Okay, after the somewhat disappointing results with the Natural Light mode, Sophie was in almost the same spot with similar conditions today, so I tried taking another couple of pictures in the basic automatic mode, but locking the flash off and limiting the maximum ISO to 400 – something you can’t do in the natural light mode.
First off – Sophie isn’t in quite the same spot as before. She is demonstrating the universal truth, in this house at least, which is that if you leave some item of clothing – especially if it is black – lying around, it will almost inevitably get slept on…
Anyway, first thing to note is that there is a lot less noise – there is still some, but it’s not nearly as noticeable as in the previous shot. Having said that, the two pictures from today, especially the second one are significantly darker – although I’d say that the pictures more accurately reflect the light levels than the shot yesterday which I thought was too light. These two get the light and dark more effectively. Still not much clarity when you zoom right in, but definitely better pictures than yesterday.
Okay, I know it’s totally predictable – one of the first pictures I take with any new camera is one of Sophie…
Having said that, she is actually quite a good test as with the multitude of different colours in her coat it usually shows up pretty quickly any issues. This time the picture is of Sophie asleep on our bed, taken using the natural light mode of the camera, and with very little of that. Although the image stabiliser is on, the other thing the camera has done is bumped the ISO setting up to 1600, which pretty well immediately shows up one of the issues with the camera, and one of the main criticisms I’ve seen of it – the noise you get in high ISO images.
It doesn’t look too bad at the size on this page, but if you take a look at the original size you can clearly see how noisy the image actually is. It is something that can be cleaned up with a bit of work in Photoshop, especially with specialist plug-ins like Neat Image, and also being aware of it you can configure the camera accordingly – it’s just going to be snapshots like this one where it comes up. As with any camera, it’s all a question of getting used to it’s particular peculiarities, strengths and weaknesses.
Thoughts from, and the lives of a Canadian and a Brit living in the UK.
