ISO, originally, was the measure of how sensitive film was to light. It has now been adapted to the digital realm and can be changed on a whim versus needing to change film out of your camera, which is very time consuming. While thinking about ISO in the digital realm, it is now considered how sensitive the camera’s sensor is to light. Basically, the lower your ISO number the more light you need, or the slower it will expose the sensor to the scene, a higher ISO number will expose faster and allow you to photograph in a lower light. A good ISO for daytime would be 100 ISO, but in the shade or in the early morning or dusk hours you may need a faster ISO to compensate for the lack of available light. You can also add more light by opening up your aperture and slowing down your shutter speed. But, you can only slow down your shutter speed so much before you can’t hold the camera in your hands and take the picture because you’ll get what’s called camera shake. Which means the exposure is too long and you start to see ghosting and areas blurred in your image. So, if you raise your ISO it means that you should be able to keep your shutter speed up in an area where you should be able to hand hold your camera without getting any camera shake.

This is great to know especially when you have a DSLR and can change your ISO quickly. However you can change your ISO on a point most point and shoot cameras as well. The problem is that most P&S’s don’t handle the higher ISO range very well. What do I mean by this? Well, below are two examples of how ISO affects the quality of an image. The more you raise your ISO level, the more noise you get in your photo and the lower the sharpness and detail becomes in your photos.

I’d like to thank Imaging-Resource for the images below and for taking the time to review every digital camera out there and showing samples from each camera on their website. Go check them out, they have the best info on every digital camera. The first example is from a Canon 50D and show the difference from a range of 100 ISO (f/8 at 1/15 of a second) on the left and 6400 ISO (f/8 at 1/1000 of a second) on the right. You can see that the detail of the text on the bottle is clear and crisp, where the text on the circle on the right is soft and degraded by the noise. You can really notice the noise on the gray flat background where the noise has simply taken over the background all together. This happens a lot with ISO noise in large flat areas and something to keep in mind when photographing skies and such with higher ISO’s.

The next sample is from a Casio EX-G1 point and shoot. The range on these images are from 80 ISO (f/5.4, no shutter speed recorded) and 3200 ISO (f/5.4 and again no shutter speed) on the right. You can see that the quality on the left isn’t great to begin with. This has to do with a smaller and less accurate sensor in the Casio. But on the right, the image is totally unusable. If it’s all you had, no flash and no tripod, OK you would get a picture. But you can see how terrible the quality is and that you almost can’t even read the text on the bottle in the middle. The noise has taken over the whole photo and compromised the sharpness and quality of the image.

I just want to leave you with the thought that ISO can be great to allow you to take photos in lower light situations, however you need to keep in mind that the quality of your image may be compromised and the image may be unusable for your final output. But, don’t be afraid to use ISO and take some time to test your camera’s ISO by taking a series of photos and checking out the difference in each one so you know the limits of your camera.

I’m going to run a little contest for the next couple of weeks. The first 3 people to spot the new graphics in Lancaster city get a $50 gift certificate. I’m down there pretty often, so just email to mivillephoto@yahoo.com with the date and where my car was when you saw the new vinyl.

Bright and easy to spot.

A little green, a little white.

I recently photographed Anne and Lily. I work during the day with Anne’s husband Brad at Clipper and he asked me to come by to create some beautiful portraits of his wife and new daughter. With a bit of snow still on the ground and a chill in the air, I worked my way around their home creating some photos of mom and daughter. I got a couple in the family living room but created most of the photos in little Lily’s beautiful orange & black Philadelphia Flyers decorated bedroom. Originally I thought it was her dad’s creation, but soon learned that mommy created the beautiful sports themed room.

Lily was a bit shy, but between my What the Duck plush and her Flyers bear we got a few giggles and smiles out of her. It was a fun time and the beautiful mom and daughter will be in the Lancaster Newspaper in the up coming Mothers Day session. So keep a eye out for them. Here is a sneak peak in the meantime.

A Little Kiss

Some Flyers Orange

The most adorable smile

A little window light

]]> http://mivillephoto.com/2010/03/08/session-day-anne-lilys-mothers-day-photos/feed/ 1 http://mivillephoto.com/2010/03/03/tip-of-week-megapixels/ http://mivillephoto.com/2010/03/03/tip-of-week-megapixels/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:14:03 +0000 Michael Miville http://mivillephoto.com/?p=1477 I hear a lot of talk about megapixel this and megapixel that. There was even something called the Megapixel Wars held by the camera manufacturers when each one was trying to up the megapixel count in their cameras. But does the amount of megapixels in your camera equal a better quality more sharp and colorful image? The simple answer is NO. Each megapixel of resolution equals around 1 million pixels. Think of each pixel as a block. Then think of more than 10 million of those next to each other in all different colors making up your 10mpxl image. The illustration below shows that different megapixel sizes only relate to the amount of resolution in an image.

