High ISO Low Light Photography

One of the biggest advancements in digital photography over the past 3-4 years has been the ability to shoot without flash in low light conditions. If you are new to photography and are mostly playing around with your aperture and shutter settings, that is great, but don't forget about the ISO settings. ISO refers to light sensitivity. The higher the number you set you ISO, effectively the more light the sensor can pick up. 8-10 years ago the best you could get away with was a setting of 1600 ISO. At that point and beyond, if available, images would start to break down with noise. Even 800 ISO was pushing it back then. Today those numbers are at 6400, and even 12,800; and on some cameras the number goes up beyond 100,000. In layman terms, this means that it can be dusk outside, or low light inside, and you can still get a decent hand held shot. But despite the great improvements with ISO and sensors, you still need to be careful with how you take high ISO images. Noise is still an issue, especially if you do not expose correctly. So below I offer some advice on high ISO images.

1. Regardless of your situation, just because you have high ISO capability on your camera, you should always lean toward the lowest ISO possible to still get the image. Lower ISO gives you better color and less noise, higher ISO gives you less color and more noise. So don't crank up your ISO just because your camera has it. Always default first to maximizing your aperture and shutter speeds to get the most light, then use the ISO to give you more latitude if you need it.

2. Proper exposure is imperative. If anything, you should compensate a bit toward over exposing your image. If you underexpose your image and then try to correct it in your favorite image editing software, you will end up with quite a lot of noise. Over exposing of course risks blowing out highlights, so you have to be careful there too, but I would rather error on that side than with underexposing the image.

3. Take multiple images at different exposures so you have choices afterwards.

4. Shoot raw, if your camera has it. Raw files give you a lot more latitude in correcting your images.

5. Use noise reduction software. Even though noise is not as bad as it used to be at lower ISO, it is still a problem as you reach your camera's ISO limitations. Noise reduction software can do a pretty good job of reducing that noise. You have to be careful with this software though because it can soften an image.

The image here was taken at 6400 in a very low lit church. I added some noise reduction to it. This shot would have been much harder to obtain 10 years ago, and even harder back in the film days when ISO film pretty much only went up to 1600. Click to enlarge.

Does Barack Obama Know Anything?

I find it absolutely amazing how little Barack Obama knows, especially considering that he sells himself as a person who knows everything. Some examples:

1. He did not know, after attending Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years, that his pastor delivered radical anti-American sermons,
2. he did not know about the Fast and Furious program,
3. he did not know about the security shortcomings of our Benghazi consulate,
4. he did not know that the 9-11-12 assault on Benghazi was a terrorist attack (he did seem to know that the attack was the result of a two bit video, which was never the truth),
5. he did not know about the NSA spying on foreign leaders,
6. he did not know about the pending failure of the ACA website . .

and the list can go on and on. Stunning. Either this is a president who is so protected that he has been left oblivious to reality, or on his own accord he has detached himself from any responsibility, or he just does not care about such details, or in reality he knew about all of these things and is just lying about it. Which option makes him look good? Pretty obvious:  none of the above.

This is a president who is unable to accept responsibility for anything, unless it makes him look good. He stands back, waits for a crisis of his own doing (or lack of doing) to stir up, then he stirs it up more by lambasting Republicans for their alleged part in creating the crisis, all the while positioning himself above it all, and then he accepts credit when the crisis is averted, even though he had nothing to do with the solution and everything to do with creating the crisis in the first place. Syria is a good example. Health care is another.

When a person does not accept responsibility for their own mistakes, that is a person you should not trust. Period.

Football, Parity, Wealth & Equality

A number of years ago the National Football League (NFL) imposed several reforms in order to create parity throughout the league. They wanted to prevent dynasties and give smaller markets/franchises the ability to compete with the larger ones. So through the draft system and salary caps, teams were essentially given an equal chance to do well. Today, some franchises remain perennial winners, largely because of good management and coaching, and great personnel choices. Other franchises continually struggle. So despite that best of plans to create equality and fairness, some succeed and others fail. That is because in football there are all kinds of intangibles:  key players get injured, team chemistry falls apart, key players have awful years, there are bad calls by refs or one turnover that ends up changing the outcome of a game; or the exact opposite happens and a team has a once every other decade kind of season. That is football.

I like that a team such as the Kansas City Chiefs, who was 2-14 last year, can bring in a new quarterback and a new coach, and start this season 7-0. I like that a team has the chance to go undefeated for the season. I like that there are teams that end the season 15-1, or 13-3. This demonstrates greatness, even if it is for just one season. What I don't want to see is an entire league where all teams go 8-8 . . a sign of mediocrity (in my mind). Sure, everyone is seemingly equal and has a chance to advance to the playoffs, but where is the greatness in that? Do we look back twenty years ago to an 8-8 team and speak of how great a team that was?

I think this speaks to our society and how people view wealth. You know how it is, people without wealth envy those who do have wealth. A number of social scientists/politicians believe it is wrong that some people have and some don't have, and that the best way to fix that is to take from those who have and give it to those who do not have. Equality, after all, requires that. But a person's stage in life, and their wealth, changes constantly. How many stories have you heard of someone who had a dream, started a company or created a product that a lot of people wanted, and that person seemingly overnight became wealthy. Likewise, how many people have you heard of who had a lot, but then the market changed, and the product they created was no longer desirable, and that person ended up losing much of the wealth they had created. It would not surprise me if the Chiefs finish this season 14-2, and then next year go back to a 7-9 season. The fortune of teams, and people, can go up, and then it can go down, and then it can go up again.

I like that a person such as Bill Gates or Henry Ford can make billions of dollars. We all gain when that happens. The fact that Gates or Ford or Winfrey or some musician can make millions/billions does not mean that I have to make less because they are taking up all the money that is out there. They did not become wealthy at my expense. In fact, their wealth has made a lot of other people wealthy. Just ask the employees at Microsoft. I benefit by using Apple products, so if the people at Apple are making billions, good for them. I hope they keep it up so I can continue to enjoy their products.

Some people though want a society where everyone is 8-8. In their minds, that is equality, and that is when everyone will experience happiness in their lives. Happiness comes from mediocrity, at least that is what they seem to believe. I believe in the importance of government, but I do not believe in the greatness of government. Government is good at producing mediocrity. Outside of our military, what exactly does our federal government excel at? Education? Health care? Financial competence? At best, our federal government is only capable of producing an 8-8 season. . year after year. It is a perennial loser. So why does half the country continue to put so much trust and so much confidence in government? What do they see, or what is it that they want that I do not see and that I do not want? Are they after an 8-8 country? Is that the attraction of socialized medicine or excessively taxing the wealthy? I would hope for more. I like it when people experience greatness on their own accord. That is the greatness of America. Let's pray that does not become something of the past.