Candle light with D3s

I was pleased with this image from my younger daughter's birthday last night. The D3s is the king of low light.
Still learning to use Aperture!
IainD

IainD said:

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Iso 25600

Wow

thank's for sharing

IainD said:

I was pleased with this image from my younger daughter's birthday last night. The D3s is the king of low light.

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Better to under-expose one stop at ISO 12800, which retains one more stop of highlight range. Sensitivities beyond ISO 12800 on the D3s are merely digital scaling, which you can do better in post.

That's a keeper!

Thanks. That is a great look on her face!

Pretty amazing, you may also try the plugin called noiseware professional, it does an exellent job :

I love the shot. As a fellow ultra-low-light shooter, I could make a couple of suggestions.

1) Set your auto-ISO (or manual ISO) no higher than ISO12800. All that the HI modes give you are ISO12800 + digital gain. H1/2/3 each throw away 1/2/3 bits respectively. Better that you shoot native at ISO12800 and decide for yourself whether to throw away bits or not. You would have saved the highlights in this photo working that way.

2) In high contrast scenes like this, use the "neutral" picture control, or the "linear" modes in ACR or CaptureOne for RAW capture. [14 bit lossless of course.] You want the cleanest, most linear capture you can get, with the highlights smooth. Do all local contrast enhancement on that as a start.

3) There are many ways to do noise reduction, and even some modes of retouching that give you noise reduction in return. These can really make pictures at ISO25600+ usable most anywhere. The D3s is uniquely lacking in pattern noise, and its files are amazingly flexible even at these settings, and respond well to noise reduction. They take chroma noise reduction readily. And you can do luma noise reduction on a separate layer and selectively paint in the parts of the picture that would most benefit from it.

Thank you! I will try that next time.

It was suggested I use noiseware to decrease noise, but I don't think it is available for Mac. I am using Aperture as I think I may be too stupid for Photoshop!
Thank you all for the suggestions.
IainD

IainD said:

[...] I think I may be too stupid for Photoshop!

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Photoshop is an ancient design with internal inconsistencies carried over for nearly two decades. Don't hold yourself responsible. Any smart person should be puzzled by it. That being said, it does a job, and I found that a little at a time, one can pick up all the necessary tricks.

Excellent shot, great that the hand was over the flame and you didn't get a very bright area in the shot.

Noise Ninja plug-in for Aperture is pretty good.

Matt

Proper use of a camera. Very nice.

--
NLD
http://www.ndukes.net

Thank you all!
I