12800 ISO
It’s getting up there, for sure. But sometimes it has to happen. When you don’t have the light but need the shot, you do what you have to just make it happen.
“Oh but you’re not on Full-Frame, it will be terrible!”
“Only Sony cameras can do that!” etc…
Lets see then, yeah?
Last week was a Premier-grade hockey game under lights, right after my demi-human’s game. So we hung around to watch, and I made a few images specifically to test the high-ISO performance of my Fujifilm X-H1 with zero pressure, as this was just for me (and the team if any came out good enough to send to them).
I started at 10000 ISO but had to push to to 12800 to maintain 1/1000 shutter speed while still having a reasonable exposure, which is the minimum I wanted for reasonably crisp action shots. The ball and hockey stick still blurs, but I can deal with that. Things like faces and moving limbs are still pretty good usually. Oh and by “reasonable exposure” I mean I don’t have to drag the shadows or exposure up in post, as that introduces even more noise.
I’m using an XF50-140, and don’t have a tele-converter. It sat at f/2.8 all night, of course. Ideally an XF200mm f/2 (and it’s 1.4x converter) on a second body would be an amazing addition for this stuff, but alas club level sport does not justify that expense. An XF100-400mm is still on the cards for a future purchase though.
Anyway, here are some images from the game, lightly tweaked raws to my settings and exported for web viewing.
You be the judge.
Not terrible, right? Even blown up larger I’d have no problem printing at A3. It’s all about expectations.
#Fujifilm #Photography #HighISO #Hockey
Post images and content © Nigel Swan unless stated otherwise
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