Tips for Optimizing your Photography and Workflow
The new “Tim Talks Weekly” course has been launched in conjunction of the 21st anniversary of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, and features a new episode every week in which Tim Grey provides tips, techniques, opinions, and more.
Learn all about this new course, and how you can get it for half price, on the GreyLearning website here:
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that today marks twenty years since I published the very first edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter.
To commemorate this major milestone, I have written an eBook called Behind the Answers that looks back at some of the anecdotes from over the years.
You can buy the eBook if you’d like to show your gratitude for the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, or you can get the eBook at a discount or for free if you prefer. Either way, thank you for being a reader!
You can get all the details about the eBook on the GreyLearning website here:
https://www.greylearning.com/courses/ask-tim-grey-20-years
A reader of my Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter had watched my webinar presentation where I talked about the lessons I learned while traveling around the world on an extended trip, using only a single lens for the full trip. They send an inquiry, curious about what the “histogram” distribution of lens focal length used during trip looked like.
I should hasten to point out that the single lens I used during this trip was the Tamron 18-400mm lens (https://bhpho.to/2DPkI3C) on a camera with a 1.6X cropping factor. That translates to a range of about 29mm to 640mm in 35mm (full frame) equivalent focal lengths. So I wasn’t exactly making a big compromise when it came to available focal lengths for my photography by using a single lens.
Below is a histogram chart showing the distribution of focal lengths used, but the chart is admittedly not the easiest to read because of the scale of the data. So I’ll start with some stats that help illustrate how the lens was put to use.
During the trip I captured a total of 8,342 photos with my digital SLR and single-lens combination. Of those, 2,253 (17%) were captured all the way at the maximum focal length of 400mm. Another 648 (almost 8%) were captured at the minimum focal length of 18mm. So just about one-quarter of all photos captured during my travels made use of the minimum or maximum focal length.
Beyond that the range was somewhat evenly distributed, with a bit more representation at the shorter focal length range compared to middle to long focal lengths.
The distribution is interesting to me, but in retrospect it makes sense. As much as an all-in-one lens such as the 18-400mm lens I was using provides a wide range of focal length options, very often I found myself at the limit. It seems when it comes to lens focal length, we always want either as much zoom as possible or as wide a field of view as possible.
Here’s the histogram chart, which you can click on the chart to see it in a bit more detail:
The presentation that inspired the question was on the subject of “Lessons Learned Around the World with One Lens” after an extended trip in 2019. You can view a recording of that presentation on my Tim Grey TV channel on YouTube here:
Today marks 19 years since I sent out the first Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, though it was called “Digital Darkroom Questions” back then.
That has added up to 4,307 (and counting!) editions of the email newsletter, with an answer to at least one question from a photographer in each of those emails.
I’m astounded that this email newsletter has continued for so long, and I am tremendously grateful to all of the photographers who invite me into their email inbox each weekday morning. If you’d like to help support the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, take a look at the Ask Tim Grey Membership here:
https://www.greylearning.com/courses/ask-tim-grey-membership
Also, if you’re not yet receiving the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, you can sign up here:
Today marks 18 years since I sent out the first Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter, though it went by the name “Digital Darkroom Questions” way back then.
Since that first email, I’ve been answering questions from photographers for 18 years now, which works out to a total of 4,058 editions of the newsletter, including today’s anniversary edition.
To celebrate this milestone, we’ve added a significant bonus to my “Lightroom Cleanup One-on-One” bundle. If you order this bundle today, in addition to the great content and support that is already included, you’ll also receive a one-hour call directly with me. During that call you can share your screen so I can evaluate your workflow and help you restore order to your Lightroom Classic catalog.
You can get all the details by visiting the GreyLearning website here:
https://www.greylearning.com/bundles/cleanup-one-on-one
And thank you for being an Ask Tim Grey reader!
It is hard to believe that it has been seventeen years since I clicked the “Send” button on the very first edition of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter (which at the time was called the Digital Darkroom Questions newsletter).
Since then, I’ve answered thousands of questions from photographers on a wide variety of subjects. And it doesn’t seem that I’ll be running out of questions to answer anytime soon!
