I love taking it back to the basics. Photography is more then about just gear. I know I talk about gear a lot, but if you don't understand how to use that gear, the gear doesn't matter. It's about the basics and fundamentals. It took me more then 10 years of shooting to start to understand the cause and effect of shooting manual. It takes time.
Writing this a third time because RU-vid really doesn't like linkage to external websites: You're surprising wrong about the fundamentals here. At best, you're getting the same noise level by bumping exposure in post as you'd have gotten by raising ISO in camera - this is true for the a1 above ISO 400, since it's ISO invariant above that threshold. With a more entry level camera that's not ISO invariant you'd actually get *worse* noise by employing your "cheat". I do like your channel for the humoristic presentation, but in this particular case you're doing a disservice to new photographers who might actually wreck their images by trying this.
Talking the basics is always a good thing. Being an electrician and explaining basics to people keeps it fresh in my mind. Sometimes things being second nature allows small things to slip through the cracks. Thank you for helping people like me who only have places like this to learn this art.
I would have appreciated seeing a "correctly set ISO" example so you could see the difference between raising it in post vs in LR. Guess I'll have to experiment with this on my own. Thanks for the tip videos!
Same thought, I would have liked to see same type of shot at 25600. It’s either Better or worse…. With backlighting it might be worse so my first thought would be to do what he did, boost in post.
@@LarsLarsen77 Not if your camera is ISO invariant, which is true for the a1 above ISO 400. What he suggests is still a bad idea though, since doing it will never get you a cleaner image than bumping ISO up in the field. At best you get the same, at worst (with a non ISO invariant camera) you get more noise.
I have do disagree with you in a way. It's totally possible to underexpose to get a lower ISO, BUT it doesn't give you cleaner images in ANY way when compensating for the underexposure in post. I've had this argument with someone before and tested it and yes the ISO does not change the noise! (at least on the D850 which i tested it on)
Doesn't this depend on the camera and the specific range of iso levels? I vaguely remember seeing a video on iso invariance in the context of the X-T4 that went into some detail on the electronics…
@@Lumpiluk There are cameras with 2 native ISOs. Basically they have two variants of the analog circuits that read the sensor. In this case going up with the ISO to the second native ISO can reduce noise. On the A1 this seems to be at ISO 500. In all other cases increasing the ISO and increasing the exposure in Lightroom will usually have the same effect regarding noise.
At best you'd get the same noise level by doing this - if your camera is ISO invariant. If it's not, you're actually introducing *more* noise by doing what this video suggests.
Yup, this is what I think as well. If you have a low signal (dark location), amplifying in camera before written to raw file is better (with jpeg much better). If you digitalize a low signal there is less information to digitalize so to speak. Same mistake is often made, even by pros, in audio. Saying that if you set a weak signal at the correct gain and have a lot of noise, just lower the gain and boost it in post. This is obviously bad because you don't just lower the noise, but the actual signal as well. And will have a lower quality signal when boosted and the noise will also be boosted.
Straight up. Some of the photos people tell me they like the most are ones where the exposure was off and have a ton of grain and noise, and even shots that missed focus slightly but got caught an iconic moment. Catching the shot under less-than-ideal circumstances is better than not getting it at all
Your page is so refreshing. Im an amateur practicing photographer. Still getting the grasp of what settings to do at what times and such...this is super informative, and I think I've been watching too much RU-vid because I've caught myself "pixel peeping" my photos too often, and not realizing that certain circumstances (such as my low-light test shot I was proud of) will inherently have noise introduced regardless. I try to avoid it, obviously, but this is a refreshing take.
I think you'll have a lot of critics pointing out the lack of camera flash use but I can imagine the clients not wanting a flash going off while they're bowling. It was clearly a tough (extreme as you mentioned) situation to shoot in so I'm with you on having the shutter high for the action shots and just dealing with things in post. Great video and example of a low light situation!
It also really helps to have nearly 10 THOUSAND dollars worth of equipment in your hand. To be fair, the true gem of advice for me, is when you talk about the approach and say "I did what I needed to do to get the shots." and "They don't sit there and go 'Hey...' because they don't care. All they care about is, I went out and took pictures of them bowling. 'Wow, these are awesome shots.' and that's what they said."
Refreshing no doom and gloom. Sadly too many ppl worry about noise but when you print out an image is not noticeable. A flash or strobe is a photographer friend!
I find you are at your best when you present like this: neutral enough, very informative, results to illustrate your point. In other words, my highest compliments on your work here as a presenter. Much like a couple of your other videos where you demonstrate exposure, I picked up a lot of understanding from this. This is why I click on your new offerings rather quickly; it's very easy for me to follow your thoughts and you present very well.
