Question on ISO

[Caretames1]

I have a sony alpha a100 DSLR. I starting to get the hang of, but I really want to improve my night (like wishes & parades)/low light shooting. My ISO goes to 1600. I have the settings Lo80 and Hi 200, what are they for? I'm having a hard time figuring that out.

My lenses are 3.5-5.6/18-70 & 4.5-5.6/75-300. Is there a diffenet lens that would help.

Lastly, Should I get a flash or is the flash on the camera good enough for now?
Thanks everyone!

 

[zackiedawg]

Ignore the lo80 and hi200 settings for low light - these two settings are designed to pull more detail out of shadow areas (80) or contain highlights (200), sort of an early precursor to the more advanced DRO settings that popped up on later Sony cameras. For low light, you definitely need to consider bringing up the ISO to 1600 - the shots can get a little noisy and grainy, but will be better exposed and can be cleaned up a little bit with some processing software. It's actually more important to get a good exposure to control noise than to worry about the ISO - high ISOs show the worst noise when the shot is underexposed - so if ISO800 is still underexposed, the noise can be worse than a properly exposed ISO1600 shot, even though normally ISO1600 should be worse.

But you also pegged it with your other question - the lens. For low light, a faster lens will make a huge difference. Your lenses are slow - the maximum aperture of F3.5 is giving away several stops of light to a faster lens. You want to look for lenses with a LOWER F number (meaning bigger aperture) - fast lenses come in F2.8, F2.0, F1.7, even F1.4 apertures that will get you 1-3 better stops of light - that's the difference between needing ISO1600 vs ISO400, for example. So a good, fast lens would definitely be recommended. You don't have to go expensive - look for a cheap 'prime' lens - those without zoom ranges, just one fixed focal length. Cheap Minolta lenses (which fit your Sony) like the 50mm F1.7 can be found used for $60. Even a few new lenses like Sony's 35mm F1.8 can be found for under $200. That, combined with raising the ISO as needed, should solve your low light issues.

 

[LordAthens]

Keep in mind there are different types of low light shooting. Moving objects, be it outdoor (parades, concerts, etc) or indoor (weddings, concerts, Disney on Ice), you want to shoot as fast of a shutter speed as possible. This would mean typically shooting "wide open" (lower aperture, IE 2.8) with a high ISO. As zackiedawg mentioned, there are some drawbacks to this.

The higher the ISO, the more noise you're going to get in your image. Especially on something like the Sony a100 which has pretty bad noise characteristics. If you look here; http://photo.net/equipment/sony/a100/ about a quarter of the way down the page they do a comparison against a Canon 20D. You can see that the noise shooting at 1600 on the Sony is comparable to ISO 3200 on the Canon. Unless I absolutely had to, I wouldn't shoot ISO 800 or 1600 on that camera. I honestly wouldn't shoot even 400 on that very much. There are some great noise reduction applications and plugins out there, but there is only so much you can do. Simply put, noise is loss of detail which translates into soft images and cruddy "light" backgrounds, especially when you're capturing a lot of sky, say for fireworks.

As far as the lenses go, it's a give take. A 1.4, 1.8, 2.0, 2.8 etc will let you shoot a stop or three faster than the 3.5 that you have now. Almost all glass does this at a price. Most 2.8 glass for example, doesn't become tack sharp until you stop it down until ~f/4.0 for example, meaning again, shooting wide open can bring soft images. I'm not familiar with your 18-70, but that might not sharpen up until f/5.6 or so (compared to the base of 3.5). Keep in mind with variable aperture glass like what you have, the longer you zoom, the slower (larger f/ number) your glass becomes. So at 18mm you can shoot at 3.5, but at 70mm the absolute fastest that the lens will go is 5.6. That's a full 2 stops of exposure. You can combat this by getting closer to the action and shooting at 18mm f/3.5 vs standing further back and shooting at 70mm f/5.6.

As I said, that's for moving objects where you need to stop the action so you don't get blur.

For things like fireworks, you're set. You DO need a tripod. It doesn't really matter how fast your glass is, since you should be shooting stopped down pretty considerably. All fireworks are different and to get good at it takes a lot of trial and error (generally). I usually shoot in aperture priority at a range of f/8 - f/20 at shutter speeds between 1/20 and 2 seconds. For bright whites, yellows, etc I shoot at smaller apertures, this causes them to not be blown out, for darker colors I shoot at larger apertures, allowing more light and detail to be captured.

