I took this image recently, in a dimly lit bar, decided to
use the pop up flash on my Canon 7D, (something not available on full frame, or
the latest wonder of wonders mirrorless) and its pretty good…for a pop up
flash. It got me thinking about shooting in low light and using
high ISO, I hear photographers, and see online lots of chatter praising certain
cameras high ISO performance…great for certain genres of photography. As a
stills photographer mainly doing street/social documentary 99% of my images are
taken in daylight. And I suspect most photographers who rave on about high ISO
performance mostly shoot in good light anyway. The second image below, my old Mother on her tablet. Taken with a Sigma standard zoom lens at
f2.8, ISO 800, I just used rudimentary noise control tools in lightroom, and it looks pretty okay to me, acceptable. I
suppose I could always get the latest edition of lightroom with the dedicated
denoise tab, or I could get one of the dedicated low noise plug ins. Tripods
are also available, anyone remember those. 😆
The point I am making is all this chatter about high ISO performance is pretty irrelevant in the real world, definitely for me it is. Why would I want to spend a small fortune on a full frame DSLR, or mirrorless just for something I hardly use, to solve a problem I and most other photographers don’t really have! Obviously I appreciate people buy various systems for varied reasons but I’m just talking about low light photography here. If money was no issue I probably wouldn’t be making these blog posts on equipment? Maybe I would just be spending lots of money on equipment that the camera sellers, advertisers and the internet chattering classes tell me that I need?
I don’t want to sound like I am against new technology, but new technology is not always better IMO. I prefer the look and feel, handling of a DSLR with an optical 100% viewfinder, and that pop up flash on my ancient 7D often comes in very useful, even in daylight. I also use a Lumix LX100 compact camera if I want to travel light and fast, it’s a very capable camera too, and no slouch in low light with its f1.7 Leica lens.