Thanks, Jared. This video offers some liberating info. I fret about noise, but nobody who's seen my school sports photos has ever said: "Great pix, Vic, but why does it look somebody sprinkled pepper on everybody?" The way most people actually see the photos, they don't notice. I'll put this into use with tonight's game and see how it goes.
I understand from your comments that you didn't have supplemental lighting. If this had been a paid shoot, what supplemental lighting would you use to improve the images? Where would you put a speed light and how would you determine the settings?
"When I deliver these photos they have no idea what noise and grain is" I do live music band photography in bars and local clubs and deal with the same lighting challenges and I tell myself this all the time. I also find that with band photography the darker(underexposed) shots often do a better job at telling the story and keeping that live performance feeling
This is such a true sentiment. I recently got praise for my excellent photography skills when half of the photos were from kids who I handed my A7 II with vintage glass to and who then spent happily snapping away at everything. Most pictures weren't level, they rarely nailed the manual focus, and they were only out-of-camera JPGs, but the pictures were of memorable moments and, from a full frame with fast glass, looked like nothing that they're used to from phones and cheap compacts.
but why underexpose in the first place if you are going to add +2 exp in post? why not shoot at a higher ISO bec the a1 might suffer from a lack of ISO invariance
I love the professional photographers coming out to critique this video lol. Jared, you have been doing this for so long and i'm sure you have forgotten more about photography than I will ever learn, so I thoroughly enjoy these videos when you go back to basics. I would love a series of you doing these types of videos for different functions (sports, portraits, events, etc).
I’m confused… you said that by shooting at a high ISO, it will look like Swiss cheese, but at the same time it’s better to get the right exposure before post-production.
This guide seems like it's really meant for older cameras that don't have that high of an iso. Since that Sony is super, setting it at 25600 iso would be better. I mean my old D7000 can barely do iso 6400, but it wouldn't be better to shoot 2 stops lower at iso 1600 when I actually need that extra exposure.
I have delivered photos at 20k iso as a wedding photographer on a canon 5dm3, actually my profile photo was shot at 12800 the full size looks way better than the bowling image he used, I have found it is better to shoe ISO and even if I over expose it looks better because noise always In the shadows
Fantastic video! Truly. Ever thought of adding another shirt to your lineup? "I shoot manual"? - I did a lot of shooting at my church during Holy Week, when things are dark and candle-lit, and the techniques you used here are pretty much was I used - though I could go a bit slower on the shutter speed and ISO because I wasn't needing to capture motion. When you master manual control, the world's your oyster.
Uhmmmm not the best advice to be honest. With invariant ISO sensor it makes no difference if you bump ISO or brighten the image by 2 EV in Lightroom - the result will be the same. BUT with variant ISO sensor it makes a huge difference - you'd better shoot at right ISO in camera. While bumping ISO in post processing you will destroy your image.
Jared, can you show a comparison of the „right“ exposure in camera vs in post? I’ve seen a different video some time ago that was pretty technical which explained that there is basically no difference.
Got my sl2 stolen and a buddy let me borrow his d5100. Your words on clients not understanding what noise is really makes me reconsider some of the photos I've taken but never used. Going to revisit them now and not worry so much about noise when shooting in the future. Thanks!
As someone who shoots 2.8/25,600+ with DXM3 most weekends, I've always shoot for right side curve exposure. Thought the rule of thumb was dropping exposure in post resulted in lower noise than raising in post.
I’ve purchased your courses, I enjoy your teaching. I love your photography. Part of me does wish you’d lose the “fro” intro and gig. You’re so good you don’t need a gimic. You alone is great, just a thought from a fan. All the best!
General public will never be able to see grains because most likely there are going to see their photos on their smartphones which have small screens and are more pixel dense than our desktop screens and hence finner grains. And when you print the photos, grains make your pictures looks sharp, so it's a win win. I personally use external flash with a soft box on it, which makes the subjects' skin look more beautiful (obviously in low light party/events situations)
Interesting, What is the highest normal iso of that camera? If you shoot RAW (which you obviously do), I would assume that if not overexposed going to the max normal ISO (so no high boost iso) would be best. This seems the same as in audio production, if you need to amplify a weak signal and at the correct gain level you hear a lot of noise, a lot of people, even professionals, will tell you to record at lower gain and boost in post. This is never the correct way to do it, because not only do you reduce your noise, but your actual signal as well. And boosting in post is just software and is like those extra High iso setting options. So you might be losing on actual color information. (But I guess, since that Sony has such a high end sensor it's still very useable). A comparison between iso 6400 boosted in post vs iso 25600 would be great. (It doesn't have to be that bowling ally, can be a test shoot).
