However, this method is not always suitable. A tripod is hard to carry, it may not be at hand at the right time. Shooting with a tripod takes time. Shooting with flash gives not too beautiful, flat lighting. In addition, the flash can only illuminate the objects closest to us, so it is useless to shoot a landscape with a flash: distant objects will still remain dark. You can shoot in the night city without a tripod and without a flash, making do with just a camera and available lighting. Let's figure out how to do it better and what to look for.
NIKON D810 / 85.0 mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 640, F1.4, 1/200 s, 85.0 mm equiv.
1. Endurance is the most important thing
When we take pictures, holding the camera in our hands, it always shakes a little. From such judder, frames can be blurred if you shoot at too slow a shutter speed. This technical marriage is called “shake” by photographers. Typically, this image blur appears when the shutter speed becomes longer than 1/60 s. However, it all depends on the shooting conditions, on the firm hand of the photographer (some photographers are able to stably hold the camera at slower shutter speeds), on the level of his skills (for example, an experienced photographer can press the shutter smoothly without creating camera vibrations). In addition, the maximum shutter speed for handheld shooting also depends on the focal length of the lens. The larger it is, the more noticeable the jitter will be and the faster the shutter speed should be used.
Watch your shutter speed carefully when photographing: if it gets longer than 1/60 s, then it's time to take action. If you shoot in A or P mode, you can increase the ISO or open the aperture. If you're shooting in S or M mode, you can adjust the shutter speed directly. Let's not forget that if our subject is moving, the shutter speed should be used fast enough so that the subject does not blur in the frame from its own movement. For example, it is better to shoot a walking person at 1/125 s, and a running person - at 1/250 s or shorter.
But at slow shutter speeds, with beautifully blurred movement in the frame, you won’t be able to shoot without a tripod. You just have to put up with this: artisanal methods such as mounting the camera on parapets and curbs will not give perfectly sharp shots, and such shooting will take a lot of time. After all, you will have to shoot several times, achieving satisfactory photo quality through trial and error. The camera will fall, move off the selected support, the horizon in the photo will be obligatorily littered. Instead of such torment, it’s better to just take a tripod to shoot.
2. Watch your ISO
At high ISO values, not only noise appears, but color reproduction, sharpness, and dynamic range often deteriorate. You don't want to get muddy shots with the highest level digital noise? So don't set your ISO too high. Make sure that the sensitivity does not rise above ISO 1600-3200.
Usually high ISO is the result of incorrectly set shutter speed and aperture. Light sensitivity is increased (automatically or by you, depending on the shooting mode) when not enough light falls on the matrix at the selected shutter speed and aperture. To increase the amount of light entering the matrix, open the aperture or slow down the shutter speed (remember point 1).
3. Look for well-lit places to shoot
The more light you have at your disposal, the better the pictures will be and the easier it will be to photograph. Look for places in the city with good lighting: street lights, lanterns, shop window lighting and advertising. All of these are sources of illumination. Use them! Let them illuminate your subject. If you are taking a picture of a person, ask him to stand so that, for example, the light from a shop window falls on him. Usually the best lighting is in the city center, especially on holidays. I shot at the New Year's Fair on Red Square. It was there that I found this pretty carousel with horses, and there is quite enough lighting there.
4. Choose a lens. There is never too much light!
Aperture is a characteristic of a lens, meaning how wide its aperture can be opened. The larger the aperture (and the wider the aperture), the more light passes through the lens. The more light that passes through the lens, the faster the shutter speed we can use and the lower the ISO we need. For shooting without a tripod in conditions insufficient lighting(and in the night city these are the conditions), it is best to use fast lenses. They give excellent quality images that allow you to shoot at a relatively low ISO even at night, they can blur the background beautifully. Nikon AF-S 35mm f / 1.8G DX Nikkor, Nikon AF-S 50mm f / 1.8G Nikkor, Nikon AF-S 50mm f / 1.4G Nikkor, Nikon AF-S 85mm f / 1.8G Nikkor are popular among Nikon fast lenses.
