Posing for an iso comparison

[Fangman]

A co-operative Redpol about five foot from camera Nigra seed as the bribe!

ISO settings
Did you get it right?
200 - 1600 - 100 - 800 - 400

With low light iso 100 needed f2.8 and 125th The higher iso allowed 1/200 or 1/250 at up to giving much more DOF.

 

[MiFleur]

The second shot is the sharpest, my conclusion is choose high ISO, and get a faster shutter speed
that is if I get this right...

 

[Fangman]

I was pleased by the lack of noise at iso 800 and 1600 giving the extra DOF with smaller aperture and able to keep at 1/200th or less, needed for these small critters. The camera is on a tripod so movement is from the subject. At f2.8 and 200mm the DOF is a few mm so even if you have the eye in focus some of the body is blurred.

 

[coastalconn]

To me yes number 2 is sharpest but it is quite noisy. I think #5 is the best all around. Was the light changing? It is hard to judge sharpness with presumably a shutter speed that was too low in 1,3 and 4.

 

[Fangman]

The shutter was 1/125 @ 100 iso !/125 for 800 and 1/250 at 1600 and 1/200 at iso 400 which is my preferred setting and is the choice here. I find that although I am using a tripod, these small birds are always on the move as well as wind movement of the feeders, at least 1/200th is needed.

All taken within a few minutes so little variation of light which was pretty good for UK winter today. Usually I am pushing it at 1/200th iso 400 at f 2.8 not f7.1 as image 5

 

[coastalconn]

I would say 1/200th is the threshold. I normally try to shoot higher also, but in the snow today I had some luck at 1/80th..

 

[Fangman]

This is the ISO 1600 with noise reduction in Lightroom - I was surprised that it works as well.

 

[coastalconn]

I use PSP x4 sometimes if I have a good background but it is very noisy. I just outlined the bird and feeder, inverted the selection and used 1 step noise reduction. This keeps the detail in the bird but smooths the background. Hope you don't mind I did this...
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[Fangman]

All donations gratefully received! There are so many ways to skin a cat they say and by sharing our techniques we can learn from each other. Anyone who can improve or offer a different take on any of my images is welcome.

Thanks for taking the time out to comment and post.

What is amazing is the result achieved from an image taken at iso 1600 - only a few years back it was in our dreams! Even at 6400 you can get an image that is acceptable for family record shots although it would be torn to shreds by the folk here if posted!

 

[Patrice]

What is amazing is the result achieved from an image taken at iso 1600 - only a few years back it was in our dreams!

True enough! I remember using ISO 800 B&W film think it was pretty impressive to be able to push process to ISO 1600.

This is a JPEG taken at ISO 3200 and is straight from the camera, no post process except for crop and resize for web with Preview.

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