You shoot with an iso-invariant camera. Shooting correctly on camera at 25600 iso or correcting 2stops in lightroom shouldn't make any difference. That's not true for somebody who shoots a Canon dslr.
That's correct. With an iso-invariant camera there is no difference in underexposing 2 stops and bringing it back on Lightroom, or using the correct ISO in the first place... until you fall out of the dynamic range of the sensor of course... If you underexpose/overexpose too much you will lose the shadows/blowup the highlights and tou will not be able to bring it back in post production. The best course of action is to espose correctly in the first place, using the appropriate shutter speed and aperture according to the situation
What do you guys reccomend for canon dslr? I usually keep my iso limited to 6400 and below, and I like to underexpose often because I like my photos a little underexposed. I doubt I should go over 6400 on t7i
@@LukeZalvino It depends of your particular camera, 6400 seems a good value. Just don't hope rising exposition in lightroom will save a badly exposed photo
Maybe +0,7 would be my preferred setting, from original image. Seems that many people are scared of loosing details both in shadows and highlights. Photos at night -1,5 EV and let there be black parts.
@@daniel635biturbo yeah 2/3rd of a stop would probably be great. Certainly not 2 full stops. And yes you are right. So many people are afraid of shadows, low light and noise. Ironically these same people add a bunch of contrast in post (ahem Jared). How about just taking it that way to begin with. 🤦🏻♂️
I think your perspective on de-noise software is interesting and practical. However, it seems ON1 and Topaz have introduced de-noise software which is advanced beyond PS and LR. It would be interesting to see your review of the new software and see if that influences your current stance on whether you can push hardware tech into the higher ISO ranges, 10K+ and end up with good outcomes. If it does, it begins to open additional options of trying to get the exposure closer in camera and lessens the required “cheat” techniques in post.
I think what you got looks perfectly fine. I think some people that use full frame cameras are hesitant about bumping up the ISO to say 6400. One of the reasons you shoot full frame is to be able to do that when needed. If your end result is going to be an 8x10 image in a magazine, 6400 ISO is not going to kill it. If you're going to make a billboard, yeah, it matters. If you're going to use a full frame camera then take advantage of what it does.
My good friend told me, who Is currently shooting for Alice Cooper, always shoot 2 stops under, that way color balance and highlighting will allow you to bring attention to the places you want. It doesn't work in all situations, but most and its been 5 years applying that concept and Ive had great success.
Jared was on-point in this video. The recent advances in imaging software, ie Camera Raw / Ps (+ Ai) make sense to keep the ISO low in-camera and bring it back up in Post. Personally, I would have set up one or two battery-powered strobes with softboxes to shoot this scene, if permissable.
Jared - do you think the Canon R5/R6 are capable of being off by 2 stops and getting that full level of recovery? I have an EOS R and have some some trouble in the past being off by a couple stops and losing detail in shadows/highlights. I'm thinking of upgrading to an R5 since I'm already invested in RF glass (24-70 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8), but seeing how much dynamic range you get on the Sony cameras has me questioning things. Thanks for the great video and all of the tutorials over the years! You've been a tremendous help and inspiration!
What I take from your video is to shoot series of pictures at 1/100 of second and choose the pictures that were captured at the end of the motion (after the ball release). The player would be stationary and the ball will be seen moving..
If I shoot sports in a dark place and can't use the flash, then I don't think about parameters other than shutter speed. For example, swimming or gymnastics competitions, I usually shoot either in shutter priority or in manual mode. And shutter speeds can go up to 1/1500 of a second to freeze motion. And I set the photosensitivity to auto mode with a limit that the camera allows. Modern cameras can easily shoot up to 6400. The manual mode is only needed to control the depth of field: when, for example, you need several athletes in sharpness. A little secret is to take the exposure compensation to minus 1 or more.
You remind of my past boss at the agency when I spent a lot of time on enhancing small details, he tells, stop, just to stop wasting time because general people won't notice any difference.
I'm curious if you ever noticed lower grain when shooting jpeg rather than RAW on a Nikon D500 and D850?. I noticed a big difference. I tried an experiment and noticed this to be the case when shooting lowlight at 6400 with both cameras.