You're in a unique position, especially if you're considering upgrading any of your lenses. Instead of buying new glass, you may want to consider upgrading your body to something like a a580. The noise improvement between your a100 and the a580 is like comparing a cell phone camera to a pro dslr. I would consider ISO 1600 on the a580 to be mostly usable, 100-800 to be always usable. The a580 isn't quite up there with the newest cams like the Nikon D7000 and the Canon 7D and 60D, but it's very good. Granted, the a580 is $800 (body only), but you're effectively upgrading ALL of your glass to 1-3 stops faster as opposed to buying new glass for an old body. That being said, I don't know that Sony even offers anything in a f/2.8 zoom for the Alphas.

HTH.

 

[LordAthens]

I forgot about your flash question.

Myself, I rarely ever shoot with an onboard flash. Onboard flashes generally always suck, unless you're using it outdoors in the daylight as a fill flash. Onboard flashes are not very powerful and you can't bounce with them, leading to flat, washed out images. Flashes generally don't help at night, again unless you're just using it as a slow sync or rear curtain sync for a portrait fill.

The only time I ever shoot my onboard is to trigger my remote flashes.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

We have an A100 in the house and I love the pictures that come from it - just a punch to them that I find very appealing. (The Lo80 can be really nice to use but needs good light). Have you updated the firmware to the release they had a year or two ago (v 1.04)? That did some improvement to the high ISO though it wasn't publicized. It also improved the low light focusing that will help you with parades.

For shooting the parades you will benefit from a faster lens - just as Justin suggested. I also would recommend the Minolta 50mm f/1.7 or the Sony 35mm f/1.8 for the least expensive options that will help improve results. Proper exposure and then, depending on what you are going to use the photos for, perhaps use some noise reduction in processing. For Disney night parades you will usually have to use ISO 1600. (And the tests referenced by Brandon should not scare you from doing that). For fireworks just get a tripod, keep it at ISO 200 and you can successfully use your 18-70 lens. The tripod and a remote release is the key to fireworks.

Brandon - Sony does have 2.8 zooms. And of course the Minolta AF 2.8's are options as well. We need to get you a bit more educated in the Sony system.

 

[zackiedawg]

I'd tend to say the A580 is up there with the D7000 and K5 (both of which with it shares a sensor), and the 60D, as far as high ISO performance. Everyone's mileage may vary, but personally I find all these cameras plenty usable to ISO6400. As for F2.8 zooms, there are dozens available in Sony mount, ranging from 11mm to 300mm on either end, from Sony, Minolta, Sigma, Tokina, and Tamron. Sony's excellent F2.8 G glass and Zeiss glass is well known, from the wider end (16-80 Zeiss) to longer end (80-200 G). Sony's mount is surprisingly healthy, with over 100 current Alpha mount lenses and nearly 400 heading to the used market. Not as big as Canon or Nikon's collection, but not too hard to find what you need. It was a good point by the way to suggest considering a body upgrade, as it would make a huge difference, if the OP was willing to spend.

And good point Kathy on the 'low light' for non-moving subjects - I didn't bother to mention it this go-round, but is something people should know about, as tripods and low ISOs with long shutters will always yield nicer results as long as you didn't need to freeze any action - and even the older cameras can pull of gorgeous shots.

 

[LordAthens]

(And the tests referenced by Brandon should not scare you from doing that). For fireworks just get a tripod, keep it at ISO 200 and you can successfully use your 18-70 lens. The tripod and a remote release is the key to fireworks.

Certainly not attempting to start a flame war, just a friendly debate, but why would you consider shooting 1600 on that body, especially for night shots where it's clearly going to show? I would say the high ISO performance of the a100 is on par with my D100 and I don't ever go over 400, there is simply to much detail and sharpness lost. Yes, you can try to get rid of some of the noise, but the detail is still gone forever. 1600 on that camera is quite terrible.

Brandon - Sony does have 2.8 zooms. And of course the Minolta AF 2.8's are options as well. We need to get you a bit more educated in the Sony system.

I'm always open to learning and I'll be the first to admit that while I try to follow every manufactures body releases, I don't follow the glass much, except in Nikon and Canon, and Zeiss, Voigtlander, Sig, Tamron and Tokina, specifically in F and Canon mounts. I gave a quick look on B&H's site and didn't see anything in a Sony Alpha mount that was a 2.8 zoom.

