Nx300- how to improve low light performance?

Hi everyone,

I have an nx300 with 20-50 kit lens. The outdoor/ lighted shots have been great but the indoor shots have been very poor. for indoor portraits the pictures have been blurry and the subjects are not properly focused on. (terrible when subject slightly moves) Also upon examining the photos on a computer they are overly grainy and show heavy noise reduction at iso1600 and 3200. I have not been using the flash due to many of the portraits being of a small infant. I have tried several shooting modes auto, program, aperture but nothing looks good.  Because of the low light performance I am thinking of movimg away from samsung cameras.

Any advice? will a 30mm f2 or 18-50 ois lens be better?

Thank you in advance!

1600-3200 ISO will show noise reduction and/or grain and artifacts on any camera, to varying degrees. How much depends on settings and of course the camera.

My experience with the NX300 is nil as yet, but I've owned an NX200 and NX100. Both turned in very good low light, high ISO results with a modicum of post processing in Lightroom. The chroma noise is easily drawn out with little to no visible loss of readable detail, and I for one have no issue with a bit of luma grain in my shots. Unless you're needing to view a small cropped area of your image at 100%, it shouldn't really matter.

That said, you're using a good but non-stabilized lens and trying to take images of moving subjects indoors with low lighting. Without buying a lens in the f2.0 aperture range or faster, you're going to need to boost ISO and learn some post processing techniques via RAW. There are some tips for shooting moving subjects here that may help. One big thing is to learn how to hold your camera so that it's better braced against you, and another is getting good at tracking your subject and anticipating movement.

I for one have no qualms with shooting cameras like the NX series, my 60D, A57 etc. up to 3200 as long as I don't mind spending a few minutes with each shot in LR. I'm not entirely sure how well the 300 handles JPEG but I know the 100 and 200 were quite poor when it came to higher ISO noise handling. Even my A57 was only so-so at this... Best I've used would be the X100 (in terms of straight unedited JPEG at high ISO) but there you have a whole other set of compromises and such - not the least of which being a fixed lens.

I'd suggest the 30mm f2, as it's fairly bright and not too close (though not really wide)... And there's always my favorite solution, tracking down a good price on a vintage prime like the Pentax SMC Super Takumar f1.4 50mm and get a Pentax K adapter for about 12 bucks. It'd be manual focus, but AF in dim light can be spotty anyway, and with a vintage bright prime you'd be able to take pretty fast shutter at an ISO range more like 400-800. Stop it down to f1.8 and those Super Taks are pretty sharp. That, and you'd also get some sweet artsy bokeh and flare around lights and such at night with the aperture opened up.

This is a Pentax 50mm 1.4 I found just last month at a camera swap meet locally for a mere 20 bucks. A cheap M42 adapter and it works just fine, and looks quite cool on the camera. KEEP IN MIND that any lens with a big aperture of f2.0 or greater shot wide open in this way will make for paper-thin plane of focus, so it will be hard to keep moving children in that field... So you're back to either investing in a decent flash with a diffuser or turning up the lighting

Nxfan23 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have an nx300 with 20-50 kit lens. The outdoor/ lighted shots have been great but the indoor shots have been very poor. for indoor portraits the pictures have been blurry and the subjects are not properly focused on. (terrible when subject slightly moves) Also upon examining the photos on a computer they are overly grainy and show heavy noise reduction at iso1600 and 3200. I have not been using the flash due to many of the portraits being of a small infant. I have tried several shooting modes auto, program, aperture but nothing looks good. Because of the low light performance I am thinking of movimg away from samsung cameras.

Any advice? will a 30mm f2 or 18-50 ois lens be better?

Thank you in advance!

Mostly how you are using it, you have to add light, photography is the capture of light and if you don't have much it makes it really difficult.  Taking photos in improper light = bad pictures with any camera.

You could get a 45mm f/1.8, the lens lets in much more light (about 8 times), but it won't add contrast and will have very shallow depth of field at f/1.8.  The only way to add light contrast is to add light or find better natural light.