5. Optical stabilizer is almost as good as aperture
Many lenses are equipped with a special system that dampens camera vibration in the hands of the photographer. Thus, holding the camera in our hands, we can shoot at shutter speeds longer than 1/60 sec. “VR” (Vibration Reduction) - this is how Nikon lenses equipped with optical stabilization are marked. For example Nikon AF-S DX 18-140mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR Nikkor, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-120MM F/4G ED VR. With such a lens, we can get sharp shots of static scenes at shutter speeds of 1 / 30-1 / 20 s. Optical stabilization is very useful when shooting still subjects. But we must remember that we often shoot moving objects, such as people. And if we try to shoot a man on long exposure, then he will most likely be smeared from his own movements: a person will not be able to petrify, even if you ask him very much. When shooting portraits, even with a lens with stabilization, I recommend not setting the shutter speed longer than 1/60 sec. So aperture is still more useful than stabilization: it allows you to shoot handheld at low ISO and fast shutter speeds. Stabilization, on the other hand, is at a slow shutter speed and low ISO, but often a short shutter speed is needed in shooting.
6. Modern cameras take better pictures in low light
Progress does not stand still. What once seemed impossible is now becoming available to the public. With cameras, the situation is the same: with each subsequent generation, digital cameras produce less and less digital noise at high ISOs. So, they allow you to make better shots in any lighting. In addition, the new cameras are equipped with much more advanced autofocus sensors that focus quickly and accurately. Nikon D3300, Nikon D5300, Nikon D7100, Nikon D750, Nikon D810, Nikon Df.
7. In what mode to shoot?
In paragraph 1, we said that the most careful thing when shooting at night without a tripod is to monitor the shutter speed. To directly control the shutter speed, adjust it as you wish, you can shoot in S (shutter priority) mode. If you are not yet very familiar with the camera settings, you can simply turn on the S mode and set the shutter speed to 1/125 s. The camera will then take control of the remaining exposure parameters. The light sensitivity setting can also be given under the control of automation. It is very convenient that at the same time you can limit the maximum ISO value that automatics can set: this is how we insure ourselves against shots with strong digital noise. I advise you to set the maximum value of automatic ISO in the region of 1600-3200.
NIKON D810 / 85.0 mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 900, F1.4, 1/100 s, 85.0 mm equiv.
39689 Improving knowledge 0
Night is an attractive and mysterious time of day. The night world becomes intriguing and alluring. Photos taken in the evening and at night look unusual: the light of the moon and electric lamps transforms the landscape. The only thing left for the photographer is to capture it artistically and technically competently. That is why night photography is so interesting. However, there are many technical nuances that you need to know in order to get acceptable photos. So, first things first.
Shooting conditions at night
What is special about the night for a photographer? First of all, an insufficient amount of light does not allow the camera to focus and distinguish objects normally. There is an exit. You can use cameras that do not make too much noise when increasing the ISO. These are mostly full-frame DSLRs. Such a camera is an expensive pleasure that not everyone can afford. In principle, you can use any camera, but cheaper models will have poorer quality pictures.
For night photography, the lens is also important. The larger the aperture of the lens, the brighter the picture will be, and accordingly, it will be easier for the camera to focus. It is worth noting that budget lenses at the maximum open aperture (of the order of f / 3.5) at the edges of the frame begin to soap the picture. In expensive optics, such a flaw is less common and not so pronounced.
If you are the owner of a compact with fixed optics, do not despair. Of course, you won’t be able to take pictures of the starry sky, but almost any modern camera is suitable for photographing a night city or landscapes.
Since the camera receives little information about the light at night, better pictures save in RAW format. This will allow you to extract much more detail from the images during processing.
Where can you take pictures at night?
What can be photographed at night? It depends on the imagination of the photographer and possible places where you can get out. At night, you can photograph everything the same as during the day, only everything will look different. The streets of the city will consist of silhouettes of houses with rare detail in the light of lanterns. The paths of the parks will become romantic and slightly frightening.
