I don't always us Manual Mode But when I Do I'm usually photographing things with sudden movement potential and I want total control of both the Aperture and Shutter speed. Also I'm usually using Auto ISO for most of my photography since my camera tops out at 6400 in auto ISO which is the native hi ISO. I can manually set my ISO as high as 25600.
The Auto ISO settings on my camera have a "Auto" setting for Shutter Speed, S/S, and I have been unable to learn what "Auto" really means.
To day we were at the Kentucky Train Museum in New Haven. The museum has a nice model train setting and I decided to try a few pictures. I did not bring a flash attachment and my camera does not have a popup flash. So it was native light.
I choose these settings; f/8.0, Aperture Priority and Auto ISO. The photos of stationary items had ISO of 6400 and S/S as low as 1/4 second. The stabilization did a fantastic job but at below of about 1/20s there is motion blur.
Since there are models running I thought I would try to capture a couple. That meant I needed a faster S/S. ISO to the rescue. I went to the top 25600. But the noise the noise. Yep but deal with it. I wanted the shot. Get the shot, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead".
After a couple of test shots I set the focal length to 56mm. In Aperture of f/8.0 the shutter speed was 1/60s. Good but not great. I used Lighroom Classic to set the exposure to where I was satisfied. Then in to Topaz to clean up the noise and sharpness.
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| f/8.0, 1/60s, ISO 25600, 56mm focal length |
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| Topaz DeNoise AI + Sharpen AI |
After review I found that the Aperture of f/8.0 was soft on the top and bottom edges. The focus point was in the middle of the frame. Using PhotoPills DoF pill showed that I estimate the DoF with my lens settings to be 2 feet or less. If I had used f/16.0 the S/S would have been 1/30s to maintain the same exposure.
Yes it is still noisy and soft but I got the shot.