In the middle of the day find a north facing window and you will get very diffuse light.  During other parts of the day pick a window away from the sun.  During the night, get brighter lights and position them closer to the baby.  Ceiling lights are terrible.

Direct flash usually looks terrible, you want bounce flash.  You can get the larger Metz 44-AF1, which lets you swivel the flash behind and bounce it off a ceiling or wall, or the cable for taking your flash off camera as someone else suggested.

You can also add off camera lights, probably want at least 75 watts not very far from the baby, careful not to get it too close, especially if it is a hot bulb, and they have a way of grabbing light stands and trying to pull them over

I see a lot of new photographers complaining about focus performance, low light performance, etc, and my advice is to not take pictures in those conditions.  Find the proper lighting.  You will find that with some fill light in the face you can still shoot ISO 1600 or 3200.  As for the motion blur you might try shooting in S mode with 1/100 of a second or so, if it is too dark at 1/100 and ISO 3200 you need more light (either larger aperture lens or brighter light).

I do think a brighter (larger aperture) lens would help, the 30mm f/2 or 45mm f/1.8 (I prefer the latter for babies), but more important is getting the light right.  The larger aperture will help you keep the ISO down a little and to balance ambient light more effectively if using flash.

Eric

Nxfan23 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I have an nx300 with 20-50 kit lens. The outdoor/ lighted shots have been great but the indoor shots have been very poor. for indoor portraits the pictures have been blurry and the subjects are not properly focused on. (terrible when subject slightly moves) Also upon examining the photos on a computer they are overly grainy and show heavy noise reduction at iso1600 and 3200. I have not been using the flash due to many of the portraits being of a small infant. I have tried several shooting modes auto, program, aperture but nothing looks good. Because of the low light performance I am thinking of movimg away from samsung cameras.

Any advice? will a 30mm f2 or 18-50 ois lens be better?

Thank you in advance!

Most of the pictures I shoot are indoors in artificial light, no flash (my family, especially kids, in the evening after work). I'm happy with the results. Proper focus is the key. 20-50mm is both dark and acquire focus very slowly so it's very likely that person moved a bit after camera confirmed focus and before it captured the picture. 18-50 OIS would be better because of OIS but only for static subjects. The best results I get from 45mm - it's both fast focusing and bright. You cannot make proper picture of running kid in dark room but for reasonable scene with limited movement it's fine. The same for 30mm - bright but focuses slower. Still good.

The other possibility is that camera sets long exposure time and picture is shaken. I find it very likely because 20-50 is very dark on long end (5.6) so for ISO 1600 I would not expect exposre 1/125.

First I recommend switching to S mode (on top dial - not auto, P or A, they're not good here) and setting time for 125ms. Take a few pictures of static objects. Make sure that there is no underexposure (red indicator at the bottom should be in the middle). This will give you sharp picture. If you find it blurry then upload the picture and check your noise reduction settings in camera, can be too aggressive.

If you get a sharp picture then consider 30mm or 45mm.  You will be able to shot in much darker conditions with times like 1/125ms. which I consider reasonable minimum for not completely static scene.

The 30mm will probably be a better focal range indoors than 45mm. Granted I don't own the 45 but you can set your kit lens to that focal length to test it out. The 30mm has made my indoor shots much better. Learning the shortcut to adjust white balance has helped as well. Also make sure to use the af/mf hybrid feature.

Try to focus on something with high contrast to have your camera focus faster. Use high focus peaking. While pressing shutter halfway twist the manual focus ring. Take it off zoom mode. Increase your iso indoor. Get proper white balance. Kids will be tough to catch still indoors. 30 is great. Just a tad slow but is the overall prime lens of preference on this forum due to form factor, iq, and focal length. Soon i hope to get a 45mm as well. A fast prime will help your indoor shots.

