In Luis' post below, Great Cormorant, I made a short mention that sometimes it can be good to go to a high ISO, in order to be able to capture an image with a higher shutter speed or more depth of field. I wanted to post an example. This is a little bit of a different situation, in this case it was because of the subject being in the shade. I was shooting small songbirds on perches on my deck, and I was at ISO 2000 for the ones in sun, because I needed the depth of field of f/11 and a shutter speed if 1/640. (I would have liked more of both, but didn't want to go to higher ISO -- I normally prefer not to go above 800.)
But this juvenile house finch landed on another perch that was in the shade (with just a little bit of filtered sunlight). I don't see very many juveniles that still have the little "horn" feathers on top of the head, and it was in a nice pose, so I wanted to shoot it. The basic SS and f/stop that I had been using were still the best, so I quickly increased the ISO to 4000. It was still a little underexposed, so I had to bring it up a little in LR, but even so, the noise wasn't bad. I did a round of NR in Nik's Dfine and had an image I was satisfied with. It won't win any prizes, but I'll keep it.
The point is, don't be afraid of boosting the ISO a little bit. I'll push it to whatever I need in order to get the SS and depth of field I need. Noise and the loss of resolution at high ISO are no worse than a soft image. Every camera is different (and so is every shooting situation) so experiment and discover what your limits are. The noise will be less if you don't have to increase exposure in processing.
Nothing wrong with this shot, Diane - in spite of the high ISO's. IME one gets away with amazingly high ISO's but if you really push it, you should attempt to do your final composition (or close to final) in-camera. If you push the ISO's very high and start with heavy crops afterwards, you're in trouble. I would never have guessed that such a high ISO selection was used in this shot - well done!
Sorry, David, I should have said -- it was the 5D Mk III.
Tobie, very good point about cropping. I always want the most pixels on the subject I can get, but it's especially important with high ISOs where IQ is compromised anyway.
Great photo Diane! I like the bird against the clean background, and would have never guessed that the ISO was at 4000. A perfect reminder that we can push the ISO to whatever we need to achieve the right shutter speed and depth of field.
Thanks, Grace! It's in my "???" folder. I'm really most happy with things at ISO 100 that look like studio lighting. But there aren't many of those....
ISO 4000
