D300 shooting in virtual darkness 6400 ISO

[sabbath999]

Just thought you might like to see a shot I took Sunday of a fruit bat in virtual darkness with my D300 and 105 VR Macro f/2.8

The shot is taken like this: 1/25th, f/3.0 (the 105's actually are variable f/2.8 to 3.5), 6400 ISO, I shot it center weighted metering, no flash, auto white balance (what is the proper white balance for virtual darkness?), VR on.

The blurriness was from the animal moving a bit, I handheld it but I had the Macro up against glass with the VR on, so it was pretty steady. The animal was eating and swaying just a bit.

The only PP done is just a tad bit of cropping to square it up. Noise is present, but it was either take this or get nothing.

I shot this (and a bunch more in virtually no light) and the camera autofocused perfectly... with both the 105 VR and the 70-200 f/2.8 VR. It was so dark I couldn't see the through the finder well, I had to guess where to put the focus points and wait until they turned red to see them.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Cool, really impressive, esp. the fact that the auto-focus found something.

Wouldn't it be simpler to pre-focus, and turn AF off'? Aren't you worried the lens is going to hunt around? Or do you AF lock once you've pulled focus (I use a Canon SLR, I assume Nikons have an AF lock function as well.)

 

[sabbath999]

I actually couldn't see well enough to focus manually. I couldn't see the focusing dot (I generally use single spot) except when it turned red, and since the animal was moving around I was having trouble trying to track it, let alone trying to actually focus it by using the spot plus the little green dot in the viewfinder... so I shot one out of curiosity and found that the camera was focusing accurately (the animal was moving but the branch it was hanging on had a part in focus) so I just went with it. I expected absolutely nothing out of it, I was doing it more out to see what would happen. The lens did hunt a bit, but there is no way in that light I could have manually focused with any accuracy, since I was shooting absolutely wide open with a fast lens there is depth of field to help out. You can see that the front of the animal is much more in focus than the rest of it... and this bat is only about 2 inches thick from deck to keel.

 

[Socrates]

I'm impressed. Of course, I bought a Rambler once so what do I know?

 

[lifeafter2am]

Wow! Now I really can't wait to get the D300!

 

[EricBrian]

Very very cool. Man, this is an awesome shot.

 

[notelliot]

kind of looks like the rabbit from donnie darko. well if you just look at its head.

neat shot. the noise isn't awful at 6400. whole new world up there, in the thousands.

 

[Antithesis]

I actually couldn't see well enough to focus manually. I couldn't see the focusing dot (I generally use single spot) except when it turned red, and since the animal was moving around I was having trouble trying to track it, let alone trying to actually focus it by using the spot plus the little green dot in the viewfinder... so I shot one out of curiosity and found that the camera was focusing accurately (the animal was moving but the branch it was hanging on had a part in focus) so I just went with it. I expected absolutely nothing out of it, I was doing it more out to see what would happen. The lens did hunt a bit, but there is no way in that light I could have manually focused with any accuracy, since I was shooting absolutely wide open with a fast lens there is depth of field to help out. You can see that the front of the animal is much more in focus than the rest of it... and this bat is only about 2 inches thick from deck to keel.

I think he meant to set the focus via distance #'s on the lens, but with a short depth of field and no light, that would be just as hard as doing it TTL.

The shot looks amazing though! That looks like ISO 400 in my d80. Hopefully I can afford to upgrade at some point this summer and turn my d80 into a backup. The possibilities for fast shutter speeds in low light seem endless.

 

[S2K1]

Really impressive. Nikon is making some good bodies as of late.

 

[domromer]

wow! So no noise reduction at all?

 

[sabbath999]

No noise reduction outside of the camera body at all... the only PP on it was I cropped it about 5 percent to center up the image a bit.

If I can figure out how to do it I will post the full file later.

 

[JerryPH]

"virtual darkness"... if that means the same thing to you as to me (meaning that with the naked eye, the bat was more or less not visible due to the low light), then this shot is really nothing less than amazing.

I've seen a few ISO 6400 shots from D300s and yours looks about average in terms of noise, but ,wow, thats still a really good shot.

The point that the focus is not on the eyes, under the circumstances, is truly nothing more than nitpicking.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Thanks Sabbath.

Btw, pick up the current issue of LFI to read about Doug Herr, the "Birdman." really interesting, and he describes his workflow and his shooting style. It's extremely Leica-centric (it's an affinity magazine, after all) but it is still fascinating to read.

 

[Antithesis]

The d300's high ISO capabilites are making me rethink purchasing the super expensive nikon fast lenses. Besides a shorter depth of field, it seems kinda silly now to spend the extra money on a faster lens when you could drop the extra money on a d300 and have the extra stops on all the lenses you own. Decisions, decisions..

 

[JerryPH]

A good camera doesn't replace a good lens, it just makes the lens better.

There is a lot more to a lens' quality of output than light sensitivity... and no camera can improve or change it. If it's a crappy lens, its a crappy lens on ALL camera bodys.