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ISO question...

published by JenniferLynn on Thu, 08/21/2008 - 8:04pm

Just cause I am curious.. what ISO do you use when shooting a show? I am really, REALLY new to all this and I am photographing the concerts at this years fair. It's an outdoor venue with decent lighting at night. I always go back and forth on what I think I should use.

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General Discussion

Submitted by stacey_the_musi... on Thu, 08/21/2008 - 9:57pm.

What brand of camera do you have? Canon has less noise at higher ISOs than Nikon does. I shot a very dark metal show with a Nikon D70 with my ISO set at 1200. The pics were dark and very noisy. My friend was using a slow lens on a Canon 5d at an ISO of 3200 and her pics were bright and had very little noise.

For a venue with good lighting, I set my ISO at 400 and if it is dark, I try to stay at 800 so that noise isn't as much of an issue.

Submitted by Nick Brownrigg on Thu, 08/21/2008 - 10:24pm.

Don't worry about upping the ISO. Don't underexpose. If you underexpose then noise will be much more prevalent.

Canon 20D, 350D, 35mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8, 430 EX and 580EX flash.

Submitted by JenniferLynn on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 1:21am.

I have a Canon XT and use either an 18-55mm or a 75-300mm depending on where I am and what I am trying to achieve. I usually shoot 400 ISO but I find that my shutter speed tends to be to slow and I get to much blur, even with my f-stop wide open. That is the only reason I ask about ISO at all.

Submitted by MartyMoffatt on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 3:56am.

For the Rebel XT - I guess that's the same as the 350D in the UK - I probably wouldn't want to go above 400 ISO as noise quickly becomes a problem. At 400 it's fine, at 800 it's OK if the exposure is bang on. The EOS 5D and above all handle higher ISO much better.

Otherwise it's a compromise matching your settings to the conditions. I prefer to have the image sharp, even if it's underexposed, rather than well exposed but blurred, so I use shutter priority and set at a speed that will capture a reasonable percentage of sharp images. Some will be great, some will be underexposed, but I can at least fix that in Lightroom afterwards (which incidentally has some good noise reduction facilities built in).

Marty

Submitted by JenniferLynn on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 4:02am.

Thanks much. Hopefully it all works out.

Submitted by Nick Brownrigg on Sat, 08/23/2008 - 2:28pm.

It's much better to shoot at ISO 1600 if you need to instead of shooting ISO 800 and trying to increase the exposure in post process. Shoot with the settings you need to shoot at. Noise should be the last thing you worry about. Worry about the exposure so you don't have to worry about the noise!

Canon 20D, 350D, 35mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8, 430 EX and 580EX flash.

Submitted by Don Olson on Wed, 01/21/2009 - 8:27pm.

I just got a D700 and haven't had a chance to use it yet in a club but have set up some lighting similar to what I do and all I can say is that ISO6400 rocks! It's nice to be able to set a min. SS and have using auto ISO the body adjust the ISO to what is necessary.

Don Olson