[TXPentaxK50]

I apologize in advance for the idiotic questions. I used to work a lot with film SLRs, but no really nothing about the DSLRs.

I am finding that I am shooting again because my daughter plays indoor volleyball. A run-of-the-mill 80-200 3.5/4.6 won't get the job done as I found out.

So I just purchased a Sigma 80-200 2.8. That should get the job done.

But...I understand that the ISO will likely need to be bumped quite a bit in order to achieve a fast enough shutter speed. Why wouldn't one just set the camera at max ISO and fire away? Is there degradation to the image?

In the old days of film, you could "push" the exposure and develop the film as if it was faster than it actually was. This worked, but you had a lot of grain.

Does this same concept hold true for cranking up the ISO?

Thanks for the feedback. I'm so glad I found this Pentax site!

[twilhelm]

What camera are you using?

Yes you will get a "grain" of sorts, but not like you're use to with film. If you look at some of the camera reviews on here, they were tested at all the ISO settings and you'll get a better idea what you can expect.

[robgski]

Why wouldn't one just set the camera at max ISO and fire away? Is there degradation to the image?

In the old days of film, you could "push" the exposure and develop the film as if it was faster than it actually was. This worked, but you had a lot of grain.

Does this same concept hold true for cranking up the ISO?

Depending on the ISO, and the amount of available light, the image could be degraded, especially if you crop and/or enlarge significantly, that was known as "graininess" in film, but in the digital realm that is known as "noise".

The good news is, most of the Pentax series allows for good , low noise shots at high ISO, and there are some post-processing tips of software that help as well.

The best advice I can give is to shoot the same image at a variety of ISO, as well as a variety of lighting conditions, so you know what the limits of suitable ISO settings are for each condition for your camera.

Personally, I don't like to take my K-5 above ISO 3200, but that is a preference, not a hard limit.

[mattt]

MAX ISO is a number on paper, but in general yields rubbish results.



Lots of conjecture about pushing in post vs shooting at correct ISO in the field... some reading ISO Invariance: What it is, and which cameras are ISO-less


In general, I shoot indoor activities like you've suggested at ISO 1600 - 3200 and 1/400.

[mechmike10]

As noted, it would help to know what camera you are using. A k-5 or k-3 can easily shoot at 3200 with little or no noise. With a k-3, 6400 is even pretty decent in good light, as you would expect on a volleyball court. As far as "pushing" goes, there is no real equivalent for digital. If you shoot jpeg files, you don't have much latitude if the image is grossly underexposed. If you shoot RAW, you can sometimes get a decent image from the RAW converter even if it is underexposed by 3 stops, although this depends on the ISO; the higher the ISO, the more noise you will see if you try to recover from a badly underexposed image.

[TXPentaxK50]

I have a Pentax K-50.

[stevebrot]

n the old days of film, you could "push" the exposure and develop the film as if it was faster than it actually was. This worked, but you had a lot of grain.

Does this same concept hold true for cranking up the ISO?

As noted above, increasing the sensitivity carries with it a quality penalty in the form of increased noise and decreased ability to capture detail (noise displaces data). The mechanism and appearance of digital noise are different than with increased grain in high ISO film photography and it is best to not think of them in the same way. as being strictly equivalent.

Probably the best advice I might suggest is to give it a try with your K-50 using fixed ISO in lighting similar to what you expect for the gym. The point of pain will likely come at about ISO 3200 or 6400. Within limits, noise may be smoothed in post processing with appropriate software, but outcome is always cosmetic. Detail not captured can not be inserted afterwards.

Edit: It is easier to deal with noise in post processing with RAW capture than with JPEG. In addition, there is a time penalty when using in-camera noise reduction for JPEG capture, so those features should be used with caution.


Steve

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Last edited by stevebrot; 08-17-2017 at 06:07 PM.

[kiwi_jono]

As others have said, it is likely that with your K-50,up to around ISO3200 you are likely to get useful results (especially if you are shooting raw where you can do better post processing and noise reduction). If you are happy with smaller image sizes then even higher ISO can be practical - with my K-5 (same sensor as your K-50) I have had images at ISO 25600 that are usable at a smaller sizes.