Features of shooting at night
Night shooting can be conditionally divided into two types of photography: with a slow shutter speed and a tripod, and with short exposure, but with the use of additional light sources.
In order to get as much detail of the environment as possible, you need to open the aperture. This will increase the luminous flux, and the light will hit the matrix with greater intensity. If the interest of the photographer is to convey only lines and points of light, then the aperture should be covered. Exposure is selected experimentally.
If you only need to transmit information about light sources, you should not bully the ISO. Better to slow down. In the event that you need to convey as many details as possible in the picture, and the shutter speed is already at the limit or its further increase will inevitably damage the frame due to the movement of objects, then an increased ISO value will help. But at the same time, do not forget that the ISO value above 400 units leads to a serious deterioration in the quality of the photo due to the appearance of noise. Here you have to choose what is more important. Sometimes the choice is whether to take a "noisy" shot or not to take a photo at all. Sometimes it pays to take a picture. You can deal with noise later in Photoshop.
AT dark time day there is a problem with focusing. Clear pictures are obtained by focusing on contrasting and clear objects. It can be road markings or building windows. Do not focus on objects that have a uniform color and structure.
Getting ready to shoot
Preparation is an important part of location shooting. In low light conditions, it's hard to get a sharp, blur-free shot. To avoid blurring (in slang "shake"), among other things, you need to use a tripod. Let's talk about the tripod in more detail.
The tripod leg is responsible for stability, the head - for the orientation and mounting of the camera. The tripod as a whole, or the tripod in particular, may be metal or plastic. Plastic is light and cheap, but it does not fix the camera well, it is fragile, unstable in the wind, and even its slight vibration does not fade for a long time. The metal structure is more expensive and heavier, but stronger and more stable. There are also tripods with carbon tripods: they, having a light carbon frame and high strength metal parts, combine best performance plastic and metal models.
Professional tripods have interchangeable heads - universal and specialized (for example, for shooting horizontal and vertical panoramas, macro photography). They also differ in the way and ease of adjusting the camera position. For example, a ball head based on a sphere enclosed in a vise is convenient for shooting in which the camera is constantly moving in several planes. It provides smooth and precise movement of the camera and is fixed at all tilt angles.
The three-axis head has separate adjustment levers for each of the three planes. And the main difference between a panoramic head and others is the ability to rotate the camera with the center of rotation at the nodal point of the lens. That is, the rotation occurs around the point where the streams of light converge before reaching the photosensitive element of the camera. If you need to shoot a panorama consisting of several rows, panoramic heads are used with the ability to tilt the camera up and down - up to the zenith (vertically up, +90° from the horizon) and nadir (vertically down, -90° from the horizon).
Remember that there are several positions in which the tripod is most stable. When setting up, you need to spread the tripod legs wide to move the center of gravity lower and, if the shooting tasks allow, not to raise its head high.
It should also be borne in mind that when shooting at a slow shutter speed, even pressing the shutter button can cause slight camera vibration and spoil the frame. If possible, set the shutter delay mode to 2, 5, or 10 seconds, or use the remote control. If you will be shooting in cold weather, charge the battery fully and take a spare. Remember that batteries drain faster in cold weather.
One more piece of advice. Before you go to photograph, do some reconnaissance. This will save you time and allow you to get what you want faster. Find a good point, evaluate the lighting at night, see how buildings are lit if you decide to shoot architecture, evaluate traffic depending on time and place if you want to shoot "light trails" - traces of headlights from passing cars. In other words, find in advance a place where the lights of the night city will look the best. What is beautiful during the day will not always be good at night and vice versa.
And turn off Image Stabilization, be it in the lens or on the camera. The stabilizer is designed to help you when shooting handheld. But it can give quite the opposite effect when you shoot with a long exposure on a tripod. The stabilizer, depending on the internal logic and type, can, on the contrary, make completely unnecessary movements and ruin the frame. So turn it off and be calm.
