Second shot some bridals...

[eric-holmes]

So yesterday, I second shot some bridals and I was more than completely disappointed with my D90. We shot indoors in a 1900's home. Beautiful, but dark location. I was shooting wide open (2.8) and I had my ISO cranked to 1000. That is about as high as I'm willing to go on my camera. I was only getting shutter speeds of 1/25 or 1/40 and that just doesnt work. He was shooting a D700 at crazy high ISO, getting fast shutter speeds of course. You couldn't even tell. It looked like ISO 200. This has me considering selling of my current gear to go full frame. What would you do?

 

[Robin Usagani]

Dude, your first mistake is shooting it at 1000 ISO. Just crank it up and dont underexpose (or shutter too slow). Your camera is not that bad with super high ISO. Just dont crop it too much! His D700 shots would look like **** too if he shot it at ISO 1000 with same amount of light.

 

[eric-holmes]

There is no way his shots and mine are going to look the same at ISO 1000. He could crank up to 6400 and I could go to 3200 and he is still going to get way better image quality.

 

[Robin Usagani]

I am not saying it will look the same, but at 1000 his noise will look horrible too if he underexposed it (not as bad as yours, but still bad). Go around your house and dim the light, shoot with 3200 (or 6400 if it can go that high) and make sure you are not underexposed with enough shutter speed so you have no camera shake. Upload it here and lets see it (no cropping).

 

[mwcfarms]

Eric I had the same problem with my D90 I shot some pics in crappy auditorium light. ISO 1000 and they were garbage compared to similar setting with the D700 shot at ISO 3200 which is useable that's my recommendation. The d90 is a great little camera but for low light no flash allowed situations it is very impractical.

 

[Derrel]

Eric I had the same problem with my D90 I shot some pics in crappy auditorium light. ISO 1000 and they were garbage compared to similar setting with the D700 shot at ISO 3200 which is useable that's my recommendation. The d90 is a great little camera but for low light no flash allowed situations it is very impractical.

Eric, Dee's samples of the above incident were posted last week,and I happened to see them and made the comment that the low-light, High-ISO (stage lighting, petty crummy, artificial source) D90 image "looks like crap". Quote, un-quote. I'm not sure what Schwettylens is on about...the full-frame Nikon's have vastly better High-ISO performance than the older D90 does...

If you wanna do "people work", the Full Frame Nikons are solid,solid choices. Better autofocusing, better sensors, and better utilization of all the lenses made: indoors, on FUll-Frame, a 50mm is useful, and so is an 85 and a 105, as well as a 70-200 at many events. On 1.5x, many very fine prime lenses are "too long", due to the FOV factor.

 

[eric-holmes]

Thanks Derrel. Even the image preview on the back of his camera looked better than most of my finished products. The reds were deeper and richer, the blacks we darker. Maybe it's the 14-bit raw file.

 

[PhotoWrangler]

Operator error. I regularly shoot my D90 in low light situations and I've never had a problem.

With that being said, I'm in the process of upgrading to the D700 as well. My studio partner already has one, so its our main camera now. Can't deny the light sponge that its the full frame sensor.

 

[Derrel]

Have you seen the low-light, High-ISO Capabilities of the Nikon D3s???? Unmatched by any other camera. The D90 is simply not as good at ISO 1000 as a newer, full frame camera with better, bigger sensor and better, more-expensive read-out electronics. There is "user error" and there is also "marginal lighting conditions". When the D90 is cranked to ISO 1,000 and the shutter speeds are 1/25 second at f/2.8, the images coming out of a better camera with a much bigger sensor with better electronics are going...to..be...superior....

Even the venerable "old" Canon 5D with it's 12.8 megapixel full frame sensor is gonna' make better images than a D90 under marginal light levels...

 

[Robin Usagani]

Derrel, I never said it is going to take as good photos in low light as D700. When I only had the T1i I was so scared making the ISO high. So I used flash with ISO that was too low. Since the room was big, the background was underexposed because I didnt let in enough ambient light in and my flash was working hard. Since it is underexposed in the background, the noise was so bad. If I had just make the ISO a lot higher, my photos would have been so much better (overall and noise wise).