Whole lots of yes Jared! This is really important information for people starting out shooting in low light. I shoot low light because I work graveyards so I always go out at night during my nights off. I even made a video from what I experienced so far to help others looking to shoot night street photography.
Great teaching moment, thank you so much.This reminds me of the Nikon school of photography that I did in 1983. 40,000 slides in 8 hours of good better and best composition. A primer on camera settings is always good.
My gut tells me with the super high end stuff he uses the higher iso would have less noise, especially considering you are still using the dynamic range of the sensor. Digital artifacts at least for me have almost always been worse than any slight extra bit of sensor noise. Also the noise from higher iso is uniform across the image. That means you can deal with it much more than wacky looking shadows or highlights.
Yup! That would be my logic too, at least you know the information is there in raw before you edit. I remember the massive debate a couple of years ago in the Fstoppers and Northrup camps. They tried to claim you might as well just shoot at the base iso regardless and correct in post. There's some truth to it, but if the image is clipped either in highlights or shadows, then nothing is going to save it. You can't amplify signal gain it it doesn't exist. Yep! Iso is amplification. It's like comparing a tiny chunk of solid chocolate to an aerated bubble bar that's 5 times the size. It's 5 times bigger but it's still the same amount of chocolate. God I'm rambling again..you know this already! Excellent video...see ya!
Hi Jared The end result of the bowling guy looks great (aside from his hairy legs) I get how you decided on 1/400th and wide open at 1.8 But how did you decide the ISO? Was it just experience or did you use the camera to guide you.
Hey Jared, I tried it out and i think you're kinda wrong, its better to shoot at 25.600 than bring it back in Lightroom. And some other YT videos showed that too, that bringing it back gives you a worse Image than shooting it right. (NO HATE, just wanted to inform you. I love your work and you're the best Photographer in my opinion)
I shoot 2 stops under a lot for low light, best way I find to bring it back up in post is push them shadow up in Lightroom - noticed you haven’t done that here
I like applying noise reduction for the background when using high ISO because we are blurring the background anyway. The noise reduction amount depends on situation.
Hi Jared! First let me say I really appreciate your videos! Thanks for it. I think you should be more careful with this quite techy topic. Some points: 1) Your method is valid for iso invariant (or iso-less) cameras (or close): Sony and Nikon. (There’s a great article on dpreview) 2) This is not true for other cameras (less recent Canon), better use the right gain (iso to start with) 3) For iso invariant cameras, this is equivalent to raising iso in camera, so not really helpful (but is for protecting highlights by gaining DR) 4) The noise obtained (for iso invariant sensors) is due to the amount of light gathered: aperture and shutter speed, but NOT iso 5) note: A big improvement in iq can be obtained by choosing the iso where the second gain amplifier kicks in (which would be iso 640 on the a1 but could be higher on other cameras such as A7). Better choose 640 than 400, which is off topic in this specific case but good to know 😉
You said that the print is came out great. But i wander what about website? Because website is 300 dpi and print is 72 dpi (hope i am right). Does it matter about the ISO? Thank you
Hi Jared, this was very useful, thanks. One question: in your experience, how feasible is it to ask your client to switch on more lights (like in the bowling alley) or let you use a speedlight/strobes or an LED panel to help you, Thanks.
I like the photo. I think I would have liked better a directed 'dodge' (as in dodge and burn) at the subject as opposed to bringing up the exposure globally.
I use a different approach to get the same result. Jared dislikes using ISO Auto in Manual shooting mode, but I like it under varying lighting conditions. Instead of dialing down an ISO setting, I just use Exposure Compensation to capture all of the shots, the level of which gets recorded in the EXIF. In post, I can see how much negative EC I used, so I can dial it back in, no problem. The photos are self documenting in post.
Great video. Wish I'd watched this a few years back. The sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom is actually really good once you know how to use it properly. Thank Jared.
This is good information I’ve been Using the same technique as you however I haven’t done any printing yet and didn’t even think about that aspect, I’ve been using the noise slider now you’ve given me something else to think about thanks.
I agree. Especially if you shoot raw with the modern cameras ( I use a 5D mark III that I choose not to go above 12,800 ISO though it is still usable). The flexibility a 9 year old full frame camera’s raw file can give me a better/cleaner file if I bump up the exposure in post than go to those level of ISO’s.
well, to get your exposure right, you did try asking them to turn on all the lights. but they didn't have more. the first part of exposure is light, before you can even begin to think about the camera settings.
Thanks for the tip, once I get my camera back from repairs I’m going try this out. I’m into aviation photography, I have been scratching my head on how to get sharp and clean shots in low light and even night time photos while the planes are landing or taking off. I have had success with shutter or aperture priority when doing long exposure at night and the camera is on the a tripod and the plane is parked.
