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Photographer taking a photo with a beautiful sky — Low light conditions with the Sony RX10iii

I was out taking photographs with my RX10iii and was wondering why my photos are still blurry even with really high shutter speeds? This got me thinking that there must be more to sharp photos than just fast shutter speeds.

When you take a photograph with a high shutter speed and you still get a blurry photograph or a photo that is not sharp, it is normally due to the ISO level being too high. It can look great on the back of your camera, but when you get it home on your computer, this is when you will see it is not very sharp.

Has this happened to you when taking photos?

I might want to photograph a nice sunrise, but the light isn’t quite there yet to shoot handheld … so I bump up my iso levels to get a good exposure. On the back of the camera, everything looks good and I go away happy, but then when I look at the photo on a computer screen, it seems a little muddy, or just a little soft …

If this has happened to you, go back to that photo and check your settings. Chances are, the IOS level was higher than normal and this is the culprit.

It is not always ISO, and I’ll get to that in a bit, but most of the time, high iso levels will give you a softer image than normal.

I shoot with both the Sony A7iv and the Sony RX10iii, the RX has a tiny sensor in it, but it can take some great photos … up to a point … the one thing I am always watching for in the rx10 is the ISO levels.

A high ISO level will give the appearance of a brighter frame with certain settings, but this will introduce noise into your image, this is a little bit like those old analog televisions where the signal wasn’t great and it gave a fuzzy picture. ANyway, back to your camera, if you shoot jpegs and not RAW files, this will then get cleaned up by the cameras onboard computer. This all sounds great as you can in theory get a good exposure at much lower levels of light, however, it will give the appearance of the shot being a little less sharp than you might expect from your camera.

In these next two photos, I took these in the middle of the night, so this is in an extremely dark location in the desert of Dubai. I was trying to photograph the milkyway with two different cameras to see the difference for myself.

Astrophotography with the A7Rii by Mike Smith — Milkyway with the Sony A7Rii - This camera has a full frame sensor - 20 seconds | f2.8 | ISO 5000

The Milkyway with the A6500 and 10-18mm Sony lens — Milkyway with the Sony A6500 - This camera has a sensor 1.5 times smaller than the A7rii - 20 seconds | f2.8 | ISO 5000

In the first photograph, there is noise, but not as much as the second photograph from the A6500. If you look at the second photo where there is the orange light on the horizon, you can see oranges, greens and red pixels in this area. This is because the camera is not quite sure what colour it actually is because of the small amount of light hitting the sensor … so it is making a best guess judgement.

Also, both of these photos were taken with the same lens, with the same settings. A 20 second exposure, at f2.8, with the ISO set to 5000.

…and on a side note, astrophotography is another genre of photography that is so much fun, so if you want to learn more about this, I have made some videos about how I capture these images above. It is pretty straight forward and can give you some great landscape photographs with a bit of a difference.

What is ISO?

Without getting too technical, ISO is basically the gain of the sensor. Imagine a certain amount of light is hitting the sensor. The cameras brains will take that data and produce an image out of it.

If there isn’t enough light hitting the sensor for it to work out what is what, in auto ISO mode, the camera will increase the voltage across the sensor, so it can amplify that signal of light … but no more light is being added, it is just trying to get the same amount of data as it would when the light is good with a poorer signal.

At a certain point, the brains of your camera will start making mistakes, and this is what noise is. This causes your photos to be less sharp than normal, and this can be hard to see on the back of the camera, but much more obvious when you look back on your photo on your computer screen.

If you want to learn about the history of ISO and why it is called that, click here.

Your Eyes work a bit like a camera

Your brain works in a similar way. If you go into a dark room, I mean a really dark room, and let your eyes adjust to the much lower levels of light … as your eyes adjust to the lower levels of light, you will find that colours are muted and your brain might try to work out what is what.

If you really analyse what you are seeing, you might even see some noise … or graininess in what you are seeing as your eyes and brain are trying to compute what is around you.