 

[Derrel]

Derrel, I never said it is going to take as good photos in low light as D700. When I only had the T1i I was so scared making the ISO high. So I used flash with ISO that was too low. Since the room was big, the background was underexposed because I didnt let in enough ambient light in and my flash was working hard. Since it is underexposed in the background, the noise was so bad. If I had just make the ISO a lot higher, my photos would have been so much better (overall and noise wise).

Hi Schwetty. I wasn't consciously replying to your post. The issues that Eric was having are basically real-world limitations. Now, in reply to your post, I went back and re-read what you wrote, and I agree that avoiding underexposure is very helpful in avoiding excessive noise--as long as it is practical. Unfortunately, as in the situation Eric found himself in, there comes a time when shooting at 1/6 second + flash to avoid under-exposing dark, dungeon-like rooms becomes a bad course of action, one where the risks of such slooooooow shutter speeds become a huge liability. As Eric found out, cranked up to 1,000 ISO, the D90's image sensor is NOISY, and color saturation begins to suffer quite a bit--compared with a full-frame Nikon body and what it can do. As he pointed out, the first shooter's high-ISO results reminded him of his D90's ISO 200 "look". If the truth be known, the noise issue is not nearly so bad as the horrible,horrible loss of color richness, and the loss of dynamic range, when the APS-C bodies of the D90 generation get into the ISO 1,000, 1,250, 1,600 range and higher. To me, D90 images, as I describe them, look like "crap" at those elevated ISO levels--not just because of noise, but also because the color saturation goes down, the color rendering shifts, AND the dynamic range becomes compressed. So, it's not just a matter of "noise", and exposing more generously; the D90's sensor is simply OUT OF ITS BEST RANGE at ISO 1,000. No matter how generous the exposure is.

 

[PhotoWrangler]

Have you seen the low-light, High-ISO Capabilities of the Nikon D3s???? Unmatched by any other camera. The D90 is simply not as good at ISO 1000 as a newer, full frame camera with better, bigger sensor and better, more-expensive read-out electronics. There is "user error" and there is also "marginal lighting conditions". When the D90 is cranked to ISO 1,000 and the shutter speeds are 1/25 second at f/2.8, the images coming out of a better camera with a much bigger sensor with better electronics are going...to..be...superior....

Even the venerable "old" Canon 5D with it's 12.8 megapixel full frame sensor is gonna' make better images than a D90 under marginal light levels...

I'm not arguing that point. What I'm saying is that I shoot my D90 at ISO 1600 nearly weekly without issues. Hell, I've shot it at 3200 and gotten images that were fine in an album.

 

[eric-holmes]

As Eric found out, cranked up to 1,000 ISO, the D90's image sensor is NOISY, and color saturation begins to suffer quite a bit--compared with a full-frame Nikon body and what it can do. As he pointed out, the first shooter's high-ISO results reminded him of his D90's ISO 200 "look". If the truth be known, the noise issue is not nearly so bad as the horrible,horrible loss of color richness, and the loss of dynamic range, when the APS-C bodies of the D90 generation get into the ISO 1,000, 1,250, 1,600 range and higher. To me, D90 images, as I describe them, look like "crap" at those elevated ISO levels--not just because of noise, but also because the color saturation goes down, the color rendering shifts, AND the dynamic range becomes compressed. So, it's not just a matter of "noise", and exposing more generously; the D90's sensor is simply OUT OF ITS BEST RANGE at ISO 1,000. No matter how generous the exposure is.

Pretty much nailed it on the head!

 

[mwcfarms]

Good luck Eric, the difference was very noticeable right away and I don't regret the purchase one bit. My daughter does a lot of stuff with crappy auditorium lighting or arena lighting and the difference in ISO capability reaffirms my decision every single time.

 

[RockstarPhotography]

In a situation like that this is what I would have done. You have another shooter getting clean shots at a high iso that you can't. So go the other route. Shoot the noisy photos and as some vintage feel to them in pp. Work with what you have. If you have to shoot at a noisy level to get the shot then shoot it and embrace it. With the right pp, noise can add a nice effect. Then they will have both the clean shots and the "vintage" shots to choose from.