Pushing the D500 to the limit

Graeme NZ · Jun 7, 2017

I was at the local circus and I wanted to see if I could capture the 'human cannon, coming out of the barrel. At you can see I set the speed to 1/500 sec at f/6.3 and let the ISO look after itself. The ISO maxed out at 51,200. Assuming the shots are 1/10 sec apart and the 'human' was average height the exit speed was approx 14 meters per sec so that for each exposure of 1/500 sec the human would move approx 28mm (ie one would not expect it to be sharp)

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Graeme NZ

n057 · Jun 7, 2017

Graeme NZ said:
I was at the local circus and I wanted to see if I could capture the 'human cannon, coming out of the barrel. At you can see I set the speed to 1/500 sec at f/6.3 and let the ISO look after itself. The ISO maxed out at 51,200. Assuming the shots are 1/10 sec apart and the 'human' was average height the exit speed was approx 14 meters per sec so that for each exposure of 1/500 sec the human would move approx 28mm (ie one would not expect it to be sharp)

jshen808 · Jun 7, 2017

Graeme NZ said:
I was at the local circus and I wanted to see if I could capture the 'human cannon, coming out of the barrel. At you can see I set the speed to 1/500 sec at f/6.3 and let the ISO look after itself. The ISO maxed out at 51,200. Assuming the shots are 1/10 sec apart and the 'human' was average height the exit speed was approx 14 meters per sec so that for each exposure of 1/500 sec the human would move approx 28mm (ie one would not expect it to be sharp)

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Graeme NZ

Thanks for sharing these!

..shooting in low lights is an ongoing thing (experimenting) for me.. you did great considering the lighting conditions & circumstances!

There's a picture I'd like to share.. it's shot using my D5, highlight-weighted metering, active-d lighting "auto", manual mode (the user sets everything)..

Nikon D5 camera, Nikon 35mm f/2.0D lens. Manual, 1/400s, f/4, iso16,000, 35mm, 0ev.

..my image was shot at 1/400s (yours 1/500s) so mine has obvious blurs.. but your cannon shoot at very high speeds, so need to try higher shutter speeds to try freeze the action more.. just food for thoughts..

You're doing great, keep going!

--
Cheers, John
Photography is my hobby.
http://www.pbase.com/johnshenphotography

Graeme NZ · Jun 7, 2017

These pic are directly from the camera - only slightly cropped to get under the 20Mp limit

Ruekon · Jun 7, 2017

Thank you for sharing the nice shots! They demonstrate that 10 fps is not too much -- with 5 fps you might have missed the second shot (man half out).

Why f/6.3? This leaves room for up to 4 f-stops more, depending on the used lens -- e.g. down to ISO6400-12800 with a shutter speed of 1/1000-1/2000s at f/1.8.

Leonard Shepherd · Jun 8, 2017

n057 said:
Some will call the result unacceptable, I think it is remarkably usable.

Unacceptable or not the sequence would not have been possible in the film era

Modern technology is often about making possible what was not possible with older technology.

Well done to the OP.

Graeme NZ · Jun 8, 2017

Yes indeed You are absolutely correct. I only had my 18-140mm with me and I didn't know there was going to be a human cannon performance. One question remains. In all of these shots the ISO is at the maximum of 51200. How many stops of underexposure was there??. ""If only I had my time over again"" The circus has packed up and moved to another town

n057 · Jun 8, 2017

Graeme NZ said:
Yes indeed You are absolutely correct. I only had my 18-140mm with me and I didn't know there was going to be a human cannon performance. One question remains. In all of these shots the ISO is at the maximum of 51200. How many stops of underexposure was there??. ""If only I had my time over again"" The circus has packed up and moved to another town

Graeme NZ · Jun 8, 2017

YES!!

Leonard Shepherd · Jun 9, 2017

Graeme NZ said:
How many stops of underexposure was there?

There is no one answer as there are bright spotlights and the human canon ball is in shadow. Overall the exposure is good despite the darkness of the figure.

If you are able to post process or if you know some-one who can it is relatively easy to brighten the figure without changing the overall lighting effect. I feel this is definitely worth doing.

Digressing this is the sort of shot a local paper in the UK would print provided they got it before the circus became "old news".

We all know of shots we missed. With modern equipment there can be far fewer misses even without a top of the range lens.

I think the second image is the best as the figure is clearly included and looks brighter against the black background. In the third image the face of the figure has the impression of being darker as it is in front of the spotlights.

--
Leonard Shepherd
Some say if some of your photos are not good the camera you use is only a recording device.

Ruekon · Jun 9, 2017

Graeme NZ said:
Yes indeed You are absolutely correct. I only had my 18-140mm with me and I didn't know there was going to be a human cannon performance. One question remains. In all of these shots the ISO is at the maximum of 51200. How many stops of underexposure was there??. ""If only I had my time over again"" The circus has packed up and moved to another town

:-x I stopped using my 16-85mm Nikon zoom after I had taken shots like this:

One of the girls is my daughter. It's hard to identify her. My wife said: "you are fired".

First conclusion: don't accept less than f/2.8 zooms for DX anymore, no matter how good VR claims to be. Second conclusion: time to investigate upgrades and go for the D500

Sagittarius · Jun 9, 2017

ISO 10000 f/5.6. Everybody is identifiable.

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Best regards

Ruekon · Jun 9, 2017

No question, the high ISO capability of the D500 is remarkable -- ISO10000 permitted you to use a ten times shorter exposure speed than I tried. Still you are at the limit; I think you had to apply some aggressive noise reduction. Your lens had allowed you one f-stop more than f/5.6. Two more f-stops with f/2.8 had allowed you ISO2500 in this situation, where the D500 still excels.

