[lazarustx]

I have always limited myself to shooting no slower than 1/125sec. In my mind, any longer than that and I'm bound to have soft images.

Here are a few key points about my shooting behavior..
1. I enjoy shooting macro early in the morning or evening.
2. Given the lighting, slowest I like to shoot is 1/125
3. I shoot with my Pentax FA 100mm macro
4. I shoot handheld..
5. I use both my K1Mkii or a K-70 I recently acquired. Both of these cameras have shake reduction enabled

NOTE: None of this pertains when I shoot on a tripod, so keep that in mind..
NOTE II: I’m aware of the shutter rule of caculating shutter speed as 1/xxx(mm), but this isn't why I limit myself to 1/125.

Finally my questions:
1. Shake reduction is supposed to gain me 3 or 4 stops, can I rely on that to safely break the shutter speed rule?
2. Shooting in RAW allows me to gain 2 stops easily in LightRoom. I'd like to stop this practice this if I can change my behavior in camera.


What are some best practices that you guys use?

Regards,
Rodney

[pres589]

Two stops of under-exposure is not a big deal using Lightroom and my K-5 II; I imagine it's about the same for both of those cameras. Pentax cameras, at least since the K-5 II, are highly ISO invariant (some more than others but they're all pretty similar from what I remember). Running the exposure slider up and down in Lightroom is largely the same as doing it on the camera. I would suggest not over-exposing and trying to 'save the image' that way, but under-exposing works. Watch the histogram in Lightroom as you tweak the image and be prepared to play around a bit with other controls. Definitely do this with a RAW file and not an out-of-camera JPEG.

My 2 cents.

[photoptimist]

The shutter speed rule and the improvements offered by shake reduction apply ONLY to motion blur that is caused by motion of the camera and lens. So if the subject is perfectly stationary, the shutter speed rule applies and SR helps.

But if the subjects are in motion (e.g., flowers in a breeze, flying bees, fluttering butterflies, scampering beetles, etc.), then SR doesn't help and the shutter speed rule doesn't work (especially for macro). Something moving only 0.1 mile per hour (which is 44.7 mm per second) will move 0.358 mm in 1/125 second which over 70 pixels of motion blur in a 1:1 macro image shot with the K-1!

The solution (for moving subjects) is a much higher shutters speed or to wait for calm winds, wait for the critter to stop, or carefully time the shot for when the flower or critter reaches the end of its oscillating motion, reverses course, and is momentarily stationary. Or you can use a flash (if you don't mind the look of such shots). Or you can embrace the blur, use slower shutter speeds, and go for that artistic effect.

[bertwert]

You got me curious as to what I could achieve... here I used the A 400/5.6 (a heavier and longer lens) and a K-50 (not as good SR as the K-1). This is shot wide-open (so not the sharpest for the lens anyways), and no post-processing (where I could probably improve it a tad). Standing up, I could get down to 1/45s fine. Kneeling and bracing elbows like shooting a rifle, I got down to 1/10s, and I believe it's acceptably sharp:

[bertwert]

The shutter speed rule and the improvements offered by shake reduction apply ONLY to motion blur that is caused by motion of the camera and lens. So if the subject is perfectly stationary, the shutter speed rule applies and SR helps.

But if the subjects are in motion (e.g., flowers in a breeze, flying bees, fluttering butterflies, scampering beetles, etc.), then SR doesn't help and the shutter speed rule doesn't work (especially for macro). Something moving only 0.1 mile per hour (which is 44.7 mm per second) will move 0.358 mm in 1/125 second which over 70 pixels of motion blur in a 1:1 macro image shot with the K-1!

The solution (for moving subjects) is a much higher shutters speed or to wait for calm winds, wait for the critter to stop, or carefully time the shot for when the flower or critter reaches the end of its oscillating motion, reverses course, and is momentarily stationary. Or you can use a flash (if you don't mind the look of such shots). Or you can embrace the blur, use slower shutter speeds, and go for that artistic effect.

Valid point! In the above example, my 21 Ltd wasn't moving very fast...

[lazarustx]

For this discussion, let's presume I'm shooting indoors and the subject is still...

[pres589]

For fun I did the following. The first shot was taken with my Kino Precision f2.8 105mm Macro lens. I set the shutter speed to 1/125 just like the OP had his set to in his setup. Aperture ring set to f4 (this is not an A-type lens so no good information in the EXIF on the files) and ISO set to 200. I wanted to get an image that just showed the item I was taking a picture of to show how pushable images out of my camera, the K-5 II. Here's a JPEG rendition of that image with nothing done besides a resize and JPEG conversion (quality slider set to 9 on the save);



Here's the image after going through Lightroom with the exposure slider set to +5.00, the max it will go, and then the other sliders tweaked for what felt like best results that I could reach in about a minute of playing around. Resize again done in Lightroom along with conversion to JPEG. No denoise work or anything like that to the file, this is just quick slider work in Lightroom on display;



If Adobe allowed for more distance to slide in Lightroom I'm sure I could have used a worse file. ISO is nearly meaningless in the captures *in this example**grain of salt of course*.