Photography
Night photography is called not only shooting at night, but also at sunset. Sunset lasts about an hour, so you need to plan your shooting location in advance and arrive at least half an hour before it starts. This time will be needed to select the angle and camera settings.
Adjusting the exact white balance when shooting at night is quite difficult. When you change the composition, the number of light sources changes, the variety of which in the city can greatly change the color temperature. In our case, it would be best to leave the white balance at automatic mode. Shooting in RAW format will allow you to get an original file that you can work with repeatedly without changing the digital negative: correct the white balance, perform exposure compensation.
The end result depends on the chosen metering method. Matrix metering determines exposure settings based on data from all areas of the frame. It is great for evenly lit scenes. The center-weighted method measures the entire field of the frame, but most of the measurement is concentrated in the center of the frame within a circle with a diameter of 8-10 mm, which is displayed in the viewfinder. This metering method is best used when a very bright light source enters the frame and you need to determine the exposure without its participation. The point method for determining the exposure reads information from a point of 1-2% of the frame area located in the center of the current focus area.
So, with uniform lighting, matrix metering is used, and in difficult conditions, center-weighted or spot.
You should not raise the ISO value above 400. The higher the sensitivity, the more digital noise will appear in the picture. The ISO 400 level on most SLR cameras gives an acceptable quality for a monitor, and even more so for printing. Higher values tend to result in a sharp drop in picture quality.
Often in low light conditions there is a problem with focusing. For clear shots, try to focus on a contrasting or well-lit subject. For example, on road markings or on the bright windows of a building. The main thing is not to focus on a homogeneous object, be it a gray wall, sky or asphalt.
Working with endurance is the most important point night photography. Relatively fast shutter speeds (1/30 - 2 seconds) emphasize the movement of objects, blurring them against a static, clear background. Shutter speeds longer than 2 seconds already show movement differently: moving cars are not visible, headlights turn into streaks of light, fast-moving people are not shown in the photo. If your main goal is to focus on movement, it's best to shoot in shutter priority mode. If you are photographing a landscape, use aperture priority mode to be able to influence the depth of field.
Shooting with a long exposure on a tripod
A slow shutter speed will not allow you to get a sharp shot when shooting handheld, so the use of a tripod is a must. Under different lighting conditions, the camera settings will be different. It all depends on what you need to get in the end.
What kind of pictures can be taken with a long exposure at night?
1. Perhaps the most common photographs are those of car headlights.
2. Landscape photography is no less common. It can be not only nature, but also industrial landscapes.
3. When photographing on open area A single flash can't light up the whole frame, but it does a great job of highlighting objects in the foreground. For example, if you set the flash to fire on the rear curtain of the lens and take a picture of a moving object, you will get a frame with a clear, sharp object, behind which a trail from its movement will be visible.
Very interesting pictures are obtained when drawing with fire. In the next picture, the boy, with the shutter open, drew circles with Bengal fire. Before the shutter closed, a flash fired, thereby freezing the image of the guy. Thus, both the light drawing and the model itself remained in the frame.
4. To get only a pattern of light, you do not need to use a flash. This type of photography is called Freezelight (eng. Freez - freezing, Light - light), also this style is known as Cvetografika (light graphic) or Lightpainting (light painting) - drawing with light.
You need to create a light pattern on the street in a place where there is no lighting or in a dark room. Exposure can be set to any length. It all depends on how long the drawing will be drawn with light. In complete darkness, the camera will not capture anything but lines from a moving light source. As you know, the aperture controls the intensity with which light enters the matrix. This means that in the freezelight, the aperture will regulate the intensity of the glow of the drawn lines of light. When the aperture is closed, they will be thin, and when open, they will be wide and bright.
5. At night, with a flashlight, you can not only draw figures in space, but also work with it like a brush, illuminating (outlining) objects, making them more visible among the rest. This method is called light brush painting.
To select an object, you need to put the camera on a long exposure and at the time when the exposure lasts, evenly illuminate the object with a flashlight.
