In this blog post, I will describe how I was able to photograph this beautiful little Australian Logrunner (female). I took the image late one afternoon in a rainforest, where there was so little light, even my flagship camera and super telephoto lens was struggling to focus in the dim light.
The image was one I demonstrated live, to our guests, during the high ISO shooting lecture, while running our annual bird photography workshop in SE Qld last week. One thing we always encourage is for people to NOT BE AFRAID of increasing ISO to a high number, as we would rather get a shot than not. Developing an understanding of how the image sensors capture light and how to capture a good quality RAW file is crucial in being able to capitalise on such opportunities. Practicing using of high ISO are part of what we teach, because the reality is, that if you know how to use your equipment, you, too, can obtain images you think would be impossible. It takes time, patience and practice!
I was demonstrating to our guests how modern cameras are capable of getting the shots that were pretty much impossible perhaps even five years ago. Cameras, such as the often looked down upon, micro four-thirds system, such as the OM System, with the tiny 17mm x 13mm sensor, that’s approximately one quarter of the size of a full frame sensor (36mm x 24mm), can achieve very good results. The image below represents the approximate darkness of the environment at the time I attempted to capture this shot.
The photo of the logrunner was captured with an OM-1 MkII camera and the ED 150-400mm f/4.5 TC1.25x Pro lens, at 256mm (Field of view in full frame is 512mm), ISO51,200, f/4.5, 1/60th, hand held. What is important, is that in situations like this, one cannot achieve an action type shot, as the shutter speeds will be too low. However, it is possible to take more static images when the subject stops moving for a moment. Keeping an eye on it, watching the behaviour, you can anticipate such moments and be ready to press the shutter when the opportunity arises.
The bird was actively feeding in the dying light and I had to manually assist the focus, and it only managed to lock on when the bird stayed still for a few seconds. You can see the actual RAW file brightness in the below image. That’s how I pushed my exposure to the right, to be able to manage noise. If you underexpose the RAW file, then increase exposure during post processing, the image will be unrecoverable at high ISO (like 51200, but even 3200 will look awful). I needed to have the brightest possible RAW file without clipping highlights, of which there were none really, as it was so dark in the first place.
I explain the theory behind shooting to the right (STTR) or exposing to the right (ETTR), which is not a new technique. It’s been used for a long time with digital cameras, and those shooters who understand the principles are able to capture high-quality images by applying it. Otherwise you cannot get the shot at all, using just ambient light. We have a number of blog posts that explain in more detail, just click HERE and HERE.
One thing to note is that no matter how much you push the exposure to the right, the more you increase ISO, the more noise will STILL BE VISIBLE in your RAW file at 100% view. The important thing to note is that modern noise management software such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom’s AI Denoise engine, Topaz or DXO are all very good at reducing the noise and maintaining detail. As long as you have a sharp image under all the noise, the detail will remain, and the noise will be gone when using the software with a good RAW file!
Here is the 100% crop out of camera of this image, it is noisy, of course.
But look what happened after I applied AI Denoise in Adobe Camera RAW, which is the interface that converts RAW files to Adobe Photoshop Document (PSD) files for processing. See the noise reduced 100% crop below. The noise is gone, the detail in the bird’s plumage remains.
The ability to capture images in a dark forest at such high ISO is nothing short of amazing, if you ask me. So think about how you can apply this STTR/ETTR technique in your shooting to minimize noise in your own images.