The thread title may well have a few of you scratching your heads. Hear me out. This might sound like complete crazy talk to some of you, but stick around, you'll learn something.


When I started taking pictures seriously in the mid 2000s I was like a lot of people. Scared to run up the ISO, if anything, I tended to underexpose rather than overexpose, and noise was my worst enemy.

I'm making this post to clear up a few misconceptions I've seen presented here on ARFCOM, as well as on other photo boards, websites, videos, etc scattered around the internet.

First things first - let's talk about noise. We've all seen images with lots of noise in them.

Here's one of the noisiest images I've ever personally taken (yes, it's an ex GF, I don't like to use this one but it's what I've got) -

DSC_6050 by Zack, on Flickr

The sad part is, it doesn't have to be this way.

That was taken wide open at f/2.8 with only a dim overhead light and the moon lighting the scene. ISO 25,600 (to see what happened) and 1/13 shutter. I fucked up the exposure.

Compare that with this:

_DSC0337 by Zack, on Flickr

Also taken at ISO 25,600. This time though, 1/40 of a second at f/5.6 (different lens setup, with slightly more ambient light) edit to clarify: This picture was taken in a dark room with the lights off, only light coming in through the window you can see there with closed blinds and the curtains shut as well. Not a lot of light to work with.

They're not a direct comparison no, but the second shot has a lot less noise. Sure, you can see some..but the detail of the picture is still available. The texture of the curtain is there, the text is readable. Composition sucks but that wasn't the point.

What's the difference?

Picture #1 was slightly underexposed and boosted (pushed) in post.

Picture #2 was slightly overexposed and dialed back (pulled) in post.

That's it.

It's far better to have an image that exhibits some noise and is still sharp rather than to get fussed over an ISO being over your arbitrary limit and missing the shot entirely because your camera can't keep up.

_DSC1134 by Zack, on Flickr

1/500 @ f/8 - 3200 ISO. This is a totally acceptable image quality, even for print use.

I simply do not give one single flying fuck about ISO. I will set it as high as I need to (and dial in a touch of overexposure) and take the shot. More on that overexposing thing in a bit.

Modern digital cameras are great at managing noise, if you shoot in RAW (which if you're here in the photo forum and you aren't shooting RAW, shame on you!) you have a lot of options available for noise reduction in post processing as well. I find that lightroom's default noise reduction tools work just fine.

The difference between a noisy photo and a not so noisy photo isn't really ISO so much as it is light. You can have an image shot at ISO 100 that was underexposed and pushed up in post be noisier than an image shot at 1600 and exposed properly (or slightly overexposed and pulled back) or at least on the same level of noise. If I had deliberately overexposed that first image up there ^ it would have come out far better.

These aren't the best examples and I will try to get more to illustrate this but here we go. I was hand holding the camera for these so they aren't exactly the same image but I tried my best. Same goes for the crops and end result exposures - not 100% from shot to shot but close enough.

First up, the test images converted straight from RAW to jpg with no other modifications:

Tree underexposed:

_DSC1470 by Zack, on Flickr

Tree overexposed:

_DSC1472 by Zack, on Flickr

Feeder underexposed:

_DSC1474 by Zack, on Flickr

Feeder overexposed:

_DSC1473 by Zack, on Flickr


So after I had these images loaded up, I went in and processed them to bring them as close as I could get them to looking the same. The underexposed one was of course +several exposure along with the highlights/shadows/white/black/contrast etc. The overexposed one was - about a stop on exposure + all that other stuff.

I then cropped a ~1600px wide area and exported a 1600px wide image. Best I could come up with for showing what's actually going on.


Here's the results:

Tree @ ISO 100

_DSC1470 by Zack, on Flickr

Tree @ ISO 1600

_DSC1472 by Zack, on Flickr

You'd need a magnifying glass to spot any differences.

Feeder @ ISO 100 (noise definitely visible in background and in darker areas)

_DSC1474 by Zack, on Flickr

Feeder @ ISO 1800 (less noise easily)

_DSC1473 by Zack, on Flickr

The second set is a more definitive example, but I'll try to shoot a few more over the next few days.

This brings me to the real point of this thread. A theory known as Expose to the right.

On many cameras, the exposure meter goes from <--------0--------+> in the viewfinder. Exposing to the right means you want to have your exposure (and the histogram) leaning towards the right side rather than the left.

But wait, won't that blow out highlights?

Nope! Remember, you're shooting in RAW - or you should be, and there is a LOT of wiggle room to pull back highlight detail from what looks like a near completely blown out image.

If you're shooting JPG, it's not *quite* as helpful, but aim for a minor overexposure but do your best to avoid clipping your highlights, there's nothing you can do to recover them in JPG.

What this will do for you is allow you to retain detail in the highlights..but you'll also get more detail in your shadows.

It's far harder to boost dark spots due to underexposure cleanly than it is to pull back highlights. You actually introduce *stupid* amounts of noise by doing this.

