D2x low-light f/2 800-3200ISO

Went on business travel last week to Huntsville, Alabama (my first time in AL)and decided to take my gear. However, I ended up leaving it all locked in my trunk and just taking the D2x, SB-800, and 35 f/2D to the barbeque party, and bar afterwards. There are obvious problems with composition on some of these, and there is definitely the noise we all know the D2x produces at high-ISO, but nonetheless I was pretty pleased with the color and mood of some of these shots. Every one of the shots at the bar was wide open at f/2, 1600 or 3200 ISO, getting 1/10th to 1/6 of a second, handheld. I was fully ready to have no keepers under those sort of conditions, but was pleased that I didn't chuck them. Hope you like.

This first shot was just a random barn I found in a field of hay rolls when driving around the outskirts of Huntsville. The other extreme..bright sun..ugh.















--
Dana Paul Franz
[email protected]
http://dfranz.smugmug.com
'You are the master of the unspoken word;
once it is out of your mouth, you are the slave.'

well, one more try...
--
Dana Paul Franz
[email protected]
http://dfranz.smugmug.com
'You are the master of the unspoken word;
once it is out of your mouth, you are the slave.'

I think they look great....the last one being the worst as far as noise goes.
--
-------------------------------------------------
-Matthew
D2X, D100, 17-55F2.8, 80 - 200F2.8, 50F1.4, SB800
http://crazyphotoguy.com

yes, last one was 3200 ISO. Thanks for replying. Cheers,
--
Dana Paul Franz
[email protected]
http://dfranz.smugmug.com
'You are the master of the unspoken word;
once it is out of your mouth, you are the slave.'

For ISO3200 it looks great.
How much post processing did you do on this one?
Cheers,
--
Michael Klar

miklar said:

For ISO3200 it looks great.
How much post processing did you do on this one?

Click to expand...

Hi Michael - I did two adjustment layers - curves and saturation. Then a duplicate layer of the background, on which I did some edge sharpening. That's about it.

--
Dana Paul Franz
[email protected]
http://dfranz.smugmug.com
'You are the master of the unspoken word;
once it is out of your mouth, you are the slave.'

I've shot some iso 1600 images with my D2x at a theater with stage lighting to spite all the trash talk about the camera's inability to produce good results. Using normal NR, I was pretty happy with the pictures which when printed on 8.5x11 far and away surpassed anything I could have gotten from film transparencies, e.g Ektachrome 400, pushed 2 stops. I showed the results to a friend who swears by his Canon 5D at ISO 3200 (the current darling of the high ISO sensors). Even he was impressed with the D2x capture at 1600. My conclusion is that with carefull exposure and post production, the D2x will stand and deliver. Too many Nikon users are getting freaky about this issue. A sidebar - my Fuji S2 Pro is actually cleaner than the D2x at high ISO - 800 to 1600, but the images are sharper with the D2x. Maybe because the Fuji S2 is about a 1/2 stop faster at 800 than the Nikon.
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BHP517

This is my impression too - that this camera is pretty good at 1600 - but I know that many will disagree.

I forgot to mention - these were all taken with in-camera noise reduction turned off, and none applied in post, either.
--
Dana Paul Franz
[email protected]
http://dfranz.smugmug.com
'You are the master of the unspoken word;
once it is out of your mouth, you are the slave.'