To help celebrate this milestone, we’re offering two special discounts to my readers.
Lightroom Cleanup One-on-One
First, for those who have a bit of a mess they’d like to clean up in Lightroom, we are offering a discounted price on the “Lightroom Cleanup One-on-One” bundle, which features direct access to me so you can get answers to all of your Lightroom questions over the course of three months. And of course, to help you really master the use of Lightroom, this bundle also includes all of my video training courses on Lightroom Classic CC. You can get a 32% discount by using coupon code “seventeen” during checkout, or by getting started with this link:
https://www.greylearning.com/bundles/cleanup-one-on-one?coupon=seventeen
GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle
Or, if you’d like to get access to my entire library of educational content for photographers, new subscribers have the option of getting a discount on the “GreyLearning Ultimate Bundle” to celebrate the anniversary of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter. You can use coupon code “17ultimate” during checkout, or have the discount applied automatically by starting with this link:
https://www.greylearning.com/bundles/greylearning-bundle?coupon=17ultimate
A big “Thank You!” to all of the photographers who have been a part of the journey of the Ask Tim Grey eNewsletter. I look forward to getting started on my 18th year of publication!
Today’s “Ask Tim Grey” email (which you can sign up to receive here: http://timgrey.me/greylists) resulted in a great deal of feedback from readers, so I thought I would publish the full question and answer here on the GreyLearning blog. The question related to the notion of the camera’s ISO setting not really being the cause of noise in digital photos. That notion is mostly true, but requires clarification. Here is my effort at providing that clarification:
Today’s Question: I just saw an article that said raising the ISO setting does not actually increase noise in a photo, but instead shorter exposure durations cause noise. This doesn’t match what I’ve always read. What are your thoughts?
Tim’s Quick Answer: It is mostly true that raising the ISO setting isn’t the true cause of noise in a digital camera. However, it is important to keep in mind that the article in question specifically related to astrophotography. For more terrestrial forms of photography, it is still generally safe to assume that a lower ISO setting will translate to reduced noise levels.
More Detail: As I’ve said many times, noise is the opposite of information, and in the context of photography light is the information we’re dealing with. Thus, less light will translate into more noise. This is the foundation of the “expose to the right” principle, which calls for capturing photos that are as bright as possible without losing highlight detail in order to maximize detail and minimize noise.
However, this does not mean that you should use a high ISO setting to minimize noise. Quite the contrary for most photographic scenarios.
Raising the ISO setting will require that you either use a faster shutter speed or a smaller lens aperture opening in order to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor. The amplification triggered by the increased ISO setting will then compensate for the exposure.
However, raising the ISO setting really translates into (potentially dramatically) underexposing the image, and then amplifying the capture information in the camera. The underexposure is indeed the key cause of noise, but that underexposure was caused by a higher ISO setting. So the two are related.
Furthermore, this issue is more nuanced than the article suggested, because there is a big difference between underexposing with versus without an increase in ISO. If you use the exact same shutter speed and aperture settings at a low versus high ISO setting, you will see more noise (and less detail) in the capture with the low ISO setting. This is an indication that the camera is able to do a better job of brightening the image (through amplification of the signal) than our computers are able to do by simply brightening pixel values.
But again, more light will help ensure the lowest noise levels. Thus, you generally want as much light to reach the sensor in the camera as possible. That, in turn, means keeping the ISO setting at the minimum setting, so that you will use a larger lens aperture and/or a longer exposure duration to compensate. That results in more light, and therefore less noise.
So for most photographic scenarios, it still holds true with most cameras that you want to use the lowest ISO setting.
The reason a different approach to ISO makes sense with astrophotography is that you generally don’t have any flexibility when it comes to shutter speed and lens aperture. You may be shooting with the lens aperture wide open, and the shutter speed at the longest exposure duration possible without introducing star trails. If you need more signal, your only option is to increase the ISO setting. As noted above, a higher ISO setting is generally preferable to a low setting when all other factors (shutter speed and lens aperture) are fixed.