Low Light Photography Tips Using Micro Four Thirds

[@petermcginty3636]

Thank you Gary, really good tips 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉.

[@patrickmcfadden1689]

Great video, i love my GX85, G95, and my EM10Mii

[@Gary_W]

Thank you for the kind comment 😁

[@keirwatson3570]

I have taken some lovely shots in low light with my gx80. I’d argue there is a case for shooting creative shots at high ISOs to deliberately increase noise (e.g. to simulate film grain). It’s worth taking time to deliberately shoot at 6400 and over with the aim of learning what kind of shot works (creatively speaking) and what doesn’t.

[@Gary_W]

That's a really good point, using higher ISO deliberately to mimic film grain, I did that sometimes too. Thanks for sharing! 😁

[@sebw3964]

Congrats to 10k subs 🙌🏼

[@Gary_W]

Thank you very much for the kind words! Cheers 😁

[@madedigital]

I own 5 mft 4 are lumix ...i love em

[@Media-oq9ux]

4 now, and too many lenses. All collected pretty quickly after 35 yrs with Canon. The latest is GX85 and its a blast to use.

[@Gary_W]

Lumix cameras are just lovely, cheers!

[@CheikoSairin]

Thanks bro for sharing these photography tips. 1 like for the video. Greetings from Singapore 👍

[@Gary_W]

You are very welcome, thank you for the support 🙏

[@andreaabout]

Good advice there, thank you. I use DXO Photolab (just bought PL7) and their Deep Prime XD is great. I took an image of a dancer at night time using ISO 16000 (not 1600) on my Olympus E-M1 MkII and the results were amazing. Thank you again, great video.

[@Gary_W]

Good to hear, I also got plenty of good results using the PureRaw, which I think uses similar engine to the noise reduction algorithm in Photolab. Thanks for the kind words!

[@andreaabout]

@Gary_W yes Pure RAW and Photolab use the same noise reduction. Amazing software. It is like I got a new camera. You have a great channel, thank you again.

[@abchappell01]

That was a wonderful video presentation.. Do you still have your lLumix GX 8 camera?

[@Gary_W]

Thank you for the kind words! I do still have the GX8 and I still use it frequently, but for photography only.

[@kirayamato94]

hi i just tried the GX85 during a wedding for just casual shoots the low light performance made it really hard to use, coming from a full frame user

[@robertavery8002]

Many thanks for your helpful tips Gary. I've tried both Topaz Denoise AI and Lightroom Denoise, and although I find Lightroom takes longer, it does seem to better reduce the noise on dark shadows and dark colours. I use a GX9 coupled to a prime PL 25mm f1.4 lens for urban night photography, and for some shots I set the ISO to auto (with a maximum limit of 3200), together with a minimum shutter setting of either 1/50s or 1/100s to freeze moving people. If I'm lucky these settings can produce some respectable low light images.😊

[@Gary_W]

Thank you for the kind words and for sharing! I haven't tried Topaz, and just like you I also use LR Denoise. GX9 is a nice camera, and the PL25 together with the GX9 is an awesome combo. Cheers!

[@achsanauzai3250]

hello mas hery, i want ask you something. right now I have gx85, pancake lense 12-32 f3.5, 25mm f1.7. what do you thing about what usage or circumtances to use one of the lens? until right now, i am confuse what focal length to shoot mountains greenery, event photography? can you give me insight of what correct focal length in MFT camera? thanks

[@Gary_W]

Hello, I think you should check out this video, I explained in detail how to choose the "correct" focal length for any scenarios kzbin.info/www/bejne/hmLNn62JeKqfhZY But in short, for mountains and greenery I prefer telephoto lens, event photography you should have both wide angle and telephoto lenses. But then again, no right or wrong, you could do the opposite, depending on what you are after.

[@Centauri27]

Yes, I take low light shots all the time with my m4/3 gear, and images still look great even at ISO 3200 or even 6400. One thing about exposing to the right: I agree that "overexposing" the image and then bringing it back down in post will help with noise, but won't the increased ISO offset most of those gains? Either that or risk a shaky image. This is feasible with a tripod, but then you'll have the luxury of shooting as base ISO in that case.

[@Gary_W]

I experimented with ETTR a few years back, sometimes even at base ISO noise can still be a problem at darker parts of the image. Using higher ISO to mitigate the noise in the darker parts of the image does help, but at the slight increase of noise on the properly exposed parts of the image. However, nowadays I don't get too bothered with noise anymore, as long as the noise isn't too "offensive" 😁

[@Centauri27]

@@Gary_W True, far too many people get so obsessed by noise. On social media, most noise is not noticeable even in high ISO Micro Four Thirds images.

[@MrFirstdance2000]

Do you ever use the Zebra stripes to assist you? Great tips, Gary!

[@Gary_W]

Thank you for the kind comment! I never really use Zebra, I used to be overly-critical with such features, but nowadays as long as the image doesn't look too weird then I am happy 😁

[@distomos8118]

Thanks for the advice. I use a LUMIX LX100M2 as my travel camera and I’ll try the exposure compensation tip. Otherwise LR denoising is quite good. What bothers me is that Adobe doesn’t seem to support Panasonic/Lumix as there is no lens correction data implemented. Do you happen to know why?

[@Gary_W]

Hello, regarding Adobe doesn't support Panasonic lens correction is because as far as I know Lumix M43 cameras do all the corrections including distortion, CA, and whatnot, all inside the cameras, baked into even the RAW files. Hope this helps 😁

[@tomask.3983]

Came here to hear about low-light capabilities for my GX85 - then you mention DJI Pocket 3, which has been reported to have excellent low-light performance. So - would the DJI Pocket 3 (with its 1" sensor) have BETTER low-light performance than the much bigger Micro4/3-sensor on my GX85?

[@Gary_W]

Not necessarily, the GX85 can still hold up pretty well in low light although the OP3 might come really close. However, keep in mind that GX85 is almost 10 years old, so although the sensor size of the GX85 is larger than the OP3, the OP3 has newer technologies that allow for better low light performance for its sensor size. I do have a Leica M8.2 that is basically 16 years old now, and although it has larger APS-H sensor than my M4/3, the low light performance is significantly inferior to M4/3, anything above ISO 640 won't have any detail left in the images, while my GX85 can produce acceptable results up to ISO 3200.

[@tomask.3983]

@@Gary_WThank your for an excellent answer, it helped me a lot! Liked and subscribed!

[@wtfkurtis]

2:50 not the correct tip. Exposing to the right on an MFT sensor will have severe clipping. Even if in post, when the exposure is dialed down details will be lost. Exposing to the right forces the sensor to generate artificial light which is less ideal. CMOS don't perform like film.

[@Gary_W]

Thanks for sharing, I would like to check it again regarding exposing to the right. For now, as long as I don't clip the histogram, I always get good result, at least good enough for my need. But maybe you are correct 😁

[@koostory1776]

Your teeth are more interesting to look it 🫣😍

[@Gary_W]

😁😁