Photography Tips: High ISO Grainy Shots

In this installment of our photography tips section, we will look at the grainy results produced by a digital camera's high ISO settings.

This is one of those occasions where you might deliberately want to break a rule of photography; normally we go to lengths to reduce the grain in our photographs, maximising detail and accuracy.

What ISO is considered High?

The latest Digital SLR cameras are making huge advantages in low light performance, but for most cameras anything over ISO 1000 is pushing the sensor to its limit and will result in additional noise in the shot.

Why use High ISO Settings?

There are times when shooting at a high ISO is the only option available to you - because there isn't enough light in a scene for you to get a correct exposure any other way.

In these situations you should be aware in advance that your results are going to have additional texture - skin isn't going to look perfectly smooth for example.

If you know this is going to happen and start to plan the shot a bit differently, you can still take great photos that you will be delighted with...

Tips for Taking Great High ISO Boudoir Photos

The grainy look of high ISO shots is evocative of pictures from the 1960s and 1970, when film technology was a bit more primitive. So High ISO Photography Tip 1 is to

Pose and Style your Shot with a 60s or 70s Theme.

This does of course raise a couple of problems - firstly (and yes, this is just my opinion but) 70s styling is awful! You only have to google "pictures from the 70s" and look through the images section to have your senses bombarded by hideous colours and history's most unpleasant patterns.

However not all is lost. If you search for "playboy magazine covers 1970s" you should find much better inspiration - like this one from May 1970. In fact you can browse all of the covers at pbcovers.com.

There are a couple of things to note about 70s Playboy: firstly the 70s was obviously a far more innocent age! There is barely any nudity on the covers, so this makes them an even better source of inspiration for your boudoir photos.

Secondly, if you are targetting your sexy photos at a man of the right age (say one who was born in the early 60s), reproducing a Playboy style picture from the 70s could have a profound effect on him!!!

On a more photographic note, pay attention to the muted colours in the photographs. Pictures from this era all tend to have this slightly jaundiced look, and its one you recreate in Photoshop.

Black and White Wonders

High ISO Photography Tip 2 is to use Black and White - it works extremely well with grainy photos. Many cameras will shoot in Black and White mode, or you can convert to black and white in Photoshop afterwards.

For these to photographs to be successful, you really need to embrace the grain and push the contrast levels quite hard to make an image with impact. One of the best ways of doing this in Photoshop is with a Curves Adjustment.

For related photography tips see Exposure, ISO and the Lighting Workshop.

There are more High ISO examples in the gallery, for example Boudoir Photography Gallery 6.

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