When working in this style, you should be attentive to the details, and good results will be obtained only after training. When working with a flashlight, you should not hold it statically. Better move it. This will give more even lighting. In addition to the usual flashlight, you can use a wide variety of lighting devices.
6. Simply incredible pictures are obtained when shooting the starry sky. Photographing the stars is not so easy. This can be done in two ways. You can convey the stars as we see them, in the form of dots, or you can capture the movement of stars in the sky (star tracks).
Shooting static stars
To fix static stars, you need to calculate the shutter speed. There is a 600/FR rule (equivalent to 35mm cameras). As many have already guessed, you need to divide 600 by the equivalent focal length lens. The result of the calculation will be the shutter speed with which you need to photograph so that the stars in the picture are dots, not dashes.
In this case, the aperture should be opened to the maximum level at which high-quality images are obtained. Light sensitivity will have to be selected experimentally.
Shooting Star Tracks
Star tracks are harder to photograph. Exposure during such shooting can last from 10 minutes to several hours. It depends on the focal length of the lens and the desired track length. For each camera and lens, you need to select the settings yourself.
There are two ways to photograph star tracks. The first is shooting in one frame with a long exposure, and the second is shooting a series of shots with a not too long exposure and then stitching these shots together in special software. The second way, of course, wins. The first one has many drawbacks: the appearance of noise due to overheating of the matrix during a long exposure, the appearance of movement, fogging of the lens glass, overexposure due to too long exposure. Any of these nuances can spoil a picture that was created over a long time (from 10 minutes to several hours).
Shooting with a fast shutter speed without a tripod
1. The easiest way to photograph an object or person at night is to use a flash or other lighting devices. These can be street lights, car headlights, spotlights, or specially prepared studio equipment. With this shooting, only the illuminated object will be visible. Everything else will hide in the shadows.
2. Photos of bright objects such as street lamps, light from windows, flames, or reflections of city lights in ponds and puddles look very good at night.
By completely closing the aperture, you can get an interesting result. The picture will show the rays from the lanterns.
3. Quite unusual pictures are obtained when photographing the moon. Most likely, many tried to photograph the night star and, after unsuccessful attempts, wondered how to photograph the moon.
In fact, everything is very simple. Many mistakenly believe that in order to photograph the moon, you need to increase shutter speed and aperture. It is not right. The moon is a very bright object in a dark sky, and therefore the shutter speed should be fast and the aperture should be covered. Good pictures are obtained on cameras whose optics have a large focal length. At the maximum approximation, the moon looks especially beautiful.
Conclusion
Night photography - very an exciting activity but not the easiest. Stunning pictures can be created by photographing at night, but you need to be ready for such shooting both technically and theoretically.
There are photographers who do not go out at night. Many people get the impression that due to the lack of natural light, everything you shoot will come out blurry, noisy or dark. In fact, in most urban centers there are many photographic opportunities just waiting to be exploited, all with just the light available.
Where to start?
First of all, you need to find a suitable location. I would recommend the bustling city center which has a huge variety of potential subjects to shoot and a choice of light sources such as transportation systems, architecture and details like fountains and statues.
Start in a familiar environment, somewhere where you feel safe and know where the best vantage points and views are. It might even be better to bring a friend with you, just to be on the safe side. You should probably plan your itinerary, stopping at various points of interest. This will give your walk a certain structure, and you will be able to work in a variety of conditions.
It's a question of time
So, when you have decided where you are going, you should think about the time at which you will visit the chosen place. Check online when the sun goes down and plan your outing around given time. My favorite time to shoot is twilight, so I arrive about half an hour before sunset. In this way you can work at the twilight hour before it gets dark and you start your work in the dark.
Shutter priority
I recommend that you start by putting your camera in shutter priority mode, which allows you to judge the amount of light needed for specific types of shots based on the availability of natural and artificial light.
Try starting with 1 or 2 seconds, depending on whether you are working with static or moving lights. Since you are letting enough light into the camera by using an adequate shutter speed, you can afford low ISO values for a sharp picture.
