Shooting in the rain when it’s dark?

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viper699

viper699

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I normally shoot in bright daylight.
Out in the rainforest - and we will have rain all week, unsure how hard it will rain.
Under the canopy it will be darker of course.

This is going to be a real experiment for me. I can’t attached a iPhone image as server said it’s too large, sorry.

The z 600mmPF I rented has a filter on the lens, and the stock Nikon hood, the same for the z100-400mm I rented.

I was able to attach an image from 730am

Best advice for exposure? Granted it will be a bit darker under the canopy.

Thank you
 

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Cameron T said:
Best advice for... What exactly? Settings? Whatever you can use to get the shots.

Keeping your camera dry? A plastic bag works in a pinch, if you don't have anything better.
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My mistake- settings. I’m not sure generally how high I can increase the ISO before the RAW image captured is no longer worth working with in post so I can hang on the wall. Granted a bit subjective re what is worth hanging up or not.

I have rain gear for the camera gear.

I hope I will have a chance to practice at least a bit with these conditions but having been on these trips before they keep you very busy
 
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Ultimately, you're stuck with the conditions you have. Modern denoise can do a lot, as one of Steve's recent videos shows, but it really is too subjective to give better advice without knowing how picky you are, viewing distance, print size, exact camera, etc etc.
 
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Cameron T said:
Ultimately, you're stuck with the conditions you have. Modern denoise can do a lot, as one of Steve's recent videos shows, but it really is too subjective to give better advice without knowing how picky you are, viewing distance, print size, exact camera, etc etc.
Click to expand...
All true! I’ll shoot and hope for the best in post ugh

Was able to attach an image in my original post from iPhone to give an idea of what type of light and conditions I anticipate for the week
 
What can you do? It's all judgement at the point you are taking the shot. Use manual with auto iso. Keep the f-number as low as possible for the depth of field you need, probably wide open, keep the shutter speed as slow as your subject motion and camera shake will allow, but err on the side of being fast enough to get a sharp image. Use the iso the light requires. You didn't say what camera, but if you have to use high iso then so be it. Better to have noise than motion blur, no? Use DXO or lightroom denoise you shouldn't worry if the iso has to be in the 25 to 30 thousand range. But keep it lower if you can without getting blur from subject motion or camera shake. The one over focal length is still good advice, faster if the subject is moving, but sometimes that is not practical, so get some safety shots with a fast shutter but higher iso, then try to push it slower if possible, especially if the subject is still.
 
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Add light if you can, a flashlight works great. Shoot wide open, which means a slower shutter speed. Use a tripod. You will have a high ISO, but these days with mirrorless you can have very high ISOs and still get an ok shot. Use the correct exposure, look at the histogram and use the ISO to obtain a correct exposure, under exposure is a killer in photography, more so than high ISO.
 
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If you are going to shoot at slower shutter speeds use short bursts at 20 fps it increases the chance that some will be sharper.

Shoot wide open and avoid using teleconverters they rob you of light. Go ahead and let the ISO go as high as you need it to go to get the shot.

Choose wider aperture lenses when possible.

While normally light is moe interesting close to sunrise or sunset, this is less critical in the rain forest. Shoot midday when the light is brighter and try to find moe open areas if you are having problems.

Stabilize the camera.

I live in the Pacific Northwest and frequently visit the temperate rain forests on the Olympic peninsula. I have not had difficulty getting sharp images.

Shoot in RAW and make sure the exposure is correct.
 
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viper699 said:
My mistake- settings. I’m not sure generally how high I can increase the ISO before the RAW image captured is no longer worth working with in post so I can hang on the wall. Granted a bit subjective re what is worth hanging up or not.

I have rain gear for the camera gear.

I hope I will have a chance to practice at least a bit with these conditions but having been on these trips before they keep you very busy
Click to expand...

The most important things are getting your exposure and framing correct. If you can do that, you can get usable printable results at 51,200 ISO.

Your two biggest obstacles will be cropping, and underexposing. When you crop - you "enhance" the existing noise. When you underexpose and try to pull it up in post, similar situation.

If you haven't watched Steve's video on shutter ratcheting, it's worth a view. If you have a static subject, start at 1/500, f6.3, ISO 12,800. take a few pics until you get a good one. then drop the shutter to 1/250, f6.3, ISO 6,400. repeat the process. then drop to 1/125, f6.3, ISO 3,200 and go as low as you can.

If you're shooting action - it gets a bit more difficult. Usually you have to decide between sharpish and noisy, or image blur but with cleaner image. If it's a subject I'm shooting for the first time, I opt for the former. If it's a subject I've shot a lot, I'll usually go for the "creative" panning motion.
 
