Last September, my friend Javier invited me to his brother's wedding. It was my first time attending an hispanic wedding and it was a great experience. I decided to take my new Nikon D700 camera to test out the high ISO sensitivity capabilities, which is the main reason I decided to invest in this camera. It is suppose to be one of the best high ISO sensitivity cameras on the market. I had already used it at ISO 3200 at my night time softball games and had good results, but I had not really tried it at an indoor event. If you are thinking, "What the heck is ISOsensitivity?" then you are not alone. Read the last paragraph of this blog entry below for an explanation of what exactly this is. Here is a picture of my friend Javier and his brother using a high ISO setting (1/60 shutter speed, f2.8 aperature at ISO 1250):
There was a mariachi band playing so I took a few pics of them. I started taking pics in aperature mode but was realizing that the shutter speed was too low at 1/20 and 1/30 so I was getting some blur so I switched to manual mode and set the shutter speed to 1/100 and still had plenty of light at ISO 3200 and f2.8. This was one of my favorite pics. She had such a serious look on her face while she was playing (1/100, f2.8 at ISO 3200).
Here is another shot of some of the other Mariachi band members (1/100, f2.8 at ISO 3200). They were pretty good performers.
And of course, what is a wedding without some kids. I noticed this one very mischievous little girl. She had just bitten a boy on the hand. I called her over to my table and asked if I could take a few pictures of her. Of course a few pictures turned into many pictures and she was all to willing to oblige with her many faces and poses. She was pretty cute. I was thinking she will probably be some kind of actress one day. I never even got her name and I have no idea who she belonged to (1/80, f2.8 at ISO 3200).
And what's a wedding without the brides maids (1/100, f2.8 at ISO 2500):
So my new camera passed the high ISO test. I was quite pleased with the results. It was certainly better than the Canon 50D that I owned for less than a month after deciding to return it. That camera was only good up to ISO 800, which is why I decided to return it, but it was a much cheaper camera than the full frame Nikon D700. I'll do a blog post on my opinion of Nikon vs. Canon later. So at this point, I was thinking who needs a flash? But is high ISO really a better option than low ISO with flash? I thought so at the time but now I'm starting to change me mind on this. More to come on the benefits of flash photography at low ISO settings.
Check out the full wedding photo set: http://picasaweb.google.com/rickwmorris/2009_09_26_wedding#
1) Shutter speed or the time the shutter snaps open and close. The slower the shutter speed, the more light that will hit the sensor. For example 1/60 of a second will provide much more light than 1/500 of a second.
2) Aperature or the size of the opening of the lens. For example, f2.8, a large opening will let much more light in than f11.
3) ISO setting or the sensitivity of digital sensor. This use to be called film speed before the digital days. Remember when you use to buy 100, 200 and 400 speed film? The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the digital camera sensor. So ISO 1000 will let a lot more light in than ISO 100. Only issue here is the higher the ISO, the more grainy the picture. The great part about digital cameras is that you can change the ISO for each picture.
Now back to explaining ISO sensitivity is - It is a setting on digital cameras that allows you to take photos in low light conditions - indoors or outside at night - without using a flash. Even "point and shoot" cameras have this setting but a lot of people don't know they have it. In the point and shoot cameras, the ISO typically only ranges from 100 to 400 ISO and the camera will typically automatically choose the right ISO (100, 200 or 400). With a point and shoot camera, the flash will automatically be triggered so probably not as big of a need to go beyond ISO 400. Check it out on your camera.
Back to Digital SLR's - The only problem is most low to mid level cameras cannot go very high on the ISO (above ISO 400 setting) without producing very grainy pictures. High end cameras like the Nikon D700 have the ability to produce fairly sharp images at the high ISO settings. High ISO would be anything in the ISO 800 to 6400 levels. The lower the ISO setting, the sharper the pictures. However, to take low ISO pictures (100 to 400 ISO), you need plenty of natural sun light or a flash and these two may not always be available. With high ISO settings, it allows more light to hit the sensor so you can shoot at a higher shutter speed to freeze action. This comes in very handy with night time or indoor sports. The high ISO setting also came in very handy when I visited my coworker who has a new born and they did not want me using flash in the baby's face. I could keep going with this but it would probably bore you....let me know if you have any questions on this.
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