One of benefits of digital photography is that the technology behind it is always moving forward. Much faster than the technology behind film emulsions ever was. In the area of sensors this is particularly true and it means that as image makers (both of photographs and video) we get tools that are more and more powerful with each passing year. Not that it's all about the technology (at least not yet buy Artificial Intelligence will be a real game-changer; we just don't precisely how) - you still need some skills to create great images.
However, improvements in sensor technology over the years have brought us the ability to create images in really very low-light. In fact, in what appears to us as almost total darkness, the best of digital cameras can capture enough light to reveal details that we didn't see at the time.
Cameras as a whole have seen great strides in this area but some more than others. The Sony A7 series has earned itself many a plaudit for it's low light performance. Other brands are also pushing the boundaries ever further. My own experience is that what is now possible is something that just a few years ago seemed impossible. It wasn't that long ago that you wouldn't want to shoot anything that required an ISO of greater than 800. Now its expected that digital cameras should exhibit little if any noise at ISO 1600.
If you look at some of the pro cameras from each of the main brands and examine their recommended ISO ranges you will find the following:
- Canon EOS 6D Mark II: ISO 100-40,000 (expandable to 102,400);
- Nikon D850: ISO 64-25600 (expands to 32-102400);
- Sony a7R Mark III: ISO 100-32000 (expands to 50-102400);
- Olympus OM-D E-M1: ISO 200-25600 (expands down to 64);
- Panasonic GH5S: ISO 160 - 51,200 (80 - 204,800 extended);
- Fuji X-H1: ISO 200-12800 (expands to 100-51200);
- Pentax K-1: ISO 100-204800.
This shows that cameras today are much more capable than their predecessors when it comes to low light images. The upper limits of these figures mean that what appears as virtually pitch dark to the naked eye can still be captured, albeit it with a very high ISO setting and the presence of image noise.
The real question is how usable are these settings and is the image noise something we can manage sufficiently so that it doesn't degrade the final image significantly? Well, I am not fortunate enough to have access to any of these cameras to field test them but there are many sites online that you can read in-depth reviews on each of them, including tests of their low light performance and how they deal with image noise.
I do, however, own a Fujifilm X-T2 and so it was that I decided to try some low-light photography. Normally, the only low light photography is get close to is after the sun has set but whilst there is still some light in the sky. This would be the first time I had tried taking images well after sunset in the dark.
A friend of mine has just purchased a Canon D750 so we agreed to meet up and decided that he lives in Ipswich and I live in Colchester, that we would try and get some images of Felixstowe Container Port and Harwich International Port at night. Checking Google maps we choose Shotley Marina as a good starting place. Thought it was overcast and raining we didn't really mind as we wanted to get shots of the lights reflected in the water. We hoped that we would manage to get some shots of a container ship and a ferry.
On arrival we decided that we would eat first and so had a meal at the Shipwreck Pub, Bar & Restaurant, located at the marina. I can heartily recommend the service the ambience and the quality of the food if you ever find yourself there.
Once we had set up our cameras on their tripods we started taking images. I was using my Fuji X-T2 with FUJINON LENS XF50-140mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR and the FUJINON TELECONVERTER XF1.4X TC WR.
Here is an image without any editing other than exporting from Luminar 2018 as a jpeg (I shot in RAW).
As you can see there are some issues with the image. Both colour and luminance noise is visible in both the shadows and the sky, the horizon is not quite level and the highlights are somewhat blown.
I then played around with the original RAW file in Luminar 2018. Here are some screenshots:
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| RAW Develop and DeNoise in Luminar 2018 |
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| Levelling and cropping in Luminar 2018 |
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| After DeNoise applied |
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| Before DeNoise applied in Luminar 2018 |
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| Sharpening applied in Luminar 2018 |
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| Before sharpening applied in Luminar 2018 |
Here is the resulting image:
I am not saying this is a great image, though I do like it and feel it is a nice image, especially considering that the actual scene was very dark to the naked eye, due in no part to how our eyes and brain work together when looking at this type of image.
However, when you consider that I shot at ISO 12,800 I think you will agree that on the whole the noise is reigned in sufficiently for it to be a perfe to ectly usable image. I would love to print this out at A3 but sadly, I don't have a printer capable of producing quality prints at that size.
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