Thought Process

Anyone who comes by here often knows I love shots with dark shadows and lots of contrast.

Unfortunately my trusty SD800 is probably not the best choice for darker shots. It gets very noisy at high ISO's, and equally noisy with long exposures, so with low light/night shots you're out of luck no matter how you approach it.

My first impulse is always to make it B&W, so that the noise looks more like film grain, but with this shot, I kind of liked the color.

I tried it with a sepia-toned old postcard look, but it didn't look right wide, and the noise bothered me even more after the crop. A halfway-between version didn't really do it for me either.

I toyed with posting another shot entirely - this morning's fog - but it was early and dark, so that was just as noisy, and I ended up settling with the shot above. I figured discussing the process would make an interesting post, at least.

Hopefully I'll get a new DSLR soon - I hear the new Canon 40d is much better about noise (first-hand experience, anyone?) - but even then, I won't be able to carry that around all the time, so I guess I'll just have to live with it.



This is the Majestic Diner, by the way. It's the real deal, not one of those expensive faux-50's retro places that are all the rage. It was opened in 1929 on Ponce de Leon Avenue here in Atlanta, and it's a great old 24-hour greasy spoon that probably hasn't changed much since the day it opened.