YMMV, not sure if the images out of the cameras you are using are as pushable as the ones I get from mine, although I suspect they are not much worse in this regard. The K-5 II and IIs were really good at this sort of trick.

[RGlasel]

For this discussion, let's presume I'm shooting indoors and the subject is still...

Shake reduction is supposed to gain me 3 or 4 stops, can I rely on that to safely break the shutter speed rule?

Yes, you can break the "shutter speed rule" in these situations because of shake reduction, but 3 or 4 stops is only in certain circumstances However, 2 stops of real shake reduction reduces your shutter speed to 1/30 second and if your technique allows for shooting at 1/60 without shake reduction, you should be be good at 1/15.

Shooting in RAW allows me to gain 2 stops easily in LightRoom. I'd like to stop this practice this if I can change my behavior in camera.

This is dynamic range, not shake reduction. In practice, you can use digital editing to adjust the effective exposure after taking the picture, but you can't unblur the picture. The K-1 in particular will give you lots of dynamic range so you can lighten up parts or all of the image and allow you to use lower ISO settings when you take the picture. Select a shutter speed that works for the subject and focal length, without regard to post-processing.

[Lowell Goudge]

I have always limited myself to shooting no slower than 1/125sec. In my mind, any longer than that and I'm bound to have soft images.

Here are a few key points about my shooting behavior..
1. I enjoy shooting macro early in the morning or evening.
2. Given the lighting, slowest I like to shoot is 1/125
3. I shoot with my Pentax FA 100mm macro
4. I shoot handheld..
5. I use both my K1Mkii or a K-70 I recently acquired. Both of these cameras have shake reduction enabled

NOTE: None of this pertains when I shoot on a tripod, so keep that in mind..
NOTE II: I’m aware of the shutter rule of caculating shutter speed as 1/xxx(mm), but this isn't why I limit myself to 1/125.

Finally my questions:
1. Shake reduction is supposed to gain me 3 or 4 stops, can I rely on that to safely break the shutter speed rule?
2. Shooting in RAW allows me to gain 2 stops easily in LightRoom. I'd like to stop this practice this if I can change my behavior in camera.


What are some best practices that you guys use?

Regards,
Rodney

I think you should ask should I push my iso. For me, I like to set shutter and aperture for what I want/need. Iso is the variable, better a little noise than a missed shot

[bertwert]

For this discussion, let's presume I'm shooting indoors and the subject is still...

To help with a slower shutter speed, I suggest taking a look at this article, great tips for handheld shooting:
Making the Most of Long Exposure Handhelds - Introduction - In-Depth Articles

[pres589]

Could always just shoot in TAv mode, set the shutter speed to something you think you can pretty easily pull off from a steadiness standpoint and disregard shake reduction since you don't really know what it can fix, set an f-stop that makes sense from a sharpness & depth of field standpoint, and let the camera do what it wants with ISO set to automatic. That's the sort of case where I'll set EV compensation to negative 0.3 and then add or remove a little exposure compensation in Lightroom.

Either the K-70 or the K-1 have excellent high-ISO performance straight out of camera. Let them run with the situation.

[Bad Boy]

1. The shutter speed rule does not guarantee no motion blur. It just increases your odds that the blur will be acceptable or unnoticeable. I often break that rule so I can stop down or lower ISO. To increase my odds I practice careful camera holding technique, then importantly shoot multiple shots in hope that one is sharp enough. Odds play a big part in getting a sharp picture at slower shutter speed.

2. I do not underexpose to raise shutter speed. I have found that shooting underexposed and lightening in post processing yields similar results to raising the ISO. I set exposure to balance the histogram. Raise ISO or go to option 1.

[ramseybuckeye]

A lot of this has to do with your own techniques; how steady you are, as well as movement of the subject. And there are your own variables in the technique, mostly are you relaxed, in position to shoot. An example, I see people shooting in a squatting position, I can’t do that without moving.

[rogerstg]

1. Shake reduction is supposed to gain me 3 or 4 stops, can I rely on that to safely break the shutter speed rule?

It's not really a "rule," more like a guideline and it's applicability depends on your ability, not ours. It seems like the rational move is to try it and see for yourself. That's my suggestion. Please report the results back to us.

[CarlJF]

Finally my questions:
1. Shake reduction is supposed to gain me 3 or 4 stops, can I rely on that to safely break the shutter speed rule?
2. Shooting in RAW allows me to gain 2 stops easily in LightRoom. I'd like to stop this practice this if I can change my behavior in camera.

1. YMMV. My personnal experience is that 2 stops is a safe bet, 3 stops is about 50% success rate (so take at least two shots), and more than this is really stretching it beyond practical use even if possible (like 1 out of 10 will be OK, feasible but not really useful while taking pictures). And this is relative to what I can achieve handheld, not the rule of thumb (although I'm close to it).
2. Although it's possible to do, it's just more practical to get the exposure right in camera by shooting at a higher ISO. There's no significant difference between a shot taken at ISO100 pushed 2-stops in LR and one shot at ISO400... As others said, TAv mode is very useful in these situations. Set the aperture and shutter speed while letting the ISO float.