If you're comfortable working in full manual then I suggest choosing a narrow aperture, around f/12 to f/16, which will allow you to get more depth of field for wide-angle shots.
What is the temperature?
You should shoot in RAW not only because given format provides versatile options for editing pictures taken in difficult lighting conditions, but also because it is extremely useful for changing the white balance. The light sources available in urban environments vary greatly and therefore the color temperature of the light also varies, so it's important to be able to control the white balance in post-production.
Gear Up
Given that you'll be working at slow shutter speeds, handheld shooting will be impossible, so you'll need a few pieces of equipment to get crisp, sharp shots. First of all, it is extremely important to have a stable tripod in combination with a remote control, which will allow you to shoot hands-free and avoid any accidental shake.
It's also good to work with a wide angle lens, mostly because in the city there are restrictions on vantage points and where you can sit, so something like 18mm or 24mm is ideal and will allow you to fit the whole view into the frame. entirely. It is also worth attaching a lens hood to the lens, which is usually used in very bright conditions, but in the city there is a huge variety of light sources, which can lead to unwanted flare.
What is the subject of the shoot?
In a nighttime urban space, anything that emits light can be considered as a potential subject. For starters, you can take pictures of office buildings, hotels, storefronts, and architecture in general. Don't forget to consider architectural details just because it's dark outside.
Through the use of slow shutter speeds, these subtleties may not necessarily be revealed in the way they are perceived in daylight. Street lights will also help you, providing additional lighting in any situation.
Catch the moving lights
In addition to stationary light sources, there are a huge number of moving ones that can lead to extremely attractive images. Cars, trains, buses, trams and Ferris wheels can be used to capture long exposure light trails.
Use shutter priority mode to choose the right amount of time for a given light source to pass through the frame, resulting in a light trail in the image. One useful technique is to calculate the required time before shooting so you know what shutter speed to choose, keeping in mind that there may be some variation depending on the speed of the light source.
With all the talk about shutter speed, it's easy to forget about other elements of the shot, like composition. Once you've got everything set up the way you want it, think about the placement of the elements in the frame, do the light trails lead into or through the frame? Think about the surrounding architecture surrounding your lights and how you can use the rule of thirds.
Playing with zoom
There are also a couple of fun techniques you can try out to enhance your city night shots. You need a standard zoom lens for this, just select your light source and make sure the lens is at its maximum zoom position.
Press the shutter button, and while the exposure continues, move the zoom one full turn, ending as close as possible to the moment the shutter closes. This should give you the effect of light rushing towards the viewer. Now try doing it in the opposite direction, starting as close as possible and gradually moving away.
Night city panoramas
Creating a great panorama depends on finding a good vantage point, so head a little further from the city center and look for a high point from which you can fully see the city skyline. It is definitely preferable to find a vantage point in daylight and wait until dark to avoid searching in the dark.
Look for a strong composition that includes differences in building heights and an element of interest throughout the frame. Experiment with exposure times to get the right exposure to ensure that all light sources are clearly visible, highlighting the outlines of buildings.
Now it's your turn!
So now it's your turn. There are a huge number of methods and options for working at night, especially given the variety of city views to choose from. Once you've photographed cities you're already familiar with, it's time to explore the vast selection of subjects in the new territory.
I find I have much more visual awareness when I'm working in terrain I don't yet know. I am attracted to details and features that I would otherwise ignore if I were just working on the familiar streets of my hometown.
Many thanks to Mike fromManchester photographicfor the inspiration for this article.
Night photography is not easy, but it can be one way to create artistic shots. It is not only landscapes that can be effectively shot at night. Portrait photos taken in the moonlight look mysterious, unusual. Even ordinary, familiar things that do not arouse any interest during the day can become fascinating. To achieve a good result, you need a camera and a tripod.
