My camera is a Canon EOS 400D. To switch the ISO, you press a button just to the right of the screen. You press up to reduce the ISO and down to increase it. The selection wraps around, so if you press up from 100, you jump right up to 1600. The button is exactly where my nose goes when I have the viewfinder to my left eye. On all too many occasions, I unwittingly press the buttons with my nose while composing a picture and the ISO jumps from a lovely clean 100 to a totally atrocious 1600. This camera can go to 400, but 800 and 1600 is shocking.
This happened at the weekend in Bridlington, but I did not notice. I took over 100 shots at ISO 1600. Most were, as usual, thrown away, but there were some good ones in there, including this one of my son. I hate that the image is covered in red pixels like a mould, so I have tried to bring it into a feature rather than a problem by giving it a bit of a vintage look.
I was lazy and used the Vintage preset in Aperture rather than my normal approach. I added a severe vignette and desaturated the image slightly. I also upped the exposure to give a bright over-exposure to it.
In the end, I think it looks passable. I like the look of vintage images, and this has worked well. The people in the background add to the British Seaside kind of mundane look, but it’s Ted’s wonderful expression that really makes the photo.
All in all, I think it’s a good rescue from my terrible schoolboy mistake.
Mistake or not the end result is pretty good. “Accidents” have a habit of producing surprising outcomes.
©2010 Michael Scott
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