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I just came back from the Monteverde cloud forest in Costa Rica where I was for 3 days--it was in the clouds, raining and unbelievably dark inside the forest. Thought I'd never get a decent shot but was surprised what LRC can do. I used manual setting, auto ISO which got up to 18,000 using my Z9 and 600 PF which was wide open. If I wanted photos, I had no choice. In future, I would not let really bad conditions discourage me. Here is a shot of a slate-backed nightingale thrush which I used LR Denoise on.

Z9A_1381-Enhanced-NR.jpg
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
 
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Best to use manual exposure to get the effect you want. With the camera you will get underexposed or overexposed images with uneven lighting. The camera is designed to provide a 18% grayscale image and that often results in overexposing a scene and having a decidedly artificial rendering.

Best to experiment at home to see first-hand what works best with any given lens. I have more issues with shorter focal lengths where more light from the sky will be in the frame.
 
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jhallettbc said:
I just came back from the Monteverde cloud forest in Costa Rica where I was for 3 days--it was in the clouds, raining and unbelievably dark inside the forest. Thought I'd never get a decent shot but was surprised what LRC can do. I used manual setting, auto ISO which got up to 18,000 using my Z9 and 600 PF which was wide open. If I wanted photos, I had no choice. In future, I would not let really bad conditions discourage me. Here is a shot of a slate-backed nightingale thrush which I used LR Denoise on.
Click to expand...
The advice is sound -please accept this criticism accordingly - though to me this image has several problems. First, the eye is not sharp. This is evidenced in the eye itself and confirmed by the lack of critical sharpness in the orbital ring. Compare it to the bill or other parts of the image. Second, I find that it suffers from the plastic effect where the NR smooths over the details to the point where any feather detail is obviated. The only apparent sharpness is on the large edges. Sometimes, an iterative process to NR, i.e. running it through several passes of lower NR or alternatively lower levels of NR across different NR software can better preserve detail. Other times, there is no salvaging high ISO images without plasticization given current techniques.
 
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I visited Panama this year in the "Green Season" as marketing calls it. Read as wet season. I had some 2.8 lenses with me and that helped but I still found that ISO ran up to 25,600. Some of those shots came out pretty after after denoise software processing. Start with how wide open you can set your kit. F/4 might be better than f/2.8 is you have less than perfect focus. Next think how slow can you hand hold with your lens. I found it hard to use monopods or tripods much of the time. All that is left is to let ISO move to as high as it needs to go. Noise is better than unreliable autofocus. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
 
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You take the pics you can get. Set the ISO as high as you have to with the shutter speed you can work with. If the noise is too much, there're programs to help with that. Ideally, you want to do whatever you can to keep the ISO lower, but it's better to maybe have some photos to work with than to not take any.
 
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I guess the way I see it is you're going and you're shooting and there's nothing you can do about the conditions. Your aperture is going to be wide open or very close. You can and should play with shutter speed to try and get the ISO down. The last side of the triangle is ISO and you just let it run wild! You really have no other choice.
 
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nmerc_photos said:
The most important things are getting your exposure and framing correct. If you can do that, you can get usable printable results at 51,200 ISO.

Your two biggest obstacles will be cropping, and underexposing. When you crop - you "enhance" the existing noise. When you underexpose and try to pull it up in post, similar situation.

If you haven't watched Steve's video on shutter ratcheting, it's worth a view. If you have a static subject, start at 1/500, f6.3, ISO 12,800. take a few pics until you get a good one. then drop the shutter to 1/250, f6.3, ISO 6,400. repeat the process. then drop to 1/125, f6.3, ISO 3,200 and go as low as you can.

If you're shooting action - it gets a bit more difficult. Usually you have to decide between sharpish and noisy, or image blur but with cleaner image. If it's a subject I'm shooting for the first time, I opt for the former. If it's a subject I've shot a lot, I'll usually go for the "creative" panning motion.
Click to expand...
Thanks on the ISO- very helpful.

Thank you everyone! I can tell you the weather changed on us for now, and we’have had bright days, with plenty of primates among other things.
Hope the weather holds out- it’s been EPIC
 
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RikWriter said:
174913177.jpg


That one was in the rain, taken hand-held at ISO 4000 with a 600 f4 and a 1.4X TC at 1/1250s. It's not great, but it was something. I didn't see otters any other day of that trip, so if I'd given up on it because of the light, I would have gotten nothing.
Click to expand...
That’s a great shot to me, thanks for posting!

So far I’ve been using the z400 with good results for me.

I’ll be giving the 600PF a good soon
 
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I took this last week in rain at about 8PM at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle IL their Illumination show the rain made some great reflection photos D500 with Nikon 18-70 2.8 lens ISO 640 125 sec at 2.8
 

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