It is often thought that high-quality night photos require an ultra-expensive SLR camera with a similarly priced fast lens. Another misconception is that a DSLR should have an ISO of 1600 or higher. In fact, all that is required is a manual setting (M) or a shutter priority setting (TV). Enough to shoot 8 seconds exposure. The tripod will provide the necessary stability of the device. The sensitivity of the matrix, the aperture ratio of the lens are not so important during the night session. They are offset by slow shutter speeds. When photographing at night, mount the camera on a tripod. It requires stable, rigid, about twice as heavy as the camera. Then the device will not sway "as in the wind." If you don't have a tripod, place your camera on a hard, level surface. This position allows you to shoot at slow shutter speeds without raising the ISO, so that there is no loud noise that is inevitable when increasing it. Turn off the stabilizer. It works at a shutter speed of ¼ sec for handheld photos. Switch to Manual mode. Sometimes it is missing, then the program exposure mode (P) will do. Turn off the built-in flash. It will not cope in night shooting conditions, it will illuminate only one nearby object, everything else will remain in the dark. Autofocus and exposure metering will not help to make a good night photo.
Don't slow your shutter speed too much. "Overexposed" photos will not save even Photoshop. Take at least three shots - darker and lighter, then choose the best one. Photographing at night as an art form is described in the book Night and Evening Photography by Lee Frost.
This is the last article in a series in which I tried to analyze the differences between expensive and cheap cameras. In the last article (Why is an expensive camera better than a cheap one. How to choose?), we found out that for ordinary photography in daylight with natural light expensive and cheap compact cameras showed almost the same result. In this article, we will see how our camera heroes behave during evening and night shooting.
Let me remind you that two cameras are involved in our impromptu test. One of them is an inexpensive compact in the price range of 3000-3500 rubles. Its rival is a slightly outdated model. Canon Power Shoot G9. We have already found that in some cases, such as shooting at home with the flash turned off, the more expensive G9 wins in quality due to the larger physical size of the sensor and the larger lens diameter.
In fairness, it should be noted that for an unpretentious user who is not going to sell his photos to photo banks, print them in large formats, but shoots for himself in order to mark photos in a home digital album or on a website, you can safely buy a cheap compact camera, the capabilities of which are quite enough.
True, we found out that the photos are quite "noisy", but both the expensive Canon G9 and the budget one suffer from this approximately equally. In order for the pictures to turn out cleaner, without grain and ripples, you need to switch to a higher class of technology. At least for entry-level DSLRs or with a larger matrix and better optics.
After that, it becomes completely incomprehensible why then there are expensive compact digital cameras worth under 20 thousand rubles, if they give out about the same picture as a camera for 3000?
Of course, expensive cameras have their "trump cards up their sleeves". Of course, some fanciful features may not be necessary for the average amateur photographer. For example, it is quite possible to do without a seat under external flash, which the Canon G9 has and is missing from its competitor. I'm not talking about such "absolutely necessary" things as a second screen on the front of the camera to take pictures of yourself, or transfer photos via WiFi. And how can an ordinary amateur photographer do without determining the coordinates of the point where the photo was taken ...
They just stuff everything into an essentially cheap compact to make it expensive and sell it to us. And with what fervor the sellers talk about these "modern" functions, convincing us - the buyers, that we can't live without them today.
However, there are some really useful things about expensive cameras, and one of them I'm going to write about in this article. It's about manual shooting. While preparing the material for this article, I took some test photos and now I'm ready to present them to you for judgment. I hope you draw your own conclusions.
Evening photography in automatic mode
First, let's see how our heroes coped with shooting in full auto mode with the flash turned off at dusk. I took all the photos in this report from the window of my apartment. 15th floor, view of the lake and the road.
Evening landscape. Camera Panasonic DMC-SZ1. Intelligent Mode
As you can see, a greatly reduced picture can still be viewed, but a round area in real scale looks terrible. The shooting was carried out in the so-called intelligent mode, in which the camera itself selects the parameters and sets their optimal ratio. In this case, the following parameters were automatically set: shutter speed - 1/5 sec. ISO 800, aperture - f3.1.
