Interesting- low light sports tip w/out using high ISO's

[My2Girls66]

I read this on Adorama- tips by Bryan Peterson
I'm going to try it at my DD game tonight. She is a cheerleader.
http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?article=102408&op=academy_new

 

[PhotobearSam]

Way cool...I will try that.

Let us know about your results.

 

[wenrob]

I'm going to have to try that just for S&Gs. Please post your results!

 

[bob100]

I read this on Adorama- tips by Bryan Peterson
I'm going to try it at my DD game tonight. She is a cheerleader.
http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?article=102408&op=academy_new

it works even if you don't shoot in RAW, it's a good technique for shooting night sports with a P&S type camera where you don't want to use high ISO levels

 

[bdtracey]

That's impressive! I really need to start shooting in RAW. I've already graduated to shooting manual (Tv, Av, P) but haven't ventured into RAW yet. I don't get a whole ton of time for post-processing (parenting and all ) but I bet I could do a whole ton more with some of my sub-par pictures. Time to change my setting I suppose...

 

[MICKEY88]

it works even if you don't shoot in RAW, it's a good technique for shooting night sports with a P&S type camera where you don't want to use high ISO levels

although it will work with jpeg, it works much better with raw since you have so much more info to work with..

 

[MICKEY88]

That's impressive! I really need to start shooting in RAW. I've already graduated to shooting manual (Tv, Av, P) but haven't ventured into RAW yet. I don't get a whole ton of time for post-processing (parenting and all ) but I bet I could do a whole ton more with some of my sub-par pictures. Time to change my setting I suppose...

once you've seen what can be done with raw files, especially of difficult lighting situations, you'll never want to shoot jpeg again

 

[wenrob]

once you've seen what can be done with raw files, especially of difficult lighting situations, you'll never want to shoot jpeg again

I can attest to this. You can ask these guys, I fought Raw tooth and nail. Now that's all I shoot in. I was looking at some older pics the other day and my first though was, "Man, I wish these had been shot in Raw so I could fix them."

Also re the time thing, it actually takes less time to convert from Raw then it does to try a zillion different ways to fix a .jpg.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Wha? I like Bryan Peterson and he's a heck of a lot better photographer than I'll ever be, but this is bad advice. Don't wait for your next sporting event. Do a comparison today. If you under expose by two stops and then boost the exposure in post processing, you'll get more noise than if you had just increased the ISO by two stops.

In fact, for the really high ISO's on my cameras are done internally using this trick. Canon recognizes that it is an inferior way of boosting exposure, so those ISO's are turned off by default.

Now if you are at the max normal ISO of your camera, I would use this trick rather than using one of the extended ISOs. The result is usually the same, but if you blow any highlights, shooting at the lower ISO allows you to better recover them.

 

[bob100]

Wha? I like Bryan Peterson and he's a heck of a lot better photographer than I'll ever be, but this is bad advice. Don't wait for your next sporting event. Do a comparison today. If you under expose by two stops and then boost the exposure in post processing, you'll get more noise than if you had just increased the ISO by two stops..

All I can say is when I tried this with my Canon S5 it worked. If I increased the ISO above 800 the noise was really bad and the pic unusable, if I left the ISO at 800 and the shutter speed appropriate to freeze motion, the pic looked dark in the camera but I could adjust it to very good results in post processing.

 

[°O°Joe]

Wha? I like Bryan Peterson and he's a heck of a lot better photographer than I'll ever be, but this is bad advice. Don't wait for your next sporting event. Do a comparison today. If you under expose by two stops and then boost the exposure in post processing, you'll get more noise than if you had just increased the ISO by two stops.

In fact, for the really high ISO's on my cameras are done internally using this trick. Canon recognizes that it is an inferior way of boosting exposure, so those ISO's are turned off by default.

Now if you are at the max normal ISO of your camera, I would use this trick rather than using one of the extended ISOs. The result is usually the same, but if you blow any highlights, shooting at the lower ISO allows you to better recover them.

I agree Mark... I was also going to point out that when you intentionally underexpose you risk losing detail in shadows, and when you try to recover them you'll likely get nothing but noise. I would rather hike the ISO up to 1600 (1600 still looks pretty darn good, even better after light NR on the D300) and properly expose the photo...

 

[alan]

And another voice to echo what Mark said. I would recommend against doing this - you'll be disappointed. Maybe it'll look okay at 640x480 on a web page, but it's not going to look good filling your monitor, or printed out.

