D7100 in low light

[norda72]

Hello!
For many years I have tried to take pictures in low light with my D7100 with no success. Noise and movement unsharpness is only what I get, even if I chose a high ISO, such as 5000 or more. Is it impossible to freeze pictures on moving people or cars in low light without flash with this model? I want to take sport with good results.

With regards
Pär Nordqvist, Sweden

[armando_m]

Freezing something depends on the speed of the subject and the speed of the shutter
the shutter speed will then depend on the aperture and ISO

maybe you can share  an example image ? and what parameters you used ?

[norda72]

In generally terms I think the DX-sensor has a lot with the problems to do. It is harder to get good pictures when the sensor is rather small. Next camera must be one with full frame. But here is a picture from town in December. I used Nikon’s 35mm/1,8 and ISO 5000. Too long shutter time anyway.

[Øivind Tøien]

For best results for night shots like the one shown above the obvious answer is to use a tripod. You can then use low ISO and get excellent dynamic range and even stop the lens down a little improve the performance. However the D7100 can easily perform handheld shots in low light. 1/60 sec with a 35mm lens should be feasible, as long as one concentrate on the landholding and are not be in a hurry. A full frame body would gain a stop or a little more with a newer sensor, but the presented capture above would still have been be a little blurry with ISO 10000, and you would not have been able to stop the motion of the car zipping by. For hand holding in low light it helps to use a wider lens though. The image below was captured with my D7100 at ISO 4000 and handheld at 1/13 s, so although I "cheated" by using a fisheye, the shutter speed in relation to focal length should be lower than in your frame above with respect to the central portion of the frame.

Turkey Deep Frying


D7100, f/3.5 @ 10.5 mm, 1/13, ISO 4000

When a tripod is not available, one can use whatever means possible to brace the camera.
Below is my modest AW1 with its 2.7x crop sensor, that still gives usable results for night shots, braced with clumps of snow as the tripod of course was busy. A full frame sensor would have required to stop the lens down much more to get adequate depth of field.


NIKON 1 AW1, f/5.6 @ 10 mm, 30s, ISO 800

[paul_k]

Hello!
For many years I have tried to take pictures in low light with my D7100 with no success. Noise and movement unsharpness is only what I get, even if I chose a high ISO, such as 5000 or more. Is it impossible to freeze pictures on moving people or cars in low light without flash with this model? I want to take sport with good results.

Isn't this a simple matter of having overly optimistic expectations?

Momentarily disregarding the high ISO capacities of the D7100 (I have one myself and have at occasions used it at ISO 6400) just look at the shutter speeds needed to 'freeze' moving people (I do so regularly shooting catwalk) or fast moving objects (in the past for a while specialized in shooting surf photography)

While when shooting a moderately fast moving/striding model during a catwalk show I may be able to get away going as low as 1/200th, even under good light, for capturing a fast moving car (or surfer in the enclosed picture) I need to go at least as fast as 1/1000
Those minimum speeds remain valid no matter whether there is enough/plenty of light or whether you're shooting in the near dark

I admittedly have never ventured seriously into 'night' photography
But from the rare occasions I did some experimenting with astro photography (actually it was at the occasion of a 'supermoon') I found that even at ISO6400 using a shutterspeed of 1/200th, let alone 1/1000 even with a f1.4 lens (the fastest lens I got, the OP unfortunately fails to mention how fast the lens is he uses) is impossible but for the well exposed parts of the image like the (in my case) moon or eg streetlights
If I would also want to get properly exposed shadow, going (much) slower (in particular when not using a fast ens, or stopping the lens down a few stops) is inevitable, as illustrated by the exif details in the images in other reactions posted

As far as the 'noise' is concerned, in my experience even the most recent DX cameras in that respect do not perform as well as their full frame counterparts
While I find the noise at ISO 6400 with my D3 and D800 more then acceptable (with my DF I can go even higher up to ISO 12800), on my D7100 I if possible prefer not to go over ISO3200, although under reasonable lighting I can get away with ISO 6400 (on condition I don't extremely under expose and don't crop too much)

While I don't own a D7200 or D500, I have at occasion downloaded high ISO NEF's of those camera's to play around with (I was very much interested in getting a D500 for shooting catwalk because of the much improved AF and DX factor, making my 2.8/70-200 a virtual 105-300mm)
While they do perform much better then my D7100, I think that at over IS0 3200 my 'workhorse' FX D3 and D800 (let alone DF) still give a superior IQ despite their age

In short, sorry IMO a D7100 (and again, I have one and am quite satisfied with it within its limitations) doesn't cut it for low light condition photography of (fast) moving subjects like cars or sports

[armando_m]

Isn't this a simple matter of having overly optimistic expectations?

