Playing With Light.

[Trader]

We had some fun with light painting last night during a shoot. Five of us set up this shot. These were my camera settings: 30 seconds shutter speed, f/22.0, ISO 800, and White Balance set to 2700 Kelvin. This was taken in a train station next to the park in Winter Park. During the exposure, four people dressed in dark clothing were moving about in and out of the image. One person fired their flash twice under the bench. Another person flashed the model about six times. Another person, using a Strobe behind a purple gel, luminated the scene giving that blue cast. The star burst in the background are a result of tungsten street lights. In post I cropped out a bunch of flash bursts (camera left) and I did a 2 pixel blur adjustment. That was all. I think it is a real cool effect.

[Quazology]

that is really cool. I admire your imagination and creativity. thanks for sharing

[Murtada]

nice try , I would only comment on the high ISO
if you played with the aperture little bet and kept the ISO less than 400 you would get rid of the high iso effect

cheers

[Trader]

Originally Posted by Murtada

nice try , I would only comment on the high ISO
if you played with the aperture little bet and kept the ISO less than 400 you would get rid of the high iso effect

cheers

Actually you are incorrect. In a training video produced by Nikon for the D300, they suggest setting the ISO to 800 and leaving it there. I have been shooting at 800 for the past week and have not seen any degredation in my shots. I think what you are seeing is a result of having the shutter open for 30 seconds.

[cphoniball]

A higher ISO is going to produce noise, at some level. That's all there is to it.

While the D300 may be able to produce very clean ISO 800 files, I hardly think leaving it at ISO 800 all the time is a "smart practice". ISO should be changed based upon the situation you find yourself in.

For example, you could have opened your aperture by a stop to f/16 and reduced the ISO to 400. This would have given you the same exposure, but prevented another factor that might be degrading your image - diffraction. Of course, that may have prevented you from getting the star effect from the lights in the background.

Thinking about your settings is a more important than anything Nikon can say about the capabilities of their cameras.

[Murtada]

have you tried to set on nose reduction on your D300?

[Repty]

Wow, you actually had four people dressed in black for this shot.
I'm going to try this out once i can find someone patient enough to help me xD