Simon d'Entremont, Thank You.
When frustration stems from unquestioned habits and assumptions, it often leads to misdiagnosing the source of the problem. Thanks to Simon d'Entremont, whose YouTube channel I found this week, I was able to recognize my problem, make adjustments, and turn this:
into this:
I’m not claiming to have executed the change perfectly, and I certainly have not captured an amazing or unique photo, but considering my goal was to clearly capture a bee in flight, it is easy to see that I made progress in the right direction. As long as I’m learning, I’m happy.
Hint: The issue has nothing to do with auto-focus.
My Error
I understand the fundamentals of photography, and how the exposure triangle works, I really do. I promise. I also understand that most problems in photography are a result of photographer error, not equipment issues or limitations. Again, I really do understand this. However, hardware limitations are real, and the knowledge that hardware exists without those limitations leads to contentment issues. To that end, I’ve been convinced for a long time that my “old” camera had a limitation that I could not overcome, which is poor low-light performance, an issue that specifically manifests itself in grainy, unusable photos at high ISO. For my camera in particular, “high ISO,” in my experience, is 1600 and above. Often, I don’t like the amount of grain at ISO 800 either. I really thought the only way to solve this problem was with a new camera.
In case you are wondering, the first photo was taken at ISO 100, and the second at ISO 3200!
OK, so, I’ve been wrong this whole time.
To be completely transparent, the photo below is the unedited straight-out-of-camera (SOOC) RAW file, cropped to match the second photo above.
Is the RAW file noisier; is there noticeable grain? Yes, but is it unusable? No. In fact, it is the least noisy ISO 3200 RAW photo I’ve ever got out of this camera!
Below is the SOOC JPG file with in-camera auto noise reduction and distortion control turned on, and it looks pretty good too.
The Solution
As the evening progressed, less light was available, and because I was afraid of using high ISOs, I kept my ISO as low as possible assuming that would give me the best quality image. My aperture was already wide-open at 2.8. So, in my mind, my ISO and aperture could not be moved, leaving me only to adjust my shutter speed. Unfortunately, with those settings, I could not get my shutter speed high enough to capture fast-moving bees. Remembering Simon d’Entremont’s They Gave You the Wrong Advice the Whole Time video (see Myth 6, Always shoot at your lowest ISO, at time marker 9:53), I cranked my ISO up to 1600, and then to 3200 while also setting faster and faster shutter speeds. By experimenting with this, I was also able to lower my aperture to increase my chances of getting the bee and flowers, both in focus.
I know, I know, I know, this is how the exposure triangle works. However, since I was convinced that I could not use ISO above 800, I had erected a mental wall that kept me from using all the tools available to me.
In the end, the settings that worked best for my situation were as follows:
ISO: 3200
Shutter Speed: 1/1000 sec
Aperture: f/4.5
Turns out there was plenty of light to produce a usable image with my camera, but by forcing my ISO to stay 800 and below, thinking that would produce a better image, I could not get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the motion of flying bees without grossly underexposing my photo. In this situation, underexposing the image, actually makes the problem worse because it exaggerates the noise/grain. Raising your ISO and slightly overexposing when shooting in low light will allow you to reduce the exposure in post producing a cleaner image.
Disclaimer
I am in no way associated with Simon or his YouTube channel but if you are interested in learning about photography from a professional photographer, go watch, like, and subscribe, as I did.