....

While when shooting a moderately fast moving/striding model during a catwalk show I may be able to get away going as low as 1/200th, even under good light, for capturing a fast moving car (or surfer in the enclosed picture) I need to go at least as fast as 1/1000
Those minimum speeds remain valid no matter whether there is enough/plenty of light or whether you're shooting in the near dark

....

I tend to  agree, a FF sensor will give you better ISO performance

At night I will do exactly the opposite use long exposure times and get the car lights to draw lines in the shot

If you want to buy a FF camera you will be delighted with it, just beware that if you expect it to be able to shoot at 1/1000 with the necessary high ISO and get a decent image you will likely be disappointed

[Steven Paulsen]

You may want to do a search on a couple of my D7100 threads. What I can offer is my personal experience.

The best thing I ever did of recent was bundling a lens with my D7100 & flipping it on "That auction site." I added a couple hundred to what I received & purchased a low mileage, used D800.

With two years of fussing with my D7100 and unsatisfactory results, I almost lost a lot of faith with Nikon. The D800 gave me a "Wow Factor" much bigger than, now years ago, when I purchased & put my efforts into a D300.

The camera even seems to like old, not so great Ai & Af-D lenses. I bought a handful of high end Lexar cards & I can shoot a burst of 7-8 compressed raw files before the D800 has to take a break to write.

36MP? >>>> I do PP on a couple i7 quad notebooks which handle files like a Core 2 Duo processing, 10-12mp.

I really, really like the D800. It isn't new, modern, or state of the art, for year 2018, but neither am I.

 

[Matthew Currie]

While quite agreeing (as a D7100 owner) that this is hardly the best rig for nighttime shots, and a challenge at high ISO, I note in the originally posted picture that it's pretty bright, and the highlights are blown out. What would happen if you underexposed by a stop or even more?  The image would be darker, and potentially noisier if you had to crank it up in post processing, but a single stop under would double your shutter speed, and the difference between 1/60 and 1/125 could make a difference.  It's still slower than one might like, but every bit helps.  If you went two stops down, you'd get 1/250, which can stop a fair amount of motion, and might be worth doing even at the cost of some more noise.

It might also be worthwhile to experiment with ISO a bit more.  Is there any real advantage, for example, in using ISO 5000 over ISO 6400?  If results are substantially the same in noise, then the higher ISO would also get you a third of a stop more shutter speed, and a change that's pretty trivial in ISO gets you from 1/60 to 1/80, which might not be so trivial.  Put the two things together and your shot goes from 1/60 to 1/160 for a one stop underexposure, or 1/320 for two stops (or of course for something in between for an in-between compensation).

By the way, note to Paul K., the exif info for the original shot shows aperture at F1.8, so there's no more room there.
 

[Frank Fremerey]

@paul_k: my D3 is dead in the water compared to my D500, which is not far from my D850 in the High ISO aspect.

BUT. The settings required to achieve best ISO performance with the D500 are absolutely critical. Best performance you get switching off all Noise Reduction, set style to standard and develop the RAW in NX-D ... You can later do a further edit in other programs. If you stick to that you get customer quality sports shots of indoor soccer up to 20k ISO

[Steven Paulsen]

When I see a D7100 question, it seems to bring back a lot of time spent with the camera, in which I blow a small fuse.
My apologies.

High ISO performance is really based on the amount of available light. A camera rated at wonderful @ ISO 6400 is not going pull a wonderful pic from a totally dark closet.

When I used my D7100, it was fairly safe to enable auto ISO to 1600. When I had a lot of light, higher values were OK. Where it suffered most was a lot of multicolored noise in the shadows.

The reason for my above "cork pop," is that I put so much time into the thing, resulting with negative outcome. My D7100 was fine, good, sometimes wonderful using telephoto & macro lenses.

At 24mm & wider, there was fairly horrible IQ. Lack of detail, and an overall muddiness. My copy of the D7100 also splattered oil on the sensor & had to be wet cleaned much too often. I am hoping your camera body doesn't suffer the same traits as the one I had.

Once again, my apology.

Regards,
Steve