Any of you that are deliberately underexposing your images (without a good reason for doing so) are unfortunately doing it wrong.

Exposing a scene correctly is fine, but to my mind, exposing it perhaps a stop or so over what the meter says it should be works a lot better, especially when the ISO is getting up there.

So here's where it all ties together.

If you need to crank your ISO to get a shot (remember, most modern DSLRs can handle a lot more ISO than you think) go ahead and crank it. But..give it a stop or so worth of overexposure with your shutter speed or your aperture (or exposure compensation if you're in one of the assisted modes)

You'll get your shot, and you'll be able to get it with a lot less noise than you would have otherwise done.

Please comment, discuss, tell me I'm full of crap (and why, if you really think that) but above all else go out there and try what I'm telling you. It works!

Good post, thanks, Zack.  I'm going to start ETTR more consciously.

Now, for the special case:  Astrophotography.  Any comments on NR for starfield shots?

Wide angle astrophotography (and the deep field telescope type stuff) isn't something I have a lot of experience with.

I can talk for days about the moon and the sun, but outside of that I can't really make any recommendations.

First 2 shots actually look to have similar noise to me. 2nd photo hides it better but its still there. but yes when shooting low light NAILING the exposure is critical. Take it you are shooting full frame if you are using 25K iso lol. I try not to go over 1600 but with F1.4 lens that usually is enough.

I'm using a Nikon D7100.

Right, the first 2 shots are so close it's hard to tell them apart..but one was ISO 100 and the other was ISO 1600.

Or are you talking about the 2 done at 25,600? - in that case...the second one does have a lot of noise..but it doesn't come anywhere close to matching the first. It has a lot more detail available as well.

Try what I'm telling you. It'll help. That whole "I won't go over xxx ISO" thing is a big part of why I made this thread.

Shooting high ISO is going to be fine in certain situations, but as you can see in the above photos, anything less than a highlight is going to have considerable noise.  I don't tend to shoot any high ISO anymore, but when I did, I went by the rule that I needed to get it high just enough to get what I needed and nothing more, as a clean shot is most important.  That said, noise reduction software has come a long way.

 I still can't stand a shot with noise in it though.  I get that nervous eye twitch thing whenever I see it in a photo, lol.

Just high enough is what it needs to be...but people are often afraid to push it high enough because they think it'll ruin the shot or be way too noisy.

That's just not true.

If you have to choose between a shot that has some noise, or missing the shot entirely (by motion blur, or underexposing it so badly that it's unrecoverable) the smart choice is to raise the ISO, even if it's to what some people consider a stupidly high amount.

Also be aware that the higher the ISO, the lower dynamic range will be.

Zack3g. great stuff. Look at a friend of mines photos, Keith Carter, who's internationally known. He does black and white with film and has a number of books published. He is also loosing his sight because of cancer in one eye and using to help his work in a creative manner. Google his interview with Texas Country Reporter. As always thanks for sharing your artwork.

I trust my lowly D3100 up to 3200 with my main zoom.  
Never done much shooting at Hi 1 (6400) or Hi 2 (12,800)

I'll give it a try over the weekend.  I'm sure kitty will find some dark hidey-hole that I can get a pic of her.

Ima tag this for some questions when I have more time.

Thanks for the info Zack.  I've read it a few times and is starting to make sense.  I'm still new to this but I'm trying to soak up all of the info I can.

ISO 6400

_DSC2027 by Zack, on Flickr

I'm having a hard time finding a lot of noise here. Is there some? Sure. Is the picture a little soft? Perhaps. It was shot at 600mm f/11.


ISO 2800

_DSC2007 by Zack, on Flickr

800mm f/11

ISO 3600

_DSC1967 by Zack, on Flickr

800mm f/11

Ya'll starting to believe me yet?


If you're wondering why these images look a little soft...it's not the ISO.

It's a combination of slow shutter speed and a 2x teleconverter on a lens that was not designed to be used with a 2x.

I think I love you.

That's taking things to a bit of an extreme.

I do hope that you're going to get out and try what I'm talking about.

ISO doesn't have to be a scary monster.

Granted, some cameras perform better than others. A little point and shoot doesn't nearly compare to a high end or even a basic DSLR.

An entry level DSLR can't compete with the noise characteristics of a full frame. My D7100 fits comfortably between the two. Full frame guys that already have great results with higher ISOs can get even better if they try it this way.

That being said, what I'm telling you is true for pretty much any camera out there. Expose to the right, pull it back in post, you'll have less noise, better images, and be happier for it!

The biggest reason that ETTR works is the way the camera stores the information. Somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2  (depending on who you ask, and what format you're talking about) of the image detail is within the highlight region. The rest is not quite evenly split between the midtones and shadows.

Zack, do you use AutoISO or do you just bump it up until you're at +whatever EV?

It depends on what I'm doing.

