Low light portraits - pushing iso vs f-stop vs shutter

[personalt]

I recently moved from d7000 to d600 and mostly shoot with either my 50mm 1.8d or 85 1.8d. Most shots are candid/portraits of a 4 year old at play.

When I have low light I am mostly shooting at f1.8 or f2. What I am having deciding is how lower I should take shutter speed vs cranking iso.

I was often letting the shutter get to 1/80 of a second before more heavly raising iso. But the more I play with the d600 I think I should be pusing higher on iso sooner vs letting shutter speed get that low.

I am interested in where people bottom out there shutter speed and what they feel is a safe iso they can go to. I am currently shooting a d600 with 50mm 1.8 and 85mm 1.8.

Of course in a room where i am shooting candids light chages rapidly. I am wondering more from a work flow standpoint how people make their decisions then actual settings.

This is my decision making process..
In a room with generally low light where i am shooting candids my work flow seems to be
1)set f-stop to 1.8 or 2
2)see what kind of iso I need to support shutter1/80 or 1/125.
3)if light is varies a lot in room I might move iso up to 800 on my old d7000. I considered this my 'safe iso'
4)see if that is enough to keep shutter speed up take the first few shots.
5)push iso beyond safe iso, if needed

Would love to know how others make their decisions when making sacrifices in low light.

Those with D600s do you have a iso that you consider a safe-iso that you quickly go to in low light?

Is 1/80 a second too slow for a 85 mm when taking photos of kids that are sitting and playing?

 

[astroNikon]

I also have a d7000 and a d600
On the d7000 I would max out ISO at 1600
on the d600 .. it's just starting to get going at 1600. Don't be afraid of using 6400 to see how you like it.

The objective is to try and keep your shutter speed fast enough to compensate for any handmovement and kid movement .. so I would think 1/125 at least, for now.

So if you "fix" you shutter .. then select a DOF/aperture appropriate for the shot ... just let ISO be in AUTO mode and see what happens.
at some point, you'll have to add more light though if it keeps getting darker and darker and there's no additional light available.

I mostly shoot in Manual mode with a fixed Aperture and Shutter for what I want to do, then let AUTO ISO do the rest of the equation with outdoor or inside stuff. Studio or specific photos then I adjust ISO the way I want.

 

[KmH]

Yes. I would say that 1/80 is to slow a shutter speed for photos made with an 85 mm lens of kids that are sitting and playing

I used a shutter speed limit of 1/100 for posed, stationary subjects when I was using a camera stand. Hand held I used 2x the focal length of the lens. If I was using a 200 mm lens, 1/400 was the slowest shutter speed I would use.
For slightly moving subjects my minimum shutter speed was 1/250, unless I was using strobed light (flash) with a short enough duration that the flash of light could 'stop' motion.

 

[Braineack]

I wont shoot my 85mm slower than 1/160 if I actually want sharp images.

I wont shoot portraits at 1.8 either...

 

[Derrel]

I am gonna' second astroNikon's suggestion of using AUTO ISO on the new Nikon D600. It has a very high-perfromance FX sensor that can easily handle lower light levels through ISO gain. With a 50 or 85mm lens, a shutter speed of 1/80 second is marginal. At 1/80, some shots will be good, while others will likely be spoiled by either subject movement or camera shake, and the speed is too brief for good panning shots, too slow for stop-action shots. YES, some shots at 1/80 second will be perfectly fine, but not all shots will be optimal at 1/80. With the 85mm lens, 1/80 second is right on the border. If the subject is perfectly stationary AND the shutter release is clean, 1/80 will be okay, but it's not guaranteed to stop all movement.

I think 800 ISO is too low as the "max" ISO with a modern FX Nikon...I would triple that figure as my maximum ISO. As to shutter speed, that's a variable that is...in constant variance...it can move up and down with the subject and how well the camera is supported. For example, lying down on your tummy with elbows out and the camera firmly pressed to your forehead is a rock-steady hand-held shooting position, and you can fire at 1/8 or 1/15 second levels without issue from camera shake, although the subject might blur if moving, but still, one CAN shoot kids at play at slow speeds with some success if the camera position is very steady.

