Tiny 1-inch Sensor in Low Light

Night photography is hard on any camera.  I wanted to test this out on an Nikon 1 camera.  In my opinion, at least, on a screen, it didn't turn out too bad.  Any thoughts?

Still Life: The Perpetual Present

misterodd wrote:

Night photography is hard on any camera. I wanted to test this out on an Nikon 1 camera. In my opinion, at least, on a screen, it didn't turn out too bad. Any thoughts?

Still Life: The Perpetual Present

Not good. A lot of cell phones can do better now.

The easiest way to get this sort of shot nicer is to shoot a bunch and then stack the exposures -- as is commonly done for astrophotography. And, in case you're wondering, the cell phones that do better do stacking for you. 

Thanks for sharing your honest opinion!  This was what I was afraid of.  It's no wonder Nikon strongly suggested maxing ISO out at 800 in this camera which came out in 2011.  Yes, smartphones can do a lot better today.  It's too bad I don't have one though.  My cellphone is from about the same year as my camera, if not earlier.  

misterodd wrote:

Thanks for sharing your honest opinion! This was what I was afraid of. It's no wonder Nikon strongly suggested maxing ISO out at 800 in this camera which came out in 2011. Yes, smartphones can do a lot better today. It's too bad I don't have one though. My cellphone is from about the same year as my camera, if not earlier.

You can still do stacking -- even if your computer is just as old. 

However, yes, it's probably about time to upgrade....

Thanks for the suggestion!  I almost always set my ISO on my V1 no higher than the range of 400-800 in low light conditions.  It's usually good enough for toying around.  

In low light it is every time better to use low ISO (+-100) and long exposure whether if the sensor is large or small. (with camera on tripod)

(it depends what you are shooting ... if low light street photo or night landscape or ... and what is your intention)

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikonv1j1/3

1/10s is not the longest possible time. This camera is possible to set up to 30s in manual mode or as long as you want in bulb mode.

So the simplest way is to use camera on tripod, ISO 100 and time about 20s (which was from my opinion the correct exposure in this case where was ISO 3200 and result were underexposed). V1 is not so baaad ooold camera...

Luisifer wrote:

In low light it is every time better to use low ISO (+-100) and long exposure whether if the sensor is large or small. (with camera on tripod)

(it depends what you are shooting ... if low light street photo or night landscape or ... and what is your intention)

Outstanding work!  Thanks for sharing.  I do try to keep my ISO down whenever I shoot, even in the dark.  I was just testing out my V1's tiny sensor.  I'm not much of a photographer as I don't even have a tripod.  Will buy one sometime this year, I think.

John Sheehy wrote:

misterodd wrote:

Night photography is hard on any camera. I wanted to test this out on an Nikon 1 camera. In my opinion, at least, on a screen, it didn't turn out too bad. Any thoughts?

It might take 2nd place to the noise in the "Original", but it is also obvious that you had no stability at all in this shot; you have a mostly-horizontal (8/2 o'clock) long, s-shaped motion blur. That disadvantages the captured signal vs the noise right away; motion blur does not smooth noise; only detail. Unless you took this from a moving perspective, camera-based stacking and merging could have given you more image-stabilization, as others have mentioned.

As far as the noise itself is concerned, one should keep in mind that when you shoot B&W on a color camera, the software may be including a very weak color channel, which contributes mostly read noise without contributing much signal. Using a workflow that compares the RAW color channels might suggest a workflow that omits the red and/or blue channel if it is really weak, or at least running a strong noise filter like a wide median filter in just that channel, if that channel is otherwise helpful.

The blue channel under sodium vapor lights, for example, may have an extremely low SNR compared to other channels, and worthy of omission, or extreme filtering of just that RAW color channel. Shooting under a red LED will render 3/4 of the pixels almost read-noise-only.

If cameras had only photon noise, adding in a little bit of exposure from a weak channel or weak exposure in a series would still increase SNR; in the presence of read noise, however, the read noise is always contributed even when there is no signal.

I appreciate the detailed technical insights - you seem to be quite knowledgeable.  I definitely will refer back to your post as future reference.  Thank you!

I have never shot in RAW before.  I know there are huge advantages over Jpeg, but I can't see myself doing any post-processing as I barely have enough time to even go out and shoot.  Besides I don't even have any software nor have I seriously considered getting any.  I suppose if I really wanted to improve my night photography, at the very least from a technical point of view, I would ditch the 1-inch and go full-frame where the light gathering capability is much greater.  This would be a good start.  

Weakness of the small sensor is high(er) ISO thanks to small photocells so if you don't need it, it is better not to use it (other thing is when you want to use it for some kind of concept).

So then well (over)dimensioned tripod is good solution every time. (for multi exposures or for full frame too).

Anyway the full frame is better to use on low ISO too. But better start is with some photoeditor (free is for example Gimp) and learn process of RAW files. Because full frame deserve to be well processed from RAW more than other.

Luisifer wrote:

Weakness of the small sensor is high(er) ISO thanks to small photocells so if you don't need it, it is better not to use it (other thing is when you want to use it for some kind of concept).

So then well (over)dimensioned tripod is good solution every time. (for multi exposures or for full frame too).

Anyway the full frame is better to use on low ISO too. But better start is with some photoeditor (free is for example Gimp) and learn process of RAW files. Because full frame deserve to be well processed from RAW more than other.

Thank you!  This is generous and sound advice that you have offered me.  Eventually, I will get myself a camera that produces decent images in low light and learn the basics of post-processing.

PS: only to be clear
"better is not to use it" i thought not to use high ISO (no primarily camera with small photocells / small sensor)

What's going on in da Lab stays in da Lab.

In general is good to compare the same generation of tech. and the same resolution too.