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The TL;DR is a little surprising: First, try to maximize the number of photons collected, by using the largest aperture and slowest shutter that shooting condi
by ScottBurson 13y ago
The TL;DR is a little surprising:
First, try to maximize the number of photons collected, by using the largest aperture and slowest shutter that shooting conditions permit. (This isn't the surprising part.)
In photon-rich conditions, sensitivity ("ISO") doesn't matter much. In photon-poor conditions, however -- perhaps you want a small aperture to expand depth-of-field, or a fast shutter to freeze motion -- you get the best noise performance by using the highest sensitivity that doesn't saturate highlights. (This is the surprising part.)
Oh, and there's no point to 14-bit raw formats -- quantization noise at 12 bits is already less than noise from other sources.
- aaronbrethorst 13y agoWidest aperture is tricky. Most lenses are soft until you stop down a couple times. And with regard to highlights, that sounds like sort of a modern day restatement of Ansel Adams' classic "expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights." You never want to blow your highlights since you can't recover detail from them.
- judk 13y agoHow is that possible? If you expose for shadows, you will blow out highlights before you develop.
- devindotcom 13y agoNot with Ansel Adams' setup! Shooting straight to JPEG will do that, though.
- platz 13y agoyep, negatives have a "shoulder" at the top of the exposure curve which might be poor quality, but there is still information there. Coversely, extreme underexposure means there is basically no information on the negative[
- ScottBurson 13y agoWell, yes. He was just talking about noise performance in the digitization process; he didn't discuss lenses at all.