ISO performance on new cameras.

ethan

ethan

ethan

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I remember a time when there would be no problems blurring and slowing water without the need for ND filters or creating moving plants in fields. Were cameras then of such poor quality that today's advancements in low light photography have made previous models and the way we go about doing things a relic of the past?
 
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I'm confused, actually i think you are confused and that is making for a confusing question.

iSO 100 now gives you the same exposure as ISO 100 did 10 years ago (and 100 years ago on film). If you set you camera to f/11, ISO 100 and got an exposure of 5 seconds, then you would get exactly the same exposure now, in the year 2000, 1900, or a 1000 years in the future, assuming constant light level. That is the whole point of ISO sensitive, ISO means it is a standard that all camera manufacturers (and film) abide to.



The difference now is that cameras produce lower noise values at higher ISOs, and thus can be shot at a higher ISO than previously. But no one forces you to.



As to the ability to have long exposure photography. No, the opposite has happened if anything. On the Nikon side the base ISO used to be ISO 200, they when they started using more Sony sensor base ISO lowered to ISO 100, then with the D810 Nikon deepened the electron well and lowered the base ISO to ISO 64 but also made ISO 50 not loose any headroom. So now you can shoot 2 stops, or 4X slower than you could with the earlier DSLRs.
 
I am trying to put low pixel count DSLRs and their seemingly lack of sophistication by today's standards down to the fact that when I was using a Sony DSLR from way back, I never had to reach for a ND filter to create milky flowing water scenes (in bright weather). Though it looks like I haven't explained it very well, maybe I was mistaken in blaming it on the ISO or inferior technolgy . On a Fuji XT1 and a Sony RX100 I have been unable to do this without a ND filter.Which I don't understand?

It's looking more like I'm the bad craftsman that always blames his tools. ;)
 
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What the other guys are saying is that movement blur now and back then haven't changed. Older cameras would blur movement at the same exposure/ISO as they do with the latest and greatest cameras.

The only reason a newer camera wouldn't blur movement like an old camera would be if all the setting were left to auto? Newer cameras are likely to have a wider max aperture to let in more light and they definitely have higher ISO capabilities. Other than that, nothing has changed - if an old and a new camera use the same settings (aperture/exposure/ISO) then the results should be pretty much the same.
 
ethan said:
I can see how that would be the case, I just couldn't understand how I , up until using the SonyRX100 and XT1, was able to get away with not having to use a ND filter?
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Pure luck, or a chnage int he weather. Maybe it is unnier when you go outside., or you know it is summertime and brighter compared to winter.

ISO 100 is ISO 100 on whatever camera you use.
 
One thing that confused me this year, I shot some aquarium pictures while on holiday. Not something I have ever done before, to get enough of a shutter speed I had to go to around 1600 and my shots where freaking terrible. No flash was allowed. But I could see 4 billion people getting better shots on camera phones. How the hell does that work :D
 
ethan said:
Would low pixel count and quality of the lens also have any bearing along with what you have said?
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No.

Low-pixel count actually will create a sharper image anyway but that has nothing to do with motion blur. And at the apertures used to blue water lens has almost no discernible difference.
 
dannyjo22 said:
One thing that confused me this year, I shot some aquarium pictures while on holiday. Not something I have ever done before, to get enough of a shutter speed I had to go to around 1600 and my shots where freaking terrible. No flash was allowed. But I could see 4 billion people getting better shots on camera phones. How the hell does that work :D
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There's looked OK on a tiny smartphone screen, plus they liekly used a flash from their phone. The jpegs form he camera also get heavily processed with noise removal and then sharpening. And givent eh tiny sensor DoF is essentially infinite so there is no focus issues.



But I know what you mean. Once I was taking photos of my girlfriend against a backlit sunset in the Grand canyon, and spent ages dialing in the right amount of flash and exposure time to get a balanced photo.The auto WB also washed out a lot of the orange colors etc. Then the gf uses her $100 point and shoot in an automatic sunset mode and gets a result that looks far better out of camera. Of course once i got home and could tweak Wb and curves my shot was way better, especially as soon as you looked a little closer.
 
ethan said:
I can see how that would be the case, I just couldn't understand how I , up until using the SonyRX100 and XT1, was able to get away with not having to use a ND filter?
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Perhaps you old lens stopped down to something like F32 which blocks more light. If your current lenses only go to F16 that's a fairly big difference in itself, but also the base ISO of the XT1 is ISO 200 I think which would further limit how slow you can get your shutter speed without over exposing.

However F32 probably shouldn't be used anyway if you can help it, as it degrades picture quality. Best to just use an ND filter or take multiple shots at something like 1/15 (shutter speed) and blend the pictures in post. ND filter method is simpler though.
 
ethan said:
Lots of interesting things to think about with many informative comments. Thanks for the responses.
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The biggest thing that changes is simply he amount of daylight. You don't really notice changes until they get extreme like night and day, but you can eaisly have a 4 stop difference one day to the next, form 1 hour to the next. Your eyes automatically adjust aperture to keep exposure relatively equal, and your brain doesn't care about absolute exposure so much and so it also tries to normalize the visual representation.


if you point your camera at different scenes around your house have a look at the exposure time and see how wildly it varies. Or take a photo from the same place at the same aperture at the same time of day on 2 different days- you could eaisly have 10X more light one day to the next
 
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