I'd tend to say the A580 is up there with the D7000 and K5 (both of which with it shares a sensor), and the 60D, as far as high ISO performance.

I'll throw this in the mix, it's well known that Sony makes the sensor in the D7k, though it's believed that it's based on a Nikon design. Nikon lacks the fabs to manufacture CMOS, LCD, etc and it's certainly cheaper for them to outsource fab work to the big guys in the fab industry.

This article; http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Alpha_DSLR_A580/noise_JPEG.shtml pretty wells shows the difference in noise between a D7k and a a580. I disagree with the authors reasoning as to why the noise is better on the D7k, (and that they share the exact sensor) but everyone is entitled to their opinions.

Starting at ISO 400, you can start to see a mild difference between the two, especially in the shadows of the flowers in the right corner of the wall. Moving to the 1600 shot, on the left side of the wall you can see a good bit more noise on the a580. At 3200 the noise is pronounced throughout most of the frame, especially on the walls on the Sony. At 6400 and above, it's completely obvious. Specifically at 12.8k, the entire a580 image is soft where there is still detail on the Nikon side (look at the flowers). Even at 25.6k, to me the Nikon image looks sharper and retains more detail than the 12.9k Sony image, of course color noise has really taken it's toll on the frame, especially in the shadow area in the right corner.

Please don't think I'm saying that the Sony is junk. It's not, not by far. There is a $400 difference between those bodies and at that small of a price tag, $400 is quite a lot of difference. You're getting quite a bit more for the $400 than just image quality on the Nikon side, things like mag alloy bodies, weather sealing, etc. Some people want these things, some don't. There is no one perfect camera or even camera system (Canon has a few pieces of glass that I would love to have on the Nikon side!).

And who knows, maybe they are the same sensor and the Nikon processing is just a little better than the Sony (they are all jpeg shots afterall). The only really 100% apples to apples comparison would be on RAW images, of which I haven't seen any comparisons unfortunately.

Everyone's mileage may vary, but personally I find all these cameras plenty usable to ISO6400. As for F2.8 zooms, there are dozens available in Sony mount, ranging from 11mm to 300mm on either end, from Sony, Minolta, Sigma, Tokina, and Tamron. Sony's excellent F2.8 G glass and Zeiss glass is well known, from the wider end (16-80 Zeiss) to longer end (80-200 G). Sony's mount is surprisingly healthy, with over 100 current Alpha mount lenses and nearly 400 heading to the used market. Not as big as Canon or Nikon's collection, but not too hard to find what you need. It was a good point by the way to suggest considering a body upgrade, as it would make a huge difference, if the OP was willing to spend.

Is Tokina making anything (new) for Sony? According to their site their entire current lineup is only available in F mount or Canon. Again, not knocking Sony, I'm only going by info I come across while researching other things. I did some more research and came across a few 2.8 (straight, not variable 2.8-4, which the A-mount seems to have a ton of). Sigma appears to have a ton of glass available on the A-mount, which I didn't know. Like I said, I just went by what B&H currently carries, or at least what their search engine says they carry. I'm jealous of some of your Zeiss stuff. While we have some Zeiss on the F mount side, it's all manual focus. If I wanted to MF all day, I'd go drag out my Yashica 124G. MF is about worthless with little ones about.

It all comes down to what you need. Sony makes a nice DSLR (though I really do dislike their NEX system), as does Canon, Pentax, Nikon, etc. I just continue to stick with Nikon because of their reliability, selection of glass (especially in the used market) and other semi-pro features. I know I (often) come off as "OMG NIKON OR DIE!", unfortunately I'm a great speaker, not so much as a great writer

 

[mom2rtk]

Brandon,

Why did you even start this debate on this thread? Bring it back to the OP's questions. He/she is not interested in a body upgrade based on the post.

Thank you for that. The OP has been reading my trip report and I really promoted this as a forum where even a beginner can come to get their questions answered in a friendly and welcoming manner. I'm pretty sure she wasn't asking about buying a new body.

Hi Carey!

