(shot with 1D at ISO 1600, no noise reduction applied)
The Canon EOS 1D can do high ISO
by Lex van Oorspronk
Lately, I get a little tired of remarks that the 1D isn't suited at all for high ISO photography. In this article I'll try to explain that it is very doable to produce great ISO 1600 with the 1D.
But first off let me say this. Of course modern DSLRs like the 20D or 1DmkII are better at high ISO. There's absolutely no discussion about that. But that doesn't mean that the 1D is bad at high ISO. On the contrary: when you get your exposure right, you can produce nice looking high ISO shots with the 1D.
(shot with 1D at ISO 1600, no noise reduction applied)
Two 100% crops of the above image:
In general, underexposing with a DSLR will increase noise. With the 1D this effect is even stronger I believe: even with a little underexposure, the noise will increase dramatically.
So the most important thing with high ISO shooting is to get your exposure right. Try to get the histogram as much to the right as possible. If you have time, take some test shots to get a feeling what aperture and shutterspeed gives the best result. If you are unsure about the exposure, then overexpose a little bit. Remember that the 1D has a CCD sensor, which is more forgiving for correcting highlight then CMOS (a CMOS sensor is better at recovering shadows).
As an example the following shot taken at a blues concert:
(shot with 1D at ISO 1600, no noise reduction applied)
Two 100% crops of the above image:
(left image is a bit out of focus because I was shooting at f/2.2 and I focused on the eye; there's also some motion blur)
I set my camera to Manual. When I arrived I did some spot meterings on the stage. But I had already decided that I would take pictures of the individual performers and little of the whole stage. Because the heads of the performers (where I did spotmetering from) were most in the spotlights I found that overexposing by about 1 stop gave the best results. As an extra, this overexposing would also be good for decreasing the noise. When shooting I found that a typical exposure was 1/160 at f/2. The light was changing constantly, so I watched my meter while shooting. If I saw the exposure come above 1 1/3 overexpose or below 1/3 overexpose, I changed the shutterspeed (most of the time) or the aperture (sometimes).
One final note: I found that noise with the 1D isn't so much in the shadows as well in midtones which are in the (OOF) background. So I think you don't have to worry much about dark/shadow areas. -- o --
If you have comments and/or additions to
this page, please e-mail me at: lex_photo@xs4all.nl
© 2006 Lex van Oorspronk
I also shoot RAW. This gives me some latitude during postprocessing for the cases I didn't get the exposure quite right. I use this only as a last resort though, because I feel it is important to get the exposure right from the start (especially with high ISO shooting).
(shot with 1D at ISO 1600, no noise reduction applied)
Given the previous examples, IMHO, the 1D is very capable of high ISO shots if you get your exposure right.
BTW, all images are ISO 1600 and I only shoot RAW. More images can be seen
here.
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