Dubai City at Sunrise by Mike Smith — Dubai Sunrise from the Creek - Canon 6D | 20 seconds | f16 | ISO 100

Dubai city behind the scene photoshoot by Mike Smith — Dubai Behind the scenes at the Creek - Sony A7sii | 1/50s | f4 | ISO6400

With these two photos of the Dubai Creek, it shows how your image can be softer with just a high ISO. I took this photo with the A7sii with a 16mm lens so 1/50 second should be fine for getting a sharp photo. At f4, again, this should be ok … but the photograph is soft, and this comes down to the ISO. If you know a lot about photography, you might recognise the noise in the photo frame, but to a beginner or someone who knows nothing about photography, this might be described as a soft photo or a photo that is out of focus.

Sensor Size

With full frame cameras, you can get away with higher ISOs compared to cameras with smaller sensors.

This is because of the amount of light the physical area of the sensor can soak up. If you have a full frame camera compared to the sensor in something like the RX10iii from Sony, the RX10 sensor is about 10 times smaller, so it will soak up 10 times less light than a full frame camera. It is still a great camera and can take some amazing images, but it is something you need to consider if you do have a smaller sensor camera.

When you are taking photos with a camera with a small sensor. You might want to consider changing your other two settings, the aperture or f number and the shutter speed.

The other thing to consider is that if you compare two different photos from a full frame camera, the one with the lower ISO level, will appear a little sharper, like in the two examples I have shown you above.

Aperture

When you open up your aperture by dropping your f number, you will let more light into your camera, as it is letting more light in through a bigger hole. In low light conditions, this is preferable than raising your ISO as you will still get a better photo with a big aperture and a low ISO level.

Shutter Speed

If you drop your shutter speed, this will also let more light in to your camera as that sensor will be exposed to light for longer. Again, as the light drops, this will be preferable compared with raising your iso as you are letting more light into your camera, giving it more data to work with to build your photo.

The issue with shutter speed comes when it drops low enough to blur the image with the movement of your hands, when shooting handheld, or maybe a bit of blur form the wind vibrating your tripod if your camera is on a tripod.

Conclusion

If you have a camera with a relatively small sensor, something like a 1” sensor or smaller, it is pertinent to keep your iso low. Even with a camera like the GH5 from panasonic, this will give quite “blurry” images when processed due to the noise created with the smaller sensor.

With my Sony RX10iii, I will start with a low ISO and then build my settings up from there. If I am shooting with a wider aperture than I might want, I am ok with that if it gives me a usable image. If I have to lower my shutter speed and get the camera on a tripod, this is also ok as long as my subject isn’t moving too fast for the shutter speed I have chosen.

So take a minute to look at your settings for the conditions you have.

Can you drop the shutter speed and still get a clean image?
Can you open up the aperture?
Can you put the camera on a tripod?
Is there enough light for you to take photos with the camera you have?

Sometimes it just gets too dark to take good photos, and if you still want to get some photos, this is when you can raise your iso, but if you want clean images or nothing, then that might be the time to pack away your camera and come back when there is more light.

Photography is one of those hobbies that can be frustrating, infuriating and down right annoying, but when you do get a great photograph … that’s what makes it all worthwhile … and the only way to learn this is to keep going out and keep learning. The more experience you have behind your camera, the more you will get to know how it works, what you can do with it and what it’s limitations are.

If you want to see me out taking photos with my RX10iii, check out this video below where I take you on-location to the Malvern Hills. Take a note of what settings I am using and how I shoot with those settings.

Using my Sony RX10iii for a sunrise photoshoot.

This post was inspired by Aaron, one of my subscribers on youtube who is a microbiologist by day and a keen photographer by night (and at weekends). Thanks for the inspiration Aaron! Keep going out with your camera and you will get better!!

If you’d like to learn about what kit you need for landscape photography, click here