More Speed

For those of us who started in photography before digital cameras came on the scene, high film speeds were usually shunned unless we wanted to use them for a specific purpose.  High speed colour films produced muted colours while the results were grainier than the lower speed emulsions.  Film speeds were rated in ISO (or ASA) numbers, with 50 and 100 being the standard.  400 and above were considered high speed, with 1000 + producing very grainy images and were usually to domain of the arty black and white picture.

In digital photography the ISO number has become the standard measurement of the sensitivity of the image sensor, where a higher number indicates higher sensitivity.  A higher sensitivity allows photographers to take pictures in low light without using flash. However, this gain usually comes at a price: as the light signal is amplified, the noise signal is also amplified, and high ISO images are usually more "noisy" than low ISO images.

The problem for photographers like me who were weaned on low speed films (Fuji Velvia 50 and Provia 100 slide films) the idea of pushing the speeds higher is not something we consider doing easily.  However today's digital SLR cameras can handle high speeds easily and Nikon is renowned for its high speed image sensors.  This year has been a revelation for me and I now push the ISO rating higher rather than risk losing a shot through camera shake and the results speak for themselves.


CHEETAH PROFILE
The following shot of the Cheetah was taken on Safari in South Africa this summer.  The light was very poor and my Sigma 50-500mm f4/f6.3 shoots better images at f8.  I decided to set the ISO to 2000 on my Nikon to keep the shutter speed above 1/500 of a second.

FINGAL'S CAVE
The second shot was taken inside Fingal's Cave on the island of Staffa on the West Coast of Scotland last year.  The cave was very dark and much too big for my SB600 Speedlight to make an impression, so I decided to push to ISO to 3200 and rely on daylight coming from the mouth of the cave.  The result was a very usable image and it can be enlarged to A4 without any real loss in image quality.

Another advantage of digital over film is you can change the ISO rating for every shot where with film cameras you either had to change films mid roll (which was a fiddly and frustrating task at the best of times) or have two camera bodies with different films in each. 

I still leave the digital camera set on 200 ISO, maybe moving up to 400 if the light isn't so good, but now I have no problem pushing the ISO to 1000 and beyond if the need arises and using a tripod isn't practical. 

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