So, now you’re thinking, why have a camera with a huge amount of megapixels if it doesn’t make my image look better? Well, what if your image needs cropped in a little, or the horizon line isn’t quite straight and you need to tilt and crop it? You are immediately losing resolution from your image. Most cameras today are at least 10mpxl. This will get you a great size image, probably up to a 16×20 inch print before you start to see pixelization in your image, which is simply seeing the blocks that make up your image. Which is why I always suggest setting your camera to the largest resolution on the best quality possible. You never know when you’re going to get that “keeper” that you’ll want to make into a large print or that you’ll need to crop out a lot of the image to make into a large print. With flash storage becoming very inexpensive, it’s easy to store all of these images.

Needless to say, don’t let any sales person talk you into a camera based on quality when they are talking about megapixels. Look for other factors including low noise in higher ISO’s, clarity of the image and how user friendly the User Interface is. There is also the speed of the camera and battery life to consider. You can also check out my favorite site Imaging Resource, to check out a camera you are looking to purchase. They have reviews as well as test images that allow you to download the full resolution image in different settings to see how clean the image will be. I hope this helps in your future camera purchases and to give you a little more insight on how megapixels relate to image size.

Mondays will be “Session Day” and will include a recent session that I thought was fun and had some great images. It will allow me to showcase some of my work and give a few details about the session and how much fun it was.

Wednesday will be a tip of the week. I will use this day to give a tip, trick or let you know about a really interesting website, piece of photo gear or podcast that I’ve found. It will be a fun way for you to keep up to date with the ever changing photo world. I’ll also let you know of any new products I’ve seen or are now offering and how you can get your hands on them.

Friday will be a “Guest Blogger” day and I will introduce you to friends of mine who will be talking about a range of subjects. They may talk about their life, their passions or anything that comes out that they want to discuss.

Luke, Veronica and Madison

I love this one! May be my favorite of the three of them.

Alicia, Derek, Dylan and Selena

Alicia, Sherry & Adam

Janelle & Karlee

We met up at Long’s Park in Lancaster for the session. We started at the top of a rolling hill that comes down to the amphitheatre in the field. There were a few people up trying to do some sledding, however the snow was too soft and not packing down. I’m sure they looked at us wondering what we were doing. But we had fun, no matter what. We then moved down near the pond which was filled with geese, even at this time of year. We tracked through the snow to get to a bench by the frozen pond, Cheryl carrying some boots which I had her change into once at the bench. I wanted them to be clean and snow free for these couple of shots. It was then off to the bottom of the hill near the amphitheatre for some snow running. I got 2 or 3 good ones, but the snow was so deep Cheryl was having a tough time running through it.

Needless to say, we had a really fun time. So, if anyone out there wants some snow family or portrait pictures, just let me know. I’m totally game again. Enjoy the pics.

I loved this blue coat

On to a red coat and sunglasses

Kinda looks like a glasses ad

Handfuls of fluffy snow

On cold, chilly pond

A little run through the field

What a great smile

]]> http://mivillephoto.com/2010/02/09/snow-up-to-our/feed/ 0 http://mivillephoto.com/2010/02/08/f-is-for-fan/ http://mivillephoto.com/2010/02/08/f-is-for-fan/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:34:37 +0000 Michael Miville http://mivillephoto.com/?p=1403

I’d like to thank everyone who is a fan of Miville Photography on Facebook. The other day I hit 400 fans, which is a huge milestone. So, I decided to give out a thank you to one lucky fan for reaching this milestone. I decided a $75 gift certificate towards a portrait session would be a nice thank you for following me and being a fan. The winner, chosen at random, happened to be a friend from high school. I recently connected with this person through Facebook and I’m excited for the photo session.

Congratulations to Jess Wilson of East Earl, PA. I look forward to photographing you and your family, especially when your new addition arrives next month.

I hope everyone continues to follow me on Facebook. Please tell your friends and hopefully if we get to 500 fans I may give out another thank you gift. Follow me on Facebook and be a fan of Miville Photography on Facebook.

Outside the building across from their house

Just mom and daughter

Skipping along

Love from a child

Josie giving out smooches

Told you she was a ham in front of the camera

Innocence