Wyoming B.S. Thread

1) I never go past 1/60th usually. Rarely works out for me if I do. Just been my experience. Unless it's a 10mm shot, then I'll go lower. But never as low as you do.
2) On my camera, 60D, I do multiples of 160. So 100 for sunny days. And then up to 1250 for when I need it. Otherwise it's just too noisy on my body anyways.
3) Just built in LR functions.
4) Just the lens if it has it. No body stabilization.

 

OK, so would you not shoot a landscape (non-moving) shot at slower than 1/70? I totally get that for birds, etc. you need a higher (much, often) shutter speed. But if you were just shooting the van on some dirt road, or the view from a camp site... you still choose that faster speed?

Wow, interesting. I think I've been shooting with too long a shutter and am going to try shortening it up quite a bit in lower light situations. Obviously my bodies have a lot more stabilization than you guys, so maybe I can go down to 1/30 or something like that with no bad side effects, but I think my 1/4, 1/5 days are behind me.

Thanks both!

 

To add to this, when I took Photography classes we were always advised not to dip below 1/60 without extreme stabilization or a tripod as it would result in soft photos with a noticeable drop off in clarity below 1/50

Also the noise reduction tools in new Lr are excellent and I highly recommend them, although maybe on a desktop, it might try to make a panini on your lap if you use a laptop.

 

When shooting a landscape as you say, assuming no motion (no waterfall or anything), I think it's important to think about the three parameters in the camera and what they effect.
ISO: assuming you're shooting during the day, you can shoot at 100 or 8000 (whatever your body is capable of) But you know the outcome, the high ISO will create a lot more noise than a low ISO. You gain quality by keeping it low.

Aperture: you can control your depth of field and sharpness depending on the lens. (The old rule is to set it to f/16 on a sunny day). But depending on what look you're going for, you can gain the look and feel of the photo you're capturing.

Shutter speed: this is all about minimizing action blur, whether it's your subject or your finger/hand interacting with the camera, lens shake, etc. what are you able to gain out of a photo at a slow shutter speed?

I can look at a landscape photo and see the depth of field effect from aperture, I can see if a photo is high noise from high ISO (ignoring the post processing). Can I look at a landscape photo and tell that is was shot at? Can I tell the difference between 1/100s or 1/500s? 1/4000s? No, I don't think I can. So I see no benefit to trying to have a longer exposure other than the situations it is needed in low light, when trying to portray motion, or other effects one may be going for.

So for your example of if I was shooting the van on a dirt road, I would probably have my camera present to an ISO of 5.6-8, ISO is probably going to default to around 250-500 (we shoot dynamically with the angle of the sun always different, the shade comes and goes, so it's a safe spot to cover my bases). Shutter speed, since I shoot AV will be driven by those two variables and as such those settings keep my shutter speed well into the crispy and sharp zone (if my AF nails it).
An example of that is here:
https://flic.kr/p/2qgqN1Z
Shot at 250 ISO, f5, and 1/4000s.

Or a bit different here:
https://flic.kr/p/2q6JZDC
320 ISO, f11, 1/500s.

Or even here flirting with low light and high aperture to get the details in the distance.
https://flic.kr/p/2q6GRjw
ISO 500, f16, 1/250s.

My experience is that if an image is blurry from too slow of a shutter speed it goes straight to the trash. The light of the photo, the noise I can fix in Photoshop, but there is no way to recover from too slow of a shutter.

Sorry long response just wanted to provide insight on how I think about things and hopefully transfer that perspective.

 

Wow. You guys have come a long way from when I first met you. Top notch equipment helps a lot.

 

I've had a good mentor

 

I generally shoot in Aperture priority, and have historically tried to keep the ISO as low as possible, most of the time. That means I've generally had it locked in at 100, and only tweaked it when the shutter speed has gotten to be slower than 1/4 (so in the 0.3" range) and when I can't let in more light by opening up the aperture. I bet >95% of my shots are at 100 ISO. I've been lucky that I've had the newest gear of our group too, which of course helps a lot where stabilization is concerned.

Since I'm almost always shooting landscapes, I keep the aperture right around 8.0, since that's worked well for me, though I'll tweak that for specific situations where I want to force longer/shorter shutter (wispy waterfall, low-light inside a cabin, sunstar through an arch, star photos, etc.). This is one of the things I've loved about the 15-35 2.8, which is that I can really open it up for night shots.

The downfall for me, and really the most action most of my photos see, is on hikes. Then, when we're deep in some dark rainforest, my 1/5 or 1/6 or even 1/10 shutter speed can't freeze @mrs.turbodb as she's hiking, so in those cases, I've been bumping up the ISO to around 400.

That's worked fine for the last 6 years. Strangely, though (because I still think it's strange that I'm getting older) some of the slower shutters - even on still stuff, like mushrooms - are starting to look less sharp to me. It's got to be a combination of holding the camera at weird angles (not up against my face, so less stabilization from triangulation) and just shakiness of age.

Anywho, just means I'll probably be using ISOs that are higher in more situations now. Probably pay more attention as the shutter speed drops down below 1/60 or 1/70, so I appreciate hearing that that's as low as you guys generally go. Gives me a good sense of "normality."

