Hi All, it's been a long while since I've used my camera. I now have a newbie type question about professional photoshoots, as a customer.

We are using a new photographer to shoot instruments with color themes much like the 90's era PC computers, cream and grays...

The photos seem to be soft to me. I looked at the settings: ISO 6400, 1/125 shutter, f22

This would be inside studio with lighting on a tripod.

I asked the photographer why he uses such a high ISO and he said for increased contrast, but he also plans to make them pop by adjusting the contrast in Lightroom. He also touted the performance of his EOS 5D M3 with noise filter and contrast settings. I just think he is off on the settings and thought he should use longer shutter and bring the ISO down to 100, and even a larger f-stop, say around f11.

But then I found this site comparing ISO of the camera, and these photos look so much better, even with high ISO:
http://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries/6555296250/canon-eos-5d-mark-iii-low-light-iso-samples


One other thing that I do not understand, why they insist on shooting on a light or grayish background? I need to make knockouts all the time and quite often the edges get lost. Is there a reason for the background color? I would prefer a high contrast background like green, so I could use the magic wand in PhotoShop! 

I think I'll talk to our manager again and see about bringing in my T2i and save us a few thousand bucks. Maybe I'm full of smoke?

These look like macro shots, or at least "extreme close ups", so I suspect the photog was trying to use a very small aperture to obtain maximum depth of focus.  That said, for professional photos I think that is a lazy approach.  Photo stacking would produce better depth of field, and would allow him to use a wider aperture and thus much lower ISO and obtain sharper images.

If that's not why he used the small aperture and high ISO then I really don't get it, and I think you're right to question his abilities.

For me, the guy is talking absolute rubbish! I have a 5D mk3 and although it handles higher ISO settings pretty well, I would always keep the setting as low as possible to get the best sharpness, especially if I also have the camera on a tripod and studio lighting/flash available. Increase the ISO and sharpness will always suffer!

I cannot see why he would try to justify his settings by saying it gives increased contrast when (I assume he was shooting in RAW?) he can increase the contrast, clarity, etc. in Lightroom anyway and have total control. If he starts messing about with contrast, clarity & curves in LR with high ISO settings he is only likely to degrade the image further and depend upon the LR Noise Reduction more.

If he was trying to take pictures of black cats in a darkened cellar on a foggy, moonless night his settings might be appropriate but certainly not in the situation you have described.

Some village is missing their idiot...

Put another way, he's full of shit and doesn't know what he's doing. 

There is zero benefit gained from using high ISO.  ISO doesn't add contrast; intentionally positioned and adjusted lighting does.

I'll agree with everyone else, ISO 100 1/200 at f8-11 is plenty for almost any situation.
I think, truth be told, he messes up and left the camera's ISO on auto and had to run the aperture to f22 before he ran out of ISO. I did that once. of course I didn't tell the people it was intentional.
ISO 6400 adds grain, which is the opposite of contrast, it would have the effect of looking less contrasty if anything as the large chunks of grain would soften tonal transitions.