I’m peering over the low wall that crosses Cesar Chavez Street (aka 1st Street) to make this photo with a slow shutter speed—both to capture the skyline and a nice motion blur of cars. I caught a bus this time, which produced especially generous light streaks.

I underexposed slightly to preserve the highlights in the windows, and with a shorter 1/4-second shutter speed, I was able to take this photo at the base ISO 200. I then raised the overall exposure and the shadows a fair amount in post to create this blue hour image. Surprisingly, the noise level was less than yesterday’s photo even with a more aggressive exposure increase.

The big difference was the ISO 500 in yesterday’s photo compared to the base ISO 200 in today’s. That seemingly small difference in ISO made a dramatic difference. However, mathematically, ISO 500 is more than twice as sensitive as ISO 200, so there is a commensurate increase in noise.

The good news is that I can produce a handheld high-quality image during blue hour with careful post-processing and advanced AI-based noise reduction in Topaz Photo AI. The Topaz software was a demo copy, but its results are promising enough that I’m going to purchase a license. The software will effectively increase the usability of this Leica D-Lux 8 with a cropped Micro 4/3 sensor.

Of course, I’m doing extra fancy things to get a clean image out of ISO 200 with this camera. The Sony A7C, by contrast, with a full-frame sensor, can do a pretty decent ISO 8000. While the camera bodies aren’t too different in size, it’s the lenses that make all the difference. A constant 24mm-70mm f2.8 zoom on a full frame is a beefy lens.

Blog readers, you’ll love my free monthly photography magazine. Signup for the free magazine to get articles and topics not discussed on the blog.