When you’re in for a new camera, or at least you believe so, which we all do all of the time, so, in case you consider options, how important is high ISO for you?
The reason why I’m asking is, that it was important for me. I bought a camera, the Olympus OM-D E-M5, that without a problem goes up to ISO 3200, or if you lower the standard only a little, even does ISO 6400 pretty well. Only - I don’t use it.
Look at this image: light in that forest was low, the subject was dark and with any reasonable shutter speed I would have been down to f2.5 and beyond ISO 1600, my default auto ISO limit. Even though that would not have been a problem at all, I decided to switch to shutter priority, 1/3 s and f5.6. Sure, the motion blur of the spinning wheel contributes greatly to the impact of the image, but this is not the point. The point is, that the impulse to use those settings was in the first place triggered by the desire to lower ISO. Stupid, huh?
The Song of the Day is “Spinning Wheel” from the self-titled 1968 Blood, Sweat & Tears album. Hear the album version on YouTube.