 

With your camera body I would assume you have waaaay more room to work with for ISO without adding a lot of noise so while sitting close to 100 is good, you should play and see at what ISO level you start to find the noise an issue. It's an easy test, put the camera on a tripod and take the same image with bumping the ISO between them. You'll be able to compare side by side the results and figure out where the edge of the envelope is.

Another thing to consider is the "danger" of a fast lens like a 2.8 is your Depth of Field can get extremely shallow on close up shots. So you may have just one portion of the flower/mushroom in true focus but the rest is soft because it's outside the sharp spot. This is something I am still trying to be mindful of with my new class. I have learned that with the 600, if I am shooting a bird at f4 at my minimum focus distance, my DoF is less than 1/4". So I'll get a side profile of a bird, the wings at its side are sharp as a tack, but the eye and beak is juuuust outside the sharpness. Hard to remember when shooting quick and on the fly but it has burned me a couple times.

And while I think you're not wrong to watch out for speeds below 1/60, I still maintain that you should follow the rules of matching that to your focal length. So over 100mm you should be careful below 1/100. Your lens and gear will help you dip below it but to me that's a risky zone. That said I have successfully handled help the 600mm with a 1.4x extender (840mm) at 1/160s. Camera was working overtime to make that happen
https://flic.kr/p/2q19RTi

 

Your current camera is capable of very high isos and looking good still.

The r5 supposedly has a dual iso sensor so 800 and 3200 have the same noise. So if you have to bump the iso. Try those two settings and they will be the least noisy.

I bump to 320 if it's over cast and then generally if I need more go to 1250 as I think it looks better than 640 on my camera.

You've definitely always shot way slower shutters than us. I remember you doing a shit next to me maybe on the second trip or something and asking you wtf shutter was that because it sounded so slow. And being quite surprised when you said you hand held 1/4 sec all the time.


Ultimately do some experiments. You'll find the isos that you like in short order.

 

Now that made me LOL

 

Yep, makes sense. The flower/mushroom situation was a bit of an interesting one - I was still at f/8, but of course, it was close - minimum focal distance, so I had a very limited depth of field. Didn't help that there were a ton of small mushrooms, but I think I would have done better with a faster shutter. Keep in mind that this is TW down sampled:

ISO 100, 129mm, f/8, 1/5s

Yeah, it's that conversation we had - on the first Colorado trip, I think, we were at a lake's edge in the morning as I recall - that always had me thinking about this, hahahaha.

My R6 has this profile for ISOs, so I'll be experimenting around 400. My old 80D and your 60D (which were pretty similar) for reference.






And I just picked up this body, since it's cheaper (but not cheap) now. Shot my first trip with it in Canada last week. Was familiar to the R6, but of course the files are bigger and so is now taking longer (more CPU) to process, hahaha. Will be experimenting around 400 ISO with it as well since that's a sweet spot. (5D MkIV for comparison -- that's a dang good camera -- really low noise at the higher ISO values!)

Made me do the same at the time. Because I was like, how can I be so much older, and yet, steadier?

...you know, sort of like, "This Pixel is just as good as those Canons."

 

OK, a few more interesting stats for me...


With the 80D: 10,303 photos (keepers)



With the R6: 10,134 photos (keepers) -- interesting that I'm almost to the same frame count!

 

Hmmm. Well hard to say exactly what is going on with the mushroom picture, but I have a theory. Do you shoot AI single shot or servo? Do you half press the shutter to focus and then fully press to snap? A combination of those could be part of the issue. You're locking focus, and moving enough that you're out of focus by the time you snap. While it is a hog on power, I do shoot servo most of the time, but I try to kick it back to single (lock focus when half pressed) for landscapes.

Yeah you went from "my pixel is just as good as a DSLR" to "my mirrorless is just as good as a DSLR" and you're still wrong

 

Yeah he really should be saying his mirrorless is better than an SLR... as long as you have 10 or so batteries charged

 

Interesting on the locking focus idea. I shoot (or shot in this case) servo, so I think it was just me shaky old hands™ trying to balance the camera in an awkward position this time. It really is amazing how long 1/5 second is when you are light waves.

My mirrorless is just as good as a DSLR. Well, except for battery life. And cost. And lens choice (for now). But it is the way forward, so you'll eventually get there .

 

Ah R6. Couldn't remember which one you had.

Looks like multiples of 200 is the way to go for you.


And wait you just bought a 5dMKIV?

 

I don't think it's for me yet. Battery performance alone is unacceptable for my use. I feel the big lens are power hogs as it is, but I can still get several hours of continuous work out of them.

I've seen some images from the mirrorless and I do think that they can perform well, but I suspect that the gap between mine and those is more on how little I know to do in post processing. Still not comfortable with it, but hoping I can find a class or something here to get better. The gatekeeper with online stuff that's free has been such a different work flow from what I have use that I get discouraged. Need to learn Lightroom sooner than later

I suspect he is comparing it to the 5D as it's pretty much the gold standard in canons line up for ISO performance. The Rx isn't far behind.

 

Small side thought.

Prime video has live tv so to speak but all that matters is there is a channel that just plays old top gear. I've had it on for days now. So good haha

 

I saw that. I had been buying the seasons and watching them for a while and then they switched to the "free with ads" only model which sucks cuz I only had made it back through season 10.

 

I'll take the free.

I should just buy the DVDs/blurays. But..meh.