
ReplyDeleteI must say though that I find the camera settings you reached here quite unexpected. I would have expected a severely overexposed image at ISO 2500. It looks like full sun late morning/mid day light there, so you would expect the sunny 16 rule to apply. Sunny 16 says that you get correct exposure at f/16 in direct sunlight at a shutter of 1/ISO. So correct exposure here would be 1/100 at ISO 100, or 1/200 at ISO 200. At 2500, you expect a shutter of 1/2500s. If you had a polarizer on (which this doesn't look like), you might lose 1.5 to 2 stops, so I would still only expect ISO 250, not 2500 at 1/60s. ISO 2500, 1/60 and f/16 is a value you might get a little after sunset or before sunrise. You would need to have had a stack of ND filters on your camera to get these values at midday. Sunny 16 always works for me even in digital so this is quite confusing. Could you shed some light on what you did here?
Hi Jao! Well, it is what it is. :) It was late morning indeed (about 11.30am), the sun was coming in from the left at about 30° (that's why the effect of the polarizer is not really that dramatic); and yes it is a bit too bright, I used a -0.5 exposure correction and some Recovery to bring back the highlights (mostly on the rocks in front).
ReplyDeleteThat's just weird. Midday sun, especially high up in the mountains should obey sunny 16 quite well. If we consider the polarizer to cut out a whopping 2 stops (which is a bad polarizer), the difference between the expected correct exposure value (ISO 250, f/16, 1/60s) is about 3.3 stops. With your exposure compensation and recovery in the raw tool that cuts down to 2 stops or so you are still overexposed. The picture above is a little bright, but not two stops overexposed.
ReplyDeleteI love the picture BTW. The technical stuff doesn't matter much if the picture is good in the end!
Thank you, Jao.
ReplyDeleteI was just as puzzled as you are when I saw the ISO reading on screen (I wanted to write about that topic for a while now and this photo really gave me the final kick.)
And btw. the polarizer is a Hoya "digital pro series".
I thought about sunny/16 and the polarizer again. Up there in the mountains, the polarizer has a HUGE impact on the brightness of the sky (which is why Nikon suggests to use center weighed metering and not matrix metering when using a polarizer, I suppose). A similar effect as I described it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.alex-kunz.de/2009/07/polarize-me.html