I'm an amateur photographer looking to improve my skills and I'm struggling in low light situations. I recently took some photos of my friends using a Canon 7D (the oldest model) and an EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM with the settings of:
ISO250 at 100mm f/4.5 and 1/125 sec. The picture shows up with a TON of grain and I'm confused. The ISO isn't that high at all. I bumped up the exposure by +2 in Lightroom just to show how much grain is in the photo:
Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Best,
CJ
@cjcampbellphoto wrote:I've heard differing schools of thought. I've heard that under exposing slightly is ok because you can bump up in the exposure, but I've also heard that overexposing and bringing down the exposure is better, as it results in less grain. What are your thoughts on that?
Assuming the camera is not being fooled by a wide DR scene, for me setting AEC sometimes depends upon where the ISO will be for a "correct" exposure, I am not going to ETTL when ISO is at 25600.
I like to shoot in M mode with ISO set to Auto, which means any AEC will raise or lower the ISO. If the ISO is going to be super high, then I add negative compensation to keep ISO from introducing a lot of noise. When ISO Is going to fall within a more normal range, 100-1000, then I may dial in positive compensation to capture more details in shadows.
Also, my Sekonic light meter tells me that my camera tends to typically overexposed by 1/3 of a stop, so I have been conducting an experiment. I have been using -1/3 Ev as my normal setting for shooting most of the year, just to see what images look like. The images do have a slightly different look, most especially images with a lot of bokeh.
Subjects tend to really stand out from the background, and contrast seems a little higher. Images also seem to look a little under exposed, which the histogram usually confirms. My eyes like it when I add 1/2 stop of exposure in post. The first photo is without any exposure added. I had forgotten to add it in. The second photo has +1/2 stop of exposure. The experiment continues.
"ETTL is a flash feature - OP never indicated he was using flash."
ETTL = Expose To The Left.
I had really meant to say ETTR, Expose To The Right.
It is a description of how the histogram may look for a photo.
Look at the top left corner.