 

[zackiedawg]

It's all good - a little friendly side-track won't hurt too much - it's stayed friendly and civil. I think the OP has some good advice above on how to handle low light shooting with the A100 - both high ISO handheld style and low ISO tripod style. Even without the most modern DSLR body, you can still get lovely shots, and I use to take tons of night shots even in my P&S days, to great effect - just a little more limited as to how muich handheld I could get away with. Hopefully, if the OP has any more questions, she'll just pop in and ask!

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Understanding Exposure

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Certainly not attempting to start a flame war, just a friendly debate, but why would you consider shooting 1600 on that body, especially for night shots where it's clearly going to show? I would say the high ISO performance of the a100 is on par with my D100 and I don't ever go over 400, there is simply to much detail and sharpness lost. Yes, you can try to get rid of some of the noise, but the detail is still gone forever. 1600 on that camera is quite terrible.

No worries. I'm coming from actual experience of the camera - not reading a test that similarly would say I shouldn't use my A850 over ISO 400 either. : I don't hesitate for a moment to use ISO 1600 or higher if that's what I need to get the picture. ISO 1600 with a little noise but stopped motion is always going to be a far better picture than 400 or 800 and having blur or not getting the picture at all. It's about learning to use your camera to get the best results you can which is what the OP is asking for advice on.

 

[Caretames1]

Hi Everyone Thank-you for your imput, passionate opinions and tech advice. It's alot to take in for this mind



I am reasonably new to my DSLR (2 years). I have been taking some pictures I think are pretty awesome. I've been doing, mostly outdoor, family pictures and some senior photos in my spare time. My daughters senior pics were actually the best shots I've ever done

I'm now wanting to get more onto low light / night shooting. The Castle & firework I've been seeing have me sooooo inpsired.

I may be into getting a new lens, but my (small) buget will require some in depth research and comparisson shopping.


Hi Janet

Carey

 

[LordAthens]

Hi Everyone Thank-you for your imput, passionate opinions and tech advice. It's alot to take in for this mind



I am reasonably new to my DSLR (2 years). I have been taking some pictures I think are pretty awesome. I've been doing, mostly outdoor, family pictures and some senior photos in my spare time. My daughters senior pics were actually the best shots I've ever done

I'm now wanting to get more onto low light / night shooting. The Castle & firework I've been seeing have me sooooo inpsired.

I may be into getting a new lens, but my (small) buget will require some in depth research and comparisson shopping.


Hi Janet

Carey

Please don't let my passion scare you off lol

As I said before, fireworks, not a problem at all with what you have. Set your ISO to 100 or 200 try some of the settings I gave you above, those are a pretty good general starting point. And don't forget you can practice at other places and times than Disney. I know PNC Park here in Pittsburgh does fireworks for all of the home games, so maybe find a sports park in your area that does fireworks and use that to practice from.

 

[seashoreCM]

All except the best zoom lenses will creep up in slowness (higher F number) as you increase the zoom. That is, you have to unzoom almost all the way to actually have the maximum aperture. Example: An F/2.8 lens being f/5.6 at maximum zoom.

When shooting with maximum aperture and more so with really fast lenses, you need to focus accurately and there is less range where closer and further objects are also in focus (less depth of field).

For most low light or fast action shots you first increase the aperture as needed. When that maxes out you start slowing down the shutter as much as you comfortably can. Finally you raise the ISO. Still there will be numerous times when you end up at 1600 or 3200 for ISO (if the camera goes that high).

For still life shots with the camera on a firm support or tripod, try for ISO 100 and not too big an aperture. Here you don't care how slow the shutter is.

One dilemma with fireworks is that the individual bursts can vary greatly in brightness. You might have the camera set up with a fairly low exposure value for example small aperture and a dim blue burst comes along. Or you have a fairly large aperture and bright white and yellow bursts appear. Colors wash out easily when the shot is overexposed relative to the fireworks bursts themselves.

 

[mom2rtk]

Hi Carey!

The good news is that for stationary night time objects, you don't need a different lens. What you need is a tripod (and someone willing to carry it around Disney! ). That's because the good night shots use a longer exposure. So do fireworks shots.

It's when you combine low light with movement that you need a faster shutter speed, and in low light that requires a faster lens, one with a wider aperture. I'm not sure what is available in the Sony lineup, but there are usually some reasonably priced wide aperture prime lenses available.

I typically keep my tripod in a locker and pick it up late in the day when I plan to shoot fireworks.