Another couple of factors are:
* Is the lighting fairly even (gyms often have pretty even lighting which is good)? If not then it might be more difficult recovering shadow detail at higher ISO and you might be better off shooting a lower ISO if possible.
* If you do some panning shots then setting a lower ISO (along with lower shutter speed) can be fun to give background blur / sense of movement too.

[walgarch]

One good thing to remember is that higher ISO doesn't increase noise

How to Find the Best ISO for Astrophotography: Dynamic Range and Noise – Lonely Speck (Long read, but well worth it)

And since noise is related to how many photons are hitting your sensor; best practice is to find the widest aperture and slowest shutter speed that give you acceptable results, so you can let as much light through the lens and onto the sensor as possible

[Adam]

If you shoot in RAW, you can retroactively brighten or darken the entire image, usually between -1 to +3 EV without seeing much degradation. This is analogous to pushing film exposure, but gives you a lot more flexibility since you can freely mess with the development as much as you want.

[pentageek]

I wonder if you have tried TAv mode - it sets lowest possible ISO for given shutter speed and f number. I have been using it on Bigma, and it works very well, especially when reasonable upper ISO limit is set.

[clackers]

When you're shooting at ISO800, what's actually happening is you're underexposing by a factor of eight, and then the exposure of everything from that shot - both signal and noise - is multiplied in the camera by eight.

Ultimately, this is self-defeating, because when you crank up noise reduction in software to redress this, you obliterate detail as well. People end up looking like wax dummies.

Volleyball venues have terrible lighting, in my experience - uniform, but dim, as a result of being community halls or basketball stadiums. It'll be quite a learning curve for your shooting, I reckon.

[victormeldrew]

There is essentially no difference between film and digital in this regard.
For fast moving action in dim light, you will struggle to get good images without using additional light. You will need a (very) fast lens and/or you will need to choose a high speed (film/digital) ISO.

The main difference is that digital ISO can be varied at will, as opposed to selecting it when you load the film. Also, in post, you have more options for dealing with the noise than you did with grain. The last is that most people found film grain to be acceptable or even pleasing to the eye, whereas today's viewing public tend to expect little noise in on-screen images and find digital noise ugly, reminiscent of poor quality phone images or webcams rather than a perfectly acceptable side effect of shooting in such conditions. This is so extreme that there are as many software tools for adding fake film grain to images as there are for removing digital noise.

[TDvN57]

I apologize in advance for the idiotic questions. I used to work a lot with film SLRs, but no really nothing about the DSLRs.

I am finding that I am shooting again because my daughter plays indoor volleyball. A run-of-the-mill 80-200 3.5/4.6 won't get the job done as I found out.

So I just purchased a Sigma 80-200 2.8. That should get the job done.

But...I understand that the ISO will likely need to be bumped quite a bit in order to achieve a fast enough shutter speed. Why wouldn't one just set the camera at max ISO and fire away? Is there degradation to the image?

In the old days of film, you could "push" the exposure and develop the film as if it was faster than it actually was. This worked, but you had a lot of grain.

Does this same concept hold true for cranking up the ISO?

Thanks for the feedback. I'm so glad I found this Pentax site!

As a rule of thumb, in the days of film I generally underexposed by one stop or 1/2 stop, and never had blow out shots, and colors were as best as the film could give me. In digital I find I can reduce noise substantially at high ISO by going the other way and over expose +0.5 or +1.0 depending on how high I want to push the ISO. On TAv mode I set the max ISO to 6400 and will occasionally push that to 12800. But by then noise becomes an issue. Blow-out in digital I find is rarely a problem even with a 1stop push, because the sensor seems to be able to handle slight over exposure, much better than film could. In RAW I can easily recover parts that are slightly over exposed. I have the 645z.

Would love to hear what others are experiencing.

[clackers]

Helps if you have a sensational camera like yours, TD!