Since the automation had to greatly increase the ISO sensitivity, the picture turned out to be very "speckled", noisy, unsuitable for serious business.
This photo was taken almost immediately after the previous one, only the intelligent shooting mode was replaced with the program " night landscape". The result turned out to be almost the same. The most interesting thing is that all the shooting parameters completely coincided with those of the previous example.
Camera Canon Power Shoot G9. Shooting an evening landscape in automatic mode
But what happened with the Canon G9. Same auto mode, flash off. If you look at the general view, it seems a little sharper than in the previous two photos. However, when viewing a photo at 100% magnification, it becomes clear that digital noise has become more pronounced with increasing clarity. However, this photo doesn't seem to be as blurry as the Panasonic's.
The shooting parameters set automatically look like this: shutter speed - 1/15 sec, sensitivity - ISO 800, aperture - f2.8. Please note that in this photo, unlike the previous ones, the color saturation is more muted, which is more consistent with the real picture than the photo from the Panasonic SZ1, which is clearly "littered" with blue.
Conclusion: in the automatic mode, with a greatly increased sensitivity of the matrix, digital noise negates the quality of the photo on both expensive and cheap compacts.
But what happens if the camera Canon Power Shoot G9 install manual mode:
Since Panasonic cameras there is no manual mode, then we will not be able to compare the pictures. However, if you compare the quality of this image with a photo taken with the same Canon G9 but in automatic mode, it becomes clear that manual mode is very useful when shooting in difficult conditions.
The settings were made manually and looked like this: shutter speed - 1/2 sec, sensitivity - ISO 80, aperture - f2.8. To obtain the highest quality image, I had to set the lowest value of sensitivity and aperture that are possible on this model. At the same time, the shutter speed turned out to be quite long - the camera had to be put on a tripod.
Examples of night photos
On the same evening, another series of photographs was taken. First, let's see how the Panasonic DMC-SZ1 camera coped with night shooting:
Here's what he showed us in automatic shooting mode Canon camera Power Shoot G9:
Here everything is the same grain, but the colors are calmer; The picture is more like the original. If you switch the camera Canon G9 in manual mode, then the sensitivity can again be made minimal and, provided that a tripod is used, a clearer picture can be obtained.
Conclusion: Take pictures with manual settings, which is available on high-end compact cameras, allows you to get a better image when shooting in the evening, at night, and also when shooting in a cave, in a word, where there is very little light.
The downside of this advantage is the need to use a tripod, since the exposure time can sometimes reach up to 30 seconds.
And finally, I want to show you what the same night picture looks like in the performance digital DSLR Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Of course, these cameras should never be placed side by side. The gap is too great both in price and in opportunities. However, when I photographed at home with compacts, I decided to snap them with a DSLR just in case. Here's what I got (sorry for the slightly littered horizon - I didn't have a tripod, I had to put the camera on the ledge):
I would like to show you this part:
click on the picture to view full size
The shooting was carried out with a lens. You can see for yourself how the quality of the photo differs from what we saw at the beginning of this article. It got to the point that the numbers of the cars had to be slightly blurred on purpose so that they could not be read. I repeat, the shooting was from the 15th floor.
On this optimistic note, I am ending a series of articles about how expensive cameras differ from cheap ones. I specifically decided to show you samples made by professional equipment so that you might reconsider your position and, having saved up a little, bought a DSLR instead of a soap dish.
Of course, you can listen as much as you like to the opinions of experienced amateurs and, especially, sellers in stores, who will tell us about super-advanced intelligent shooting modes, nanotechnology-based noise suppressors. The apotheosis of such speeches is usually the thought that, they say, "this seemingly unsightly soap dish shoots in quality on a par with a DSLR."
Friends! Let's stop believing in fairy tales. Nothing improves the quality of a photo like a large full-size sensor and a good lens. And although compact cameras with such full-size matrices have already appeared, they certainly cost more than three or even thirty thousand.
Remember: in the struggle of intelligent mode with super noise reduction against a large sensor with good optics, the latter always win. At least for now.
