Noise Paranoia

In the previous street shooting session with Luke, he asked "why dont we shoot at night?" 

That sounded like a great idea. The reason I do not usually go out at night, is because after a long day of exhaustive work (my work can be physically demanding at times), sometimes, I just do not feel like doing anything, and just want to laze myself in front of my computer, and waiting for the time to come before I hit the bed, in anticipation of the dreadful next days cycle to begin all over again. However, it was Friday, and I thought, why not have a quick shooting session, and a nice dinner with some friends? A little shooting wont hurt either, and the pre-shooting session was just want I needed as my appetizer for the coming weekends shutter therapy session. 

After work, I rushed over to Bukit Bintang, met up with a bunch of photo-crazy people, and started shooting away. I had my Olympus DSLR E-5 with me, and while I was on the street, I shot solely with the Zuiko 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 mk1. I rarely use the long lens on the street lately, but I do feel that the lens has been under-utilized lately, and I just wanted to make some clicks happen with it. It was well suited on the streets, in some shots where tight perspective is required, and shooting from a far distance is a necessity. 

Basking in Night Light

Purple Spark

Flash

Run Away

Different Generations

GRAINY FILM Art Filter applied

Higher Ground

Lonesomeness

Company

Dinner at Tonkatsu, Pavilion

Top Left: Lisa & Luke Ding

Top Right: Edwin

Bottom: Scott Chung and Edwin

Shooting at night meant that I needed to bump up the ISO to achieve adequate shutter speed to mitigate hand shake blur, as well as to freeze unintended motion blur. I looked pass the high ISO noise paranoia that plagued almost the entire modern population of digital photographers, where the presence of noise equate the end of world for most of them. Yes, Olympus is not the champion in high ISO shooting, and yes, I will come home with very noisy files. So what? I am not joining any photography competition with those shots. I am not going to make any large prints. Those are not shot for a  paid assignment, or going to be published anywhere. I shot those photographs for myself only, and the value captured in the images are personal. I know people will cry until kingdom come when they see traces of chroma noise in my photographs, so be it. There are a lot more to photography than revolving around the noise tragedy. 

You know it gets very traumatizing that people actually mark your photographs down based only on your "noise level" in your photographs. What about composition? What about the subject content? What about the emotion and connection with the portraits? Are those meaningless just because the photographs have unacceptable noise presence? As destructive and as ugly as chroma noise can be, I would not prioritize that as a criterion to study a photograph presented to me. 

I know I have pushed the ISO settings unusually high for the photos in this entry. Yes, the noise presence is evident. But I still like the photographs. I am not ashamed to admit that. 

A little work-out on the street with the camera was all I needed to lift up my mood, and heal the wounds I have gathered throughout the week-long struggles at work. Oh yes, the thought that there are more shutter therapy sessions coming ahead just gets me in even better mood. 

Related Posts by Categories