Nikon manual David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

264 David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

Some noise is created when you’re using shutter speeds longer than eight seconds to cre- ate a longer exposure. Extended exposure times allow more photons to reach the sen- sor, but increase the likelihood that some photosites will react randomly even though not struck by a particle of light. Moreover, as the sensor remains switched on for the longer exposure, it heats, and this heat can be mistakenly recorded as if it were a bar- rage of photons. This menu setting can be used to activate the D7000’s long exposure noise-canceling operation performed by the EXPEED digital signal processor.

■Off. This default setting disables long exposure noise reduction. Use it when you want the maximum amount of detail present in your photograph, even though higher noise levels will result. This setting also eliminates the extra time needed to take a picture caused by the noise reduction process. If you plan to use only lower ISO settings (thereby reducing the noise caused by ISO amplification), the noise levels produced by longer exposures may be acceptable. For example, you might be shooting a waterfall at ISO 100 with the camera mounted on a tripod, using a neu- tral-density filter and a long exposure to cause the water to blur. (Try exposures of 2 to 16 seconds, depending on the intensity of the light and how much blur you want.) (See Figure 8.30.) To maximize detail in the non-moving portions of your photos for the exposures that are eight seconds or longer, you can switch off long exposure noise reduction.

Figure 8.30 A long exposure with the camera mounted on a tripod produces this traditional moving water photo.