How we once shot at 1600 ISO!

[drg]

I knew I saved some of this stuff somewhere and I found it.



HOWEVER, the film is not the point of this post. The photo was taken at 1600 ISO with a point and shoot camera, a Fuji FinePix F31FD that I am currently finishing up testing for a review. The higher ISO performance of this camera is really impressive. There is a full size version of this photo in the gallery at:

click -> Fuji FinePix 1600 ISO Sample Full Size <- kcilc

The gallery version is cropped and has a border added, but otherwise is untouched. This was too see how good an image could be produced with reasonable effort with 1600 ISO rating.

Comments welcome.

[another view]

Pretty darn impressive - far better results than with that film I'd say! With the P&S cameras, Fuji has always done a nice job with high ISO. Now if they'd just cross that with the Olympus 720SW...

[photophorous]

Yeah, I'm impressed too. It looks as good as the 800 ISO shots from my G7...maybe as good as 400 ISO.

Paul

[Ronnoco]

Great quality, although I must admit that I never felt the need to shoot at 1600 ISO with film. Fast lenses and a powerful flash unit covered a lot of territory.

Ronnoco

[yogestee]

Pretty impressive drg...I don't know why there is so much stigma about shooting at higher ISO settings...Once 1600 ISO was my standard setting when shooting indoor sports or theatrical productions,,in some cases 3200 ISO with quite acceptable results..

I use to shoot dress rehearsals for a theatre company on Kodak Trx 400 pushed to 1600 ISO and made a killing selling 10 x 8s to the cast..

Jurgen

[benjikan]

Yes it is great. I have the Fjui Finepix F30 with the same sensor, but without "Face Detect" which I wouldn't use. I find that 800 asa is as good as 200 asa with most of the better point and shoot camera's..

I have several samples posted in the Fuji Finepix F30 Review section...

[Asylum Steve]

I don't know why there is so much stigma about shooting at higher ISO settings...Once 1600 ISO was my standard setting

We passed the stage of grainy high ISO film many years ago!

In fact, the last time I shot a significant amount of film, probably ten years ago, some of Fuji's ISO 3200 film was simply ISO 800 pushed two stops in the lab.

That's not a huge amount to push, and the results were not much grainier than the 800...

[Asylum Steve]

Fast lenses and a powerful flash unit covered a lot of territory...

True enough. But there are many situations where a shooter wants a decent DoF and cannot or prefers not to use a flash...

[Old Timer]

I use to shoot dress rehearsals for a theatre company on Kodak Trx 400 pushed to 1600 ISO and made a killing selling 10 x 8s to the cast..

Jurgen

When I was in college we shot most all our nighttime and indoor sports on TriX pushed to 1600 and developed in Acufine. By 40 years ago standards we got great results. Never had an complaints about the grain. We had lots of the images published. ASA/ISO 1600 has been a standard for many sports shooters for a lot of years. I'm glad that the digital camera manufactures are keeping up the effort to improve noise at this setting.

[Asylum Steve]

TriX pushed to 1600 and developed in Acufine...

Now there's a name from the past.

OT, I think you touched on one of the keys. Knowing how to gently process your pushed or higher ISO film in the right developer made a big difference. You try to soup Tri-X at 1600 in D76 with a lot of agitation, and you'll probably get sand paper...

I too, used acufine for my important push work...:thumbsup:

[drg]

Lots of tripping down memory lane!

Acufine! I hadn't thought about that in a decade??

Tri-X, I should have had stock in that film alone at one time. I think I've even posted a photo or so here 'from the old days' that was made using that emulsion.

High ISO images in film were always specialized or implemented for a particular effect. Nothing beat higher ISO whether a 1600 film or 3200 (i.e. ILFORD's Delta or a KODAK ver) on a gray day with bad light. Flash or other added light was not nor is still always possible in some circumstances. There's a couple of instances I mention in the forthcoming review that having this capability is a must!

Anyway, yes this is a pretty impressive image I feel for this little camera and its category. I do hope readers of this post will/have looked at the gallery version of the image. I'll add the whole image uncropped later.

Benjikan mentioned his F30 and Face Detection. At this point, until I finish the review, I am not say much beyond don't knock it until you've tried it. It is more than what I originally thought it was, or at least in Fuji's implementation on this camera.

[mtbbrian]

What do you mean once shot?

I still shoot that way!
I often use Tri-X and push it two stops!
Brian
:thumbsup:

[yogestee]

Now there's a name from the past.

OT, I think you touched on one of the keys. Knowing how to gently process your pushed or higher ISO film in the right developer made a big difference. You try to soup Tri-X at 1600 in D76 with a lot of agitation, and you'll probably get sand paper...

I too, used acufine for my important push work...:thumbsup:

Steve,,,precisely,,,I only used ID-11 or D-76...The trick when push processing to control grain is to REDUCE your agitation,,,often by half..

Jurgen

[Speed]

That's 1600 ISO with a P&S?

Very impressive indeed!

[Photo-John]

Nice teaser post, Carleton! And that photo looks great. That's really excellent for ISO 1600 with a compact digital camera. Gotta love the ironic content, too

I've started posting preview content on the pro review pages when we're working on a review and have studio tests available. Here's a link to the Fujifilm FinePix F31fd pro review preview page, with links to the studio tests from ISO 100 all the way up to 3200.

Fujifilm FinePix F31fd Preview Page >>

And it looks like we'll have a complete review soon, too! Thanks again, Carleton!