Sagittarius · Jun 10, 2017

Ruekon said:
No question, the high ISO capability of the D500 is remarkable -- ISO10000 permitted you to use a ten times shorter exposure speed than I tried. Still you are at the limit; I think you had to apply some aggressive noise reduction. Your lens had allowed you one f-stop more than f/5.6. Two more f-stops with f/2.8 had allowed you ISO2500 in this situation, where the D500 still excels.

No aggressive noise reduction at all. Luminance 24 Color 15 in LR. But I applied sharpening technique described here

Cue-79 · Jun 10, 2017

Ruekon said:
Graeme NZ said:

Yes indeed You are absolutely correct. I only had my 18-140mm with me and I didn't know there was going to be a human cannon performance. One question remains. In all of these shots the ISO is at the maximum of 51200. How many stops of underexposure was there??. ""If only I had my time over again"" The circus has packed up and moved to another town

Click to expand...

:-x I stopped using my 16-85mm Nikon zoom after I had taken shots like this:

One of the girls is my daughter. It's hard to identify her. My wife said: "you are fired".

First conclusion: don't accept less than f/2.8 zooms for DX anymore, no matter how good VR claims to be. Second conclusion: time to investigate upgrades and go for the D500

I realize F5 isn't ideal for low light, but I'm not sure I'd blame the lens, for this particular shot anyway. Shooting at 1/8th of a second on people performing is likely the reason for the 'shot like this'. Even at 1/25th or 1/30th at 2200-2500 ISO on a D90 probably would have given a much better shot, thus perhaps 'keeping your job'

Leonard Shepherd · Jun 10, 2017

Cue-79 said:
Cue-79 said:

One of the girls is my daughter. It's hard to identify her. My wife said: "you are fired".

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I'd blame the lens, for this particular shot anyway. Shooting at 1/8th of a second on people performing is likely the reason for the 'shot like this'. Even at 1/25th or 1/30th at 2200-2500 ISO on a D90 probably would have given a much better shot,

+1.

The girl in red is the most identifiable, likely because she was not moving much.

The blur in the lower arms on the girl on the right and the lower right arm of the girl on the left show significant movement blur, probably because they moved their arms the most during the 1/8th exposure.

Harsh maybe but your wife made IMO a fair comment.

--
Leonard Shepherd
Some say if some of your photos are not good the camera you use is only a recording device.

Ruekon · Jun 10, 2017

Leonard Shepherd said:
Cue-79 said:

Leonard Shepherd said:

One of the girls is my daughter. It's hard to identify her. My wife said: "you are fired".

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I'd blame the lens, for this particular shot anyway. Shooting at 1/8th of a second on people performing is likely the reason for the 'shot like this'. Even at 1/25th or 1/30th at 2200-2500 ISO on a D90 probably would have given a much better shot,

Click to expand...

+1.

The girl in red is the most identifiable, likely because she was not moving much.

The blur in the lower arms on the girl on the right and the lower right arm of the girl on the left show significant movement blur, probably because they moved their arms the most during the 1/8th exposure.

Harsh maybe but your wife made IMO a fair comment.

The main problem was my laziness just grabbing the camera with its always-on 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6. Two f-stops more had helped a lot; and a bit more reach too.

Here is a picture taken 4 years ago during a similar event. The Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 (and simpler lightning conditions) allowed me to expose with 1/125s.

It might be unfair, but I sent my f/3.5-5.6 standard zoom to retirement. Now I'm curious to find out how far further the D500 will bring me ...

jshen808 · Jun 10, 2017

Ruekon said:
Leonard Shepherd said:

Cue-79 said:

Member said:

One of the girls is my daughter. It's hard to identify her. My wife said: "you are fired".

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I'd blame the lens, for this particular shot anyway. Shooting at 1/8th of a second on people performing is likely the reason for the 'shot like this'. Even at 1/25th or 1/30th at 2200-2500 ISO on a D90 probably would have given a much better shot,

Click to expand...

+1.

The girl in red is the most identifiable, likely because she was not moving much.

The blur in the lower arms on the girl on the right and the lower right arm of the girl on the left show significant movement blur, probably because they moved their arms the most during the 1/8th exposure.

Harsh maybe but your wife made IMO a fair comment.

Click to expand...

The main problem was my laziness just grabbing the camera with its always-on 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6. Two f-stops more had helped a lot; and a bit more reach too.

Here is a picture taken 4 years ago during a similar event. The Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 (and simpler lightning conditions) allowed me to expose with 1/125s.

It might be unfair, but I sent my f/3.5-5.6 standard zoom to retirement. Now I'm curious to find out how far further the D500 will bring me ...

Not sure if this is "apples to apples".. below is a picture taken with my D500 using iso3600, in post processing did apply noise reductions..

Nikon D500 camera, Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens. Manual, 1/320s, f/7.1, iso3600, 150mm (225mm equiv.), 0ev.

--
Cheers, John
Photography is my hobby.

Galleries by John Shen Photography

www.pbase.com

Ruekon · Jun 11, 2017

The OP has an exposure value of 5.3 -- the high iso capability of the D500 allowed to go down to 1/500s and use a relatively slow lens.

My bad photo has 4.2 (about half the amount of light) -- failed with less iso capability of the D90 and slow lens. My ok photo has 5.9 -- feasible with D90 thanks to fast lens and not too fast movements.

You excellent photo has an exposure value of 8.8 -- quite a bit more, but still very impressive to see what is possible with ISO 3600!

Pushing the D500 to the limit

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