I know you guys hear this a lot from me, but FD to NX adapter + FD 50mm 1.8 is a very good budget solution to this (main downside being that you have to manual focus). This won't work for super dark of course, but will let you shoot moderately lit rooms at night quite easily. I also really like the Samsung 30mm for this. Flash is nice as well, but has it's own downsides (my brothers got pretty sick of the bright light before holidays were over...). I've been looking a bit more into flash myself and nx200USER1 was kind enough to link me to this one that supports Samsung's TTL here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=nx+off+cameraflash+extender&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xnx+off+camera+flash+extender&_nkw=nx+off+camera+flash+extender&_sacat=0

Also, Samsung has a new and quite powerful flash coming soon.

I know you guys hear this a lot from me, but FD to NX adapter + FD 50mm 1.8 is a very good budget solution to this (main downside being that you have to manual focus). This won't work for super dark of course, but will let you shoot moderately lit rooms at night quite easily. I also really like the Samsung 30mm for this. Flash is nice as well, but has it's own downsides (my brothers got pretty sick of the bright light before holidays were over...). I've been looking a bit more into flash myself and nx200USER1 was kind enough to link me to this one that supports Samsung's TTL here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=nx+off+cameraflash+extender&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xnx+off+camera+flash+extender&_nkw=nx+off+camera+flash+extender&_sacat=0

Also, Samsung has a new and quite powerful flash coming soon.

FD to NX adapter + FD 50mm 1.8 would this be autofocus
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Right. If using the 20-50 lens indoors then you are better off shooting at the 20mm range at f3.5 rather than 50mm at f5.6.  Unless the room is super light you are much better off not zooming in low light with moving subjects/no tripod, etc.  The 30mm @ f2 will prevent most of the blurring due to slow shutter speed, but you will still have some out of focus shots.  But still, it will be a big improvement.

To begin with, I really like the NX300 and despite some of its quirks, it is capable of superb imagery with a wonderfully rich color tonality.  But to my dismay - which I'll have to find a work-around - I've discovered that high ISO pics of let's say from 2000 and above, just don't cut it with what one would expect of current day APS-C sensors.  I did a personal shoot a month or more ago in which I had little choice (very dim lighting) but to capture everything at ISO 2500 - 3200. I shot in RAW, assuming that any noise could easily be removed in Lightroom 5.3.

But converting/processing those files was one of the worst experiences I could remember when dealing with an image workflow.  Much of the noise was of such a caliber that it was difficult (sometimes impossible to remove).  I had to rely on extremely heavy Chrominance and color noise reduction - which in effect made the images look glassy (painterly effect).  I was not a happy camper and posted as much awhile back.  So now - I use the NX300 for only up to ISO 1600 - 2000.  My go-to high ISO cameras now are the Fuji X-E1 (up to ISO 6400), and the Olympus E-M5 (up to ISO 4000).

But again, you tend to learn of each camera's limitations - and they all have them.  But no, the NX300 should not be viewed as a great ISO camera.  But for everything else, I've found this camera to have a wonderful feel, let alone some gorgeous imagery.

I totally agree with your findings, that's why I don't feel ready to buy nx30 if it has the same low light performance (or not significantly better) of nx300 and I'll rather waith for a new sensor to use with the nice nx lenses I have.

Nope, manual only, part of why it's so cheap.  It's a much easier manual than even with the native lenses though because it is an old lens designed to be used this way.  That is, the focus ring is super smooth.  With the focus peaking on the NX300 it is really much easier to use than one might at first think.

alex_virt wrote:

The 18-55 OIS won't help, because you shoot moving subjects. 30mm/2 or 45mm/1.8 would help but not by much.

I'm going to disagree with you right here those two lenses help tremendously, even for moving subjects.  It might not seem like it at first, because maybe you're thinking that well, the lower f-stop will help with the brightness, but then shutter speed is still pretty low.  But consider shooting with flash right, with f/2 you're able to get quite a lot more brightness out of even the kit flash.  It's not perfect of course (shallower DOF) but you can partially offset this by moving back a bit more (due to the greater brightness).  I agree with your best solution (or something like that, maybe waiting for the new flash, or maybe one of the more moderate flashes would be sufficient for Dave), I just think you're underrating the difference those faster lenses make.

The best solution would be GN42 flash with Gary Fong Cloud diffuser. A bit too big for a small camera, but it will give you excellent results at low ISO.

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