Get the shot. End of story....

Critiqueing your own work isn't easy but it's very easy to pick at certain aspects of the image-capture process, especially when it comes to ISOs and their associated 'noise' levels.

I do take care in getting the end-result, making sure I try to nail exposure as best as I can, but more often than not (especially with digital) we photographers are totally at the mercy of the individual characteristics of our cameras. With film it used to be a conscious choice to go for grain over saturation or sharpness (Fuji Neopan 1600 anyone? Grain, grain and more grain!) but with digital, we have to live with our choice for longer because the noise levels of each particular sensor are there to stay until we change camera.

I run two Nikon D2x bodies, cameras that are brilliant for what I do but have their limitations and ultimately, show their age at times. The sensor is great, brilliant in fact with its beautiful tonal range at low ISOs, but when you start pushing upwards of ISO 800 then its limitations become apparent. Noise is fine at ISOs 400 and 800 - I can live with it - but use any of the 'Hi' settings (Hi1 being equal to ISO 1600 and Hi2 to ISO 3200) and it gets pretty painful. That's not to say they're never used but for the majority of the time I rarely venture that high. However, ISO 800 is a firm favourite because let's face it, we have crap light in the UK at times and even in the middle of the day, low ISOs just can't cut it. So it plays a valuable part and offers extra versatility but with some noise.

Today was one of those days; 1/80th at f/5.6 with a bit of off-camera flash thrown in for good measure. All this at ISO 800 - not good ideal, especially when you need every bit of depth-of-field you can get because the day is 90 per cent macro shooting (rig sequences for a carp fishing magazine). Anyway, I'm happy to shoot like this because I need some ambient exposure and not just an all-flash exposure that would just look papp. The day goes okay and three sequences of roughly 25 each, plus some incidentals, are committed to memory card for downloading later.

(Above)The type of shot I have to do - crappy ambient light and the need for half-decent depth-of-field. Not great....

Now, let's for argument's sake go along with the story that these images are going half or full page (i.e. A4) so any grain will show up. What options do you have if the day had to be re-shot? New camera is out of the question for future situations and unless a massive all-singing, all-dancing 5000ws lighting set-up falls into my lap, I'm not going to be able to change my exposure levels that way. Shoot at wider apertures maybe? It's a tricky one because I'm not doing fine art where creative use of DoF is acceptable, I'm shooting for instructional magazines (read: clear, explanatory)so f/5.6 it is. Slow shutter speeds are out of the question also - I have the yips worse than Sam Torrence - so that leaves plan Z.... upping the ISO.

Noise reduction software is brilliant these days and I am truly thankful for what Lightroom 3 can offer, because its given my cameras a new lease of life. But it can't cure everything. At these ISOs any tweaking of shadow areas is running the risk of noise to make your eyes bleed so aside from nailing exposure in the first place, it's a case of treating those exposure and fill-light sliders with care and consideration.

...So, cropped in (and with a tad of sharpening applied) you can see the noise levels are apparent and to some people this would be unnacceptable.

With +50 Noise Reduction applied, there's a big improvement but even like this, in certain circles this amount of noise wouldn't cut the mustard... is this bad? Not in my book.



I keep referring back to Talk Photography a lot in my blog, mainly because I spend a lot of time soaking up information from it. One thing that I see a lot of is lambasting older cameras for having poor high ISO performance. Slightly off track, I also read about people who, as soon as the new model comes out, seem to think their camera has suddenly developed a fault where their ISOs are twice as bad. Maybe it's buyer justification but whatever the reason, the camera that was good yesterday is now only good as a doorstop seemingly. Yes, ISO 800 on one camera may be streets ahead in terms of chroma or luminance noise control but the older camera still has its uses.

Anyway, back to me and my exposure dilemma. I've upped the ISO and I'm getting what I want but I have noise, lots of it. Noise-reduction kills some of it but I get to the point where the image quality can be compromised so I have to live with what I'm left with.

Is having noise in the image that bad?

Some of the keyboard warriors forum members would have you believe that once a speck of noise appears then the image is worthless Kaput. Ruined. I understand that in some situations noise can be nasty but is it that bad that the shot should be dismissed? I've always been of the opinion that getting the shot is what matters and the aesthetics of the image (exposure, grain/noise, sharpness)have to be assessed afterwards. If it's so rubbish that it doesn't do its job then yes, it must be ditched. But a bit of noise as the compromise for getting the shutter speed you want and the depth-of-field you require, it's a no-brainer. Maybe I'm old-fashioned in this respect, I don't know. I just know that pixel peeing is the fastest route to self-doubt of both yourself and your equipment and really doesn't do you much good.

All said, a Nikon D3s would still be welcome if you're planning on gifting me one!!...