Night shots using D800 and Auto ISO

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gqtuazon

Gear Head
Some prefer to control everything such as aperture, shutter speed and ISO. During my visit to Tokyo Disneyland with the cold weather and wearing thick gloves, I didn't have time to experiment what ISO I was going to use. With the electrical parade only happening once that night, I had no time to fiddle with the controls.

With all of the background lights dimmed except for the castle lights, the theme park was very dark. I just set my camera to 1/60, f2.2 and AUTO ISO up to ISO 4000 using a Sigma 85mm f1.4 HSM prime lens. After looking at the different pictures, I think the camera did a great job in calculating the correct exposure and was surprised that it didn't use really high ISO in most cases. AF was also very good except for some camera shake but that's because of my hand-holding technique. :(

So here are some of my shots.

Alice and the Cheshire cat

ISO 560


03Jan13 324 by gqtuazon, on Flickr

Knights ISO 4000


03Jan13 307 by gqtuazon, on Flickr


Goofy on train ISO 720


03Jan13 310 by gqtuazon, on Flickr

Peter Pan ISO 1250


03Jan13 337 by gqtuazon, on Flickr


Genie of the Lamp ISO 640


03Jan13 348 by gqtuazon, on Flickr


Turtle from Finding Nemo ISO 1600


03Jan13 359 by gqtuazon, on Flickr
 
S

stmv

Senior Member
well,, that is because you really was not in really low light shooting, the light parade provided enough light, for fairly fast (for night time) and fairly low ISO.

So,, with night photography, it depends upon subject, and whether or not you have artificial lighting,, such as this.

Now take away the artificial light, and tripod becomes absolutely neccessary, and not autoISO, because it will get so high, that the image will become noisy.

I think in your situation, you choose the right mode.
 
G

gqtuazon

Gear Head
RockyNH said:
Glenn, superb photos! Yes, I would agree, the camera did a fine job of selecting!

Pat in NH
Click to expand...

Thanks Pat. :)

stmv said:
well,, that is because you really was not in really low light shooting, the light parade provided enough light, for fairly fast (for night time) and fairly low ISO.

So,, with night photography, it depends upon subject, and whether or not you have artificial lighting,, such as this.

Now take away the artificial light, and tripod becomes absolutely neccessary, and not autoISO, because it will get so high, that the image will become noisy.

I think in your situation, you choose the right mode.
Click to expand...

I think so too. With this theme park (Disney) does not allow the use of tripod. If you look at the second image with the men on horses, the ISO that was selected by the camera was at ISO 4000. The intent of my post was to point out how convenient it is sometimes to use Auto ISO which takes out the guess work with this type of shooting condition and also in selecting a faster or larger aperture prime or zoom lens. I also brought the Nikon 16-35mm f4 VRII with me but I choose the prime lens since it gathers light much better since the actual scene was much darker. The camera just made it look much brighter.

Marcel said:
WOW Glenn, These are just amazing. Very very nice pics!
Click to expand...

Thanks Marcel.
 
S

stmv

Senior Member
Yes, these modern cameras are amazing,, they gather light so well.

Take for example this picture I took about an hour past sunset, the sensor can pick up the color still being created from the sun over the Horizon, and way way more stars then my eyes could see,

just past sunset.jpg
 
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