A geek and his camera: 'The Dark Knight' ... High ISO test with the Nikon D4

Saturday, 21 September 2013

'The Dark Knight' ... High ISO test with the Nikon D4

My girlfriend's dad, Mark, is in a band called 'Mervyn and the Starbeats'. It's a four piece outfit based in North Norfolk, playing a variety of golden oldies at numerous venues across the County. I went along to one of their latest gigs the other night to have a listen and take a few images if I could. The band was fantastic, playing for around two hours with many people getting up and having a good old dance. I took along with me my Nikon D4 and various lenses. When I arrived I was told that I could take images but only from the back of the room, a good 80 feet away from the band. It made shooting the band members incredibly tricky, photographing across the length of the room, past many people in very poor light, possibly the darkest I've ever tried to shoot in. I had to use a longer lens than I would have liked so out came the Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8. I had to shoot wide open and crank the ISO up to 12800 to achieve a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. Occasionaly a small light would catch one of the band members face and I would take a shot, the speed of the camera and lens to lock focus was superb and I managed to capture many keepers. When back in front of the computer, I was simply amazed at how well the camera had managed to capture as much detail as it had. The noise that was exhibited looked like a fine film grain and great detail was retained, all from a distance of 80 or so feet. No wonder the camera has the nickname 'The Dark Knight'.