Hi so I got mesylf a new D7500 with a Tamron 100-400 lense as my first ever camera set. So I know with a half frame camera using a full frame lens your focal distance nearly doubles? Is this correct or am I mistaken and I heard rumours the tamron 20 70 and 70 100 lenses blur and distort quite heavily?
For those special occasions where there´s not enough light and I need to bump the iso I've been doing it on camera (even up to 51200) and then applying the dxo pureraw noise reduction, it really feels like magic because you barely lose detail (especially compared to the cameraraw/lightroom NR) and the noise it's just gone
Hello Jared I love watching your videos and just wanted to ask you about the next Nikon camera I should invest in right now I shoot with a Nikon d3200. I shoot family’s, newborn and some weddings. So Studio and outside. I’ve been doing photography for about a year now just would like to see what I should upgrade to or stay with my d3200? Thanks
hmm, does the A1 behave similarly to the A7siii in terms of that 'dual iso' performance? I get way less noise at 12,800 then I do at anything between 3,200 and up to 12,800.
I think cheating is a loose term to use here. Its a "pro" move to know your cameras ability to recover shadows and deal with it in post. Take priority on the shutter speed and aperture and set the ISO to where youre comfortable to edit. Some of my favorite shots came from photos come from scenes with challenging lighting conditions. I can say that Im not afraid of ISO 10 000 at all.
This is a very bad idea and might cause new photographers to wreck their low light images. The a1 is ISO invariant above ISO 400, meaning whether you shoot at 6400 and bump two stops in post or raise to 25600 in the field won't make any difference in terms of noise in the final image. Slightly worse, someone with a more entry level, non ISO invariant camera will actually get *worse* noise by doing this.
@@froknowsphoto I'd like to respectfully point out that "I've always done it" isn't really a valid argument for anything. There's extensive data on a website called photons to photos on exactly this issue. A camera that's ISO invariant will produce the same noise whether you increase ISO in camera or underexpose and bump in post. A camera that's not ISO invariant will give you *more* noise when you underexpose and bump in post. No camera will give you less noise by underexposing in the field, ever. We've had to do this with film because ISO was way more limited then. With digital there's just no reason to keep doing it (other than to avoid clipping highlights in scenes with high dynamic range). Incidentally, Tony Northrup made a video sort of covering this called "ISO is fake" I believe, to which the f stoppers responded with some more testing. Maybe worth watching.
I am no expert but at similar situation I'd pop the built in flash and bounce it and with more light iso on auto will drop to give better quality but ofc as you said it's not a big deal and I like the printout and the result.
Thank you, your videos have helped me grow a lot as far as content, subject, exposure etc. I did have a couple questions. I know you had given an example of getting the 2 stops from shutter speed OR the two stops from ISO what if you split it to try to get 1 stop under so there is less to correct in post? Also, I know this would probably be intrusive for the persons bowling having a flash go off in their face, but are there flash options what would possibly work in this scenario? I’m just curious, I don’t normally shoot bowling or sports for that matter, but I was just curious if the reasons for not doing those. If you reply, thank you in advance!
Has Jared tried Topaz software? I used to avoid noise correction too because the results from Photoshop and Lightroom did as he said and made the image fuzzy and less sharp. Since using Topaz Denoise and Sharpen my images are less noisy and sharper - I use a Sigma 150-600 which is a pretty soft lens anyway but the AI tools really help recover some of the detail lost from a lower-end lens and noisy images. I'd love if he did a video on them - even if he drew the conclusion that they weren't for him. It's frustrating to see someone shoot down something new without (seemingly, he's never provided examples) trying it when you've had such a good experience with it.
The new noise reduction software that is out like DXO and On1 doesn't soften the noise in images. They actually de-mosaic and reverse the noise in the raw file. They really do get rid of the noise. They can make a 12,800 ISO image look like it was shot at ISO 800.
that way will give you noise.i took a rock consert vith 40000 iso vid old Nkon Z 6 a jpg. no grain, i put link here. Metal night | 40000 iso sooc | Roger Borg | Flickr im not sure that i could link here. how was that possible? please explain
Hey Jared, I am keen on photography for some months now and I've also bought my first dslr. My question is, would 1/200th be enough to freeze the motion so that we could get 1 stop of light. (same iso)?
Working through the same issue with a nature photo. Really had to crank the ISO to bring out the subject. Got some hot pixels, but my post processing software removed them.