I have recently been working with some negative scans from ISO800 35mm film, and have been amazed by how awful they look. We may think that our SLRs today are a bit noisy, but even my humble Canon 350D (Rebel XT) is staggeringly better than the ISO 800 film that I was recommended as the best on the market fifteen years ago.

regards,
/alan

 

[NostalgicDad]

Wha? I like Bryan Peterson and he's a heck of a lot better photographer than I'll ever be, but this is bad advice. Don't wait for your next sporting event. Do a comparison today. If you under expose by two stops and then boost the exposure in post processing, you'll get more noise than if you had just increased the ISO by two stops.

In fact, for the really high ISO's on my cameras are done internally using this trick. Canon recognizes that it is an inferior way of boosting exposure, so those ISO's are turned off by default.

Now if you are at the max normal ISO of your camera, I would use this trick rather than using one of the extended ISOs. The result is usually the same, but if you blow any highlights, shooting at the lower ISO allows you to better recover them.

I agree Mark... I was also going to point out that when you intentionally underexpose you risk losing detail in shadows, and when you try to recover them you'll likely get nothing but noise. I would rather hike the ISO up to 1600 (1600 still looks pretty darn good, even better after light NR on the D300) and properly expose the photo...

I'm with Mark and Joe on this. I was also surprised to see an article like that by Bryan Peterson. His expample image to me is not a good one for demonstrating the technique. Increasing the exposure on a RAW file will always introduce noise and loss of detail is also a huge concern when an image is underexposed. I've certainly tried this in the past at indoor volleyball games where the gym lighting is atrocious. It will work to some degree but the resulting image after PP just doesn't look right when compared to a properly exposed image. I routinely use ISO 1600 to 2500 on the D300 and get a nicely exposed picture in those gyms. The resulting (minimal) noise is easily handled with NN.

 

[AndrewWG]

Yep, it will work but I agree with all the others here that it will also give you noise. I have done it and have saved some shots but most are just as bad as higher ISOs, at least on the canon 30D.

 

[SharonLowe]

Mark nailed it. Very bad advice to follow. I know a lot of people really like Bryan but he knows very little about digital photography and even less about Photoshop.

 

[boBQuincy]

Wow, this sure ain't the Bryan Peterson fan club!
I am not a fan of his either and returned his book on exposure, almost worthless imho.

Some good articles on "RAW vs JPG" and "expose to the right" (luminous-landscape.com)show the problem, there are very few values in the shadow end of the scale. Bumping them up in post processing almost always results in a poor image. I suppose if there is no other option it is better than no photo at all but it sure is not a technique to emulate.

Is there so little left to write about photography that this is the kind of article we can expect to see from now on? I hope not!

 

[AndrewWG]

I will add that although I don't like the practice, it is good knowledge for those who simply cant get the shot otherwise. If it involved getting a pic of my daughter playing a sport or in a play or something, I would certainly use it if all else failed me. Post processing CAN bring it back up but you most certainly will have to run it through a noise reduction program and will end up with a slightly (or more than slightly) fuzzy shot. I did use this technique (inadvertantly) in WDW this last time there when I was shooting the Spectro parade. I was messing with the settings earlier in the day and forgot to set them back. I will try to find time to show my pics here sometime later today. They are good, but not great.

 

[allie5]

Last year when I shot Spectro I used ISO 400 with a f/1.8 lens - the results were, on the whole, pretty poor and I was advised to try bumping up the ISO for my next trip. This year I had a slightly faster lens f/1.4 and tried ISO 800 - results werent good so I did another shoot using ISO 1000. Although they look great on a casual basis, the noise when you look closely is appalling. They dont stand up to much of a crop at all.

Unfortunately, my first shoot using ISO 400 were shot in Jpeg, otherwise I think they may have been (well some at least) salvageable. I can however, try and rescue the ones I took this trip on ISO 800 as these were RAW files.

When Ive tinkered I'll post a set for comparision!!

 

[My2Girls66]

Well- I never got to try it. I ended up having to work and missed the game. It probably wouldn't be the best thing for me anyway since I haven't much clue about post processing. I'm better of getting it as best I can in camera.

 

[Steve's Girl]

Last year when I shot Spectro I used ISO 400 with a f/1.8 lens - the results were, on the whole, pretty poor and I was advised to try bumping up the ISO for my next trip. This year I had a slightly faster lens f/1.4 and tried ISO 800 - results werent good so I did another shoot using ISO 1000. Although they look great on a casual basis, the noise when you look closely is appalling. They dont stand up to much of a crop at all.

Unfortunately, my first shoot using ISO 400 were shot in Jpeg, otherwise I think they may have been (well some at least) salvageable. I can however, try and rescue the ones I took this trip on ISO 800 as these were RAW files.

When Ive tinkered I'll post a set for comparision!!

I always shoot Spectro at 1600. I just plan on running all the photos through a noise reduction program when I get home. I've printed them in 4x6 size and they look fine.