The Question Nobody Could Answer: Why Do You Need to Set a Low ISO in Blasting Highlights Situations?

What’s Up?

I am somewhere in South America. I hope that you are well. Jim and Jen are at the office most days to help you with your mail order needs and Instructional Photo-Tour sign-ups. I still need folks for San Diego, Japan, Galapagos, the Palouse, and the Bear Boat (Grizzly Cubs) trips. Among others 🙂 Please e-mail for couples and discount info for all of the above. Click here for complete IPT info.

I will have some internet access for all but 22 OCT thru 11 NOV while I am on the Sea Spirit. Best and great picture making, artie

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending IPTs and dozens of the folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

The Streak: 341!

Today’s blog post marks a totally insane, irrational, illogical, preposterous, absurd, completely ridiculous, unfathomable, silly, incomprehensible, what’s wrong with this guy?, makes-no-sense, 341 days in a row with a new educational blog post. There should be no end in sight until my big South America trip next fall. Or not… As always-–and folks have been doing a really great job recently–-please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. And please remember also that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the new BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) we would appreciate your business.

This image was on the 2011 Galapagos Photo-Cruise of a Lifetime with the Induro GIT 304/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens and the 1D Mark IV (now replaced by the rugged, blazingly fast Canon EOS-1D X Mark II.) ISO 200. Evaluative metering -2 2/3 stops: 1/5000 sec. at f/13. WB 8,000K. Center AF point (by necessity)/AI Servo Expand/Rear Focus AF on the iguana’s face and recompose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Marine Iguana/blasting highlights

The 800mm f/5.6L IS USM Lens

The 800mm f/5.6L IS lens is still in production, and it is still a great piece of ass. I mean glass.

My Comments

One of the keys to success of blasting highlights images is to avoid having the head of the subject set against black or very dark portions of the background. I did that with success with today’s featured image above and with the two images from a previous blog post below.

As always, folks are referred to the section on Creating 11 a.m. Silhouettes in The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only) to learn my suggested exposure compensation settings for true blasting highlights situations like the one above… Above note the relatively low ISO of 200, the high shutter speed or 1/5000 sec., the relatively small aperture of f/13, and the large degree of underexposure needed to keep from totally blowing out the specular highlights…

This image was created on the 2015 Fort DeSoto IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the 1.4X TC engaged at 513mm) and the best-ever digital camera body value, the Canon EOS 7D Mark II. ISO 100. Evaluative metering at zero: 1/400 sec. at f/11 in Tv mode. AWB. 65-point (Automatic selection)/AI Servo Surround/Rear Focus AF on the gull’s bill and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Image #1: Laughing Gull silhouette at f/11

Images Question

Why ISO 100?

Nobody Had a Clue…

Though many folks left a variety of answers to the Why ISO 100 question? in the (Not So) Blasting Highlights Intensity and Aperture Lessons… More Proof That the 7D Mark II Does Not Suck blog post here, nobody had a clue as to why I was at ISO 100 for the two featured images, despite my having directed them to the information:

(Not So) Blasting Highlights Intensity Lesson

Again, note that in The Art of Bird Photography II (ABP II: 916 pages, 900+ images on CD only) in the section on Creating 11 a.m. Silhouettes I detail the suggested exposure compensation settings for true blasting highlights situations. The backlight in the two images from the old blog post were both somewhat muted; this allowed me to work with much less negative ECs and at wider than typical apertures than I would in true blasting highlights situations. Compare this situation with the situation on the Galapagos above…

The Answer

Whenever I am faced with a blasting highlights situation, i.e., when I am shooting directly into the sun and into the specular highlights of said sun off the surface of the water, the first thing that I do is to lower the ISO. Why? Setting a lower than normal ISO will allow you to avoid the really small apertures the might lead to problems. And if you prefer a smoother rather than a more detailed look at the aforementioned specular highlights, it is often mandatory to choose a low ISO so that you can work close to the wide open aperture. Note the shutter speed (1/5000 sec.) and the aperture (f/13) in today’s featured image despite the relatively low ISO (200).

This image was of course also created on the 2015 Fort DeSoto IPT with the Induro GIT 304L/Mongoose M3.6-mounted Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Lens with Internal 1.4x Extender (with the 1.4X TC engaged at 519mm) and the best-ever digital camera body value, the Canon EOS 7D Mark II. ISO 100. Evaluative metering -1/3 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/5.6 in Tv mode. AWB. 65-point (Automatic selection)/AI Servo/Rear Focus AF on the gull’s bill and re-compose. Click here to see the latest version of the Rear Focus Tutorial. Image #2: Laughing Gull silhouette at f/5.6

(Not So) Blasting Highlights Aperture Lesson

By comparing today’s featured images you can see that with the smaller aperture in Image #1, f/11, that the specular highlights are much more sharply defined than the specular highlights in Image #2 that was created wide open at f/5.6. With higher ISOs it is not unusual to wind up at f/22 or f/32 in true blasting highlights situations.

Which look do you like better? Why?

My Preference…

Folks were–pretty much as I expected–about evenly divided on this question. I prefer the second of the two images, the one with the smoother background and the softer look of the specular highlights. But not by a wide margin. Note again that I higher ISO would have resulted in smaller apertures across the board which would have in turn left the specular highlights more sharply defined…

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Typos

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