If I'm in a shooting situation that's not going to be changing much, I'll dial in my settings on manual and say fuck the meter. If I've got time to get things set up, I'll eyeball what I think the exposure should be, check the histogram, adjust as needed.

If I'm in an area where the light is changing constantly (think that last swamp trip, I was on a boat going in and out of the trees) and there's a lot of stuff going on, I'll use auto ISO and dial in a stop or two of overexposure and hope for the best..  It's just not practical to fire a few test shots, check them, tweak settings, fire a few more...whatever you wanted a picture of is gone now. The very definition of chimping. Pass.

So, after reading this, I see what you're saying, but I do not think your examples apply in all cases. For one thing, in my line of work (military photojournalism) I'm often faced with shooting situations with incredibly contrasty lighting situations. Your examples, for the most part, are very flat compared to shooting situations I'm specifically thinking of.

I'll use my photo in the other thread from inside the C-17 cockpit as an example. In that, were I to over expose any amount, I would not have had the latitude to pull back the scene from outside the window. In that shot, Denali can be seen from the window, which was part of what my intention in that composition was. Even with underexposing it by only a couple of stops, there was enough to push the (comparatively dark) interior of the cockpit to see the detail without losing color saturation or creating noise worth noting, all while allowing me to retain detail from the brightly lit snow covered mountains outside, when I pulled the highlights back in camera RAW.

I do see your point, but it really is situation-dependent.

I don't disagree that situations call for a change to your approach.

However, you can't say that exposing to the right is an invalid technique, even for a high contrast situation.

If you expose such that the highlights are just barely avoiding being clipped, this gives the shadows a little bit more to work with. Pull back the highlights, push up the shadows.

Doing it the other way (underexposing a few stops) sure, the highlights don't require much fiddling at all, but the potential is far greater to lose the shadow detail.

I will concede that a camera's meter (even a good one) will get confused by a scene like that and really have no idea what to do with it. I'll also say that trying to expose for the mountains and the interior of the plane is a difficult thing to do without popping a light or two for the inside.

It's a case of do the best you can and like it.

Yeah, ideally, I'd love to fire off a couple of strobes, but pretty sure the pilots would have kicked me out of the cockpit.

Also, even with underexposing a bit in the example photo I mentioned, you can see in the photo where areas of the mountains are still lost in pure white. Is what it is. That said, our issued cameras (D810's) are waaaaaayyyyyyy more forgiving than our previous D300's we were issued. And that's really in both directions. I've found that there's considerably more retained in the darker areas of an exposure than I had encountered in the 300's. And that, of course, makes life convenient when you're on a deadline to get your products out.

All that said, I totally respect and agree with your point, for when it is situationally applicable. You're a good photographer, and obviously know your stuff.

[Napoleon] Lucky [/Dynamite]

_DSC0048 by Zack, on Flickr

ISO 7200

So I was on a what turned into a no big deal fire call, so I decided to shoot a couple of high ISO photos for here.

Nikon D4s
70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8
1/250 sec;   f/3.2;   ISO 25600

A very misty night that didn't help the grain at all.

I agree with you. I regularly shoot at ISO 3200-Hi0.3&H2; but  less so at the Hi1 & Hi2 but I do use it on my Nikon D7100. Many times, a tripod is not handy(ie I didn't bring one with me) or the subject is moving too fast, and the image will end up being blurred because of low shutter speed. The choice is between a noisy image or a blurred and/or no image.

BTW it takes a bit of experience to shoot at those higher ISOs, because the narrow range between shades shadows and highlights, that is why I use fill-flash. Since I come from the film world, film is way more forgiving. Many times digital you have to make a decision on whether , shadows or highlights.is more important

The beauty of exposing to the right is you don't have to choose. You can seriously get both.

Not always of course. Super high contrast scenes will likely always be one or the other but a little bit of iso can help there too.

BTW don't knock the low- to upper-end Nikon DX/APS-C cameras, most of the times the only difference between Nikon's low(3000-series), middle(5000-series), and upper(7000-series)-end camera is convenience; and not necessarily better picture taking abilities(there is a button for faster access rather than navigating a multitude of menus as the camera get more expensive), and of course there are small refinements here and there within each range, and of course when you jump between each range, but they are basically the same picture taking abilities.

Now if noise is a concern, then you must step up to the more expensive and heavier FX/full-frame digital cameras, or medium format camera(they cost as much as a car, and probably can only be justified if you are mufti-millionair or professional photogs that need maximum clarity) and of course if you must have the very best image qualities, try film, they have way more dynamic range than any of the commercial digital cameras. I can readily see a difference between a Kodacolor X photo from digital camera photo.

But digital pics are way, way more convenient to handle than film images.

Here's a push processed shot from earlier today. I was using flash, it decided to crap out on me. Had to boost this one in post. It still came out mostly OK, but a lot of noise for ISO200.

_DSC0666 by Zack, on Flickr