ISO on the street

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

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Gary Winogrand, one of the really good "street" photographers often used to push 400 ISO film to 1200 even though he was shooting outdoors in relatively good light. Why? It's not just to get a helpful depth-of-field, it's also to get that high shutter speed that negates the shake you get when you shoot quickly, raising the camera up to the eye and down, and the motion blur you get shooting quick moving subjects up close.

Of course, high ISO's are no problem with modern digital cameras. I often find myself shooting at 1600 in daylight, something I would never do a few years back and often do when I'm street shooting today.

I wondered what ISO you use on the street. After all, we want quality. And we've long associated quality with a low ISO. Is that true today?
 
I tend to use 400 ISO film now, whereas I used to use ISO 100 or even 50 for the "quality". In reality, for me, ISO 400 film quality is easily enough, particularly in medium format.

I like the flexibility of the faster film, and as I tend not to use a meter, it helps me err on the side of over exposure, which Ilford XP2, Portra 400, or Fujifilm 400H handles easily.

I don't shoot moving things generally, but I do like to keep shutter speed above 1/60 if I can.
 
Mostly 200-400.

I'd question how often Winogrand really shot at 1600. His pictures (except maybe for some really early ones) just don't look like they were pushed much.
 
To me, this is the best thing about digital cameras: variable ISO. I generally use Auto-ISO and let the camera figure out the ISO for me while I worry about shutter speed and aperture. Since the X100 (my digital camera) can shoot clean 3200, it's never a problem. Then I don't have to worry about shade, sunlight, inside, outside...very helpful and speeds things up. When I'm shooting film I generally shoot 400, but push to 800 frequently and to 1600 occasionally if I need it. I have stopped buying film slower than 400 anymore, since the grain isn't that big of an issue and slower films, for my use, are less versatile.
 
When zone focusing, I generally set my exposure to f/8, 1/500, ISO 400, which is good for summer midday light here in Toronto. Gives good latitude with shutter speed (1/125 is about as low as I want to go for street), and ISO 400 is super clean on the X-Pro1.

I'll only go up on ISO when I've run out of other options. But I'm not averse to ISO 6400 on the X-Pro1.
 
Since I'm still using film then it is 400 for all applications. I do have some ISO 50 but the finer quality is more than just slower film. I tend to use it on a tripod with static, set up shots, focusing carefully, thinking about how much DOF I have/want, and so on. The 400 is for hand held photography. If I really need to then I push the film a stop but that is not often. If the light is that low I usually stop shooting.
 
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In bright daylight I use 400 or even 800. I never exceed 1600 as this is my cameras' (X100, XP-1) highest native ISO. If ISO 1600 means the shutter speed is too slow I just under expose and push exposure during raw rendering. I can push two stops without consequences. For B&W 1600 would enable high shutter speeds indoors with a one stop rendering exposure push.

I try not to exceed f 8.

Another advantage of high ISO with the X100 is fill flash works well because the leaf shutter has a high sync speed. You can open the aperture and take advantage of the strobe light while suppressing the ambient with the shutter.
 
*clean* 1600? No thanks.
TMZ3200 shot @ 1600 with a yellow filter @ high noon...now you're talking.
So 1/1000 is the highest this thing will go?
Otherwise, 400 speed film during daylight works, kinda.
 
Bill Pierce said:
Gary Winogrand, one of the really good "street" photographers often used to push 400 ISO film to 1200 even though he was shooting outdoors in relatively good light. Why? It's not just to get a helpful depth-of-field, it's also to get that high shutter speed that negates the shake you get when you shoot quickly, raising the camera up to the eye and down, and the motion blur you get shooting quick moving subjects up close.

Of course, high ISO's are no problem with modern digital cameras. I often find myself shooting at 1600 in daylight, something I would never do a few years back and often do when I'm street shooting today.

I wondered what ISO you use on the street. After all, we want quality. And we've long associated quality with a low ISO. Is that true today?
Click to expand...


Hi, i was wondering just the same but in a more naive way....great fact on the use of high iso....i never tried myself going to try such high sesitivity, so i´ll use it right now!

When using the m9 i go for suto iso up to 640, with film depends, clour up to 160 iso and b/W up to 400...

But i guess this will change since your info!

thanks!
 
During the day on the street I shoot virtually nothing but 100 ISO colour slide (Provia ,Sensia, Velvia, Ektachrome, Agfa RSX 100, 3M 100, and whatever else is sitting in the 100 ISO box in the freezer), although as my stock of 100 gets depleted, I'll start using the mountains of Fuji ISO 50 stocks that I've also been given by my now-digital photobuds.
Using 100 ISO in bright sun, 5.6 @ 1/1000th (or a one or two stop faster equivalent depending on the camera body) works well, and in open shade 5.6 or f4 @ 1/125th (or again a stop or two faster equivalent depending on lens speed) usually does the job.
 
Even slight noise in the image today makes people think the shot was taken with a camera phone, because its automatically assumed that no decent modern digital camera has noise at up to ISO 400.

I stick to ISO 100-200.
 
boomguy57 said:
To me, this is the best thing about digital cameras: variable ISO. I generally use Auto-ISO and let the camera figure out the ISO for me while I worry about shutter speed and aperture.
Click to expand...

Another +1 from me.

Not all noise is bad, anyway.

That said, I'm adding a new camera to my kit which probably will replace my current go-everywhere camera, and I'm specifically choosing the camera to get better detail and noise performance at higher ISO sensitivity. What I shoot now starts to lose detail, get mushy, and gain noise progressively and certainly not in a linear fashion once I let the camera wander above base ISO. I've held off updating for a couple of generations of tech but now with newer sensors with much better performance leading ultimately to more capability and versatility - what's not to like, except for the cost of acquisition of course.

Content, not noise or grain, is what I care about most when using this camera. When clarity is important and technique and circumstance allows, dialling back to base ISO is simple enough to do.
 
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