A lot of this equation comes down to this: How many frames do you want to throw away to get the 'creative exposure effects'? Or, are you more interested in "nailing" every, single shot in perfectly frozen, stop-action rendering? Or is there a middle ground you want to hit?

 

[Braineack]

I have no problems going to 6400 with the D600.

We shoot Nikons, not Canons.

 

[Designer]

Here is my decision-making process in a nutshell.

1. What is controlled by aperture? (answer) DOF

2. What is controlled by shutter? (answer) Motion blur.

3. If either of those are at the max, what are my options? (answer) Add light or increase ISO.

 

[Derrel]

I have no problems going to 6400 with the D600.

We shoot Nikons, not Canons.

Buuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrn!

 

[personalt]

Thanks all...

The 800 ISO number was where I was quickly putting my D7000 in low light. I had figured I could go to higher on the D600. I figured it could do 1600 or 2400 or more but wasn't sure how high I could do and consider it to be worse off then a 1/80 shutter.

I think what was causing me to lean more on slowing the shutter vs raising iso was the view from back of camera when you zoom. As you pixel peep on back of camera with higher ISO the grain issues seem be more apparent then blur. This could be because at f2.0 I expect the out of focus parts to be blurry but I see the grain is across the whole picture. I also wouldn't be surprised too that I am zooming in way more then checking the grain at higher isos then I would be zooming in when the iso is lower and I am just checking general focus.

Just crunching some numbers....
1/80 -> 1/250 is 1 2/3 stops. That is the same as going from iso 640 -> 2000 or iso 1250 -> 4000. Going to try leaning on the ISO harder the next few times out...

 

[sashbar]

I would say 1/80 is too slow for shooting playing kids. I would usually shoot my kid at 1/250, or 1/125 as the slowest if the light is really bad. 1.8 or 2.0 aperture also do not give enough DoF, especially with a full frame camera. Do not be afraid to crack up the ISO - a bit of digital notice is better than a blurred or out of focus image. I have an APS-C camera and just yesterday shot a lot of images at ISO 6400:
Crazy London | Photography Forum

 

[Derrel]

Just crunching some numbers....
1/80 -> 1/250 is 1 2/3 stops. That is the same as going from iso 640 -> 2000 or iso 1250 -> 4000. Going to try leaning on the ISO harder the next few times out...

Yessssss! Leaning harder on the ISO makes total sense with the subject matter you mentioned, with the camera you are now shooting.

 

[astroNikon]

Just crunching some numbers....
1/80 -> 1/250 is 1 2/3 stops. That is the same as going from iso 640 -> 2000 or iso 1250 -> 4000. Going to try leaning on the ISO harder the next few times out...

Don't be afraid of ISO
When I first got my d7000 I was years before without a camera, and I did film in the past.
So I barely upped the ISO .. I would once in a while go to 400. Then I learned to push it more and more and found 1600 as a good plateau.
On the d600 it was basically, geee .. I could really shot high ISOs

So for me now, ISO is as variable as shutter and aperture but it becomes the final denominator in helping me achieve the shutter/aperture that I want. (excluding long exposures, etc).

 

[Braineack]

sometimes I like the look of the noise at ISO 6400.

All sizes | Late Night Spectating | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[D-B-J]

sometimes I like the look of the noise at ISO 6400.

All sizes | Late Night Spectating | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Same here. I've shot my D800 often at 6400 or even 12800 and had perfectly useable images. Sometimes grain looks nice, and the newer sensors in Nikon's FX lineup can definitely handle it. I rarely went over 1600 with my D7000, and now I can shoot at 1600 effortlessly.

 

[dannylightning]

on my D5300 I have shot as high as ISO 6500 and got nice photos with very little grain outdoors, indoors depending on the lighting sometimes high ISO looks fine, other times it looks pretty bad, I guess it depends on the indoor lighting..

I am sure you D600 will do fine in most situations with higher ISO, probably much better than my D5300 does.

I try to raise the ISO than I look at the photo on the camera screen and zoom in on it a bit and see how well it turned out, If I am not happy than I will lower the ISO and try to adjust the aperture or shutter speed for the correct exposure instead.