Steve in Oz
Senior Member
I've just spent a few days in Bali with my new D7200 and one thing I've had a bit of fun with is the full automatic, flash-off setting. I went into some low light situations where I though an exposure would have been pretty much impossible with a film camera, just pressed the button and said 'okay camera, get me an image' - and it did!
I got some nice shots in dimly lit restaurants and piano bars, and when I went back and checked the details, the camera was working at ISO12800 but not producing enough noise for the pic to really look 'noisy' in a way that badly affects the pic. For someone like me who thought of 400ASA as 'fast film' back in the day, that's quite something.
It got me to thinking, having grown up shooting film I habitually start at ISO100 and only increase the sensitivity if I can't get a suitable shutter/aperture combination, but the digital medium might allow me to re-think that. Every situation is different, but is there an ISO you generally won't routinely go above because the noise (I remember it was once called 'grain') starts to affect the image?
I got some nice shots in dimly lit restaurants and piano bars, and when I went back and checked the details, the camera was working at ISO12800 but not producing enough noise for the pic to really look 'noisy' in a way that badly affects the pic. For someone like me who thought of 400ASA as 'fast film' back in the day, that's quite something.
It got me to thinking, having grown up shooting film I habitually start at ISO100 and only increase the sensitivity if I can't get a suitable shutter/aperture combination, but the digital medium might allow me to re-think that. Every situation is different, but is there an ISO you generally won't routinely go above because the noise (I remember it was once called 'grain') starts to affect the image?