Anyone who has looked at the EXIF will know that I had left my ISO to 1000 for this session. To be honest, this was a left over from when I had been shooting shots along the river on my way to the stadium. I forgot to re-check the ISO after I was in the stadium.

Had I done so I probably, maybe, possibly should have dropped the ISO for the match since there was plenty of stadium light for the most part. Would I if I had my time over? Maaaaayyybe? See, here's the thing. The ISO performance on early MFT cameras was... not the best. My first generation E-M1 (circa 2013) got really, REALLY noisy beyond about ISO 400.

My backup camera, a second hand E-M5 Mk II (February 2015) was a generation ahead. It is marginally better at it but it was hardly a black and white comparison. This was further complicated by the fact that the E-M5 series was an enthusiast level camera rather than a pro level one.

The current OM System cameras like my OM-5 (March 2022) are two further generations ahead, and are indeed capable of better, but far from perfect, high ISO shooting. For ISO 1000 on a micro 4/3 (MFT) sensor, this is far from awful. It's also far from perfect. At full size I can make out the attention on Smalling's face (#6, to the left), the focus on Boer's face (the goalkeeper #63), the focus on Dean Huijsen's face (#3) with the ball. However I'd be lying if I said that the features were crisp and clear.

So I should have used a lower ISO, right? The problem is this. I was using my 40-150mm lens (effective 80-300) which I regard as being the clearest, sharpest and best lens that I've ever owned. And it was wide open at f/2.8, so there's no extra speed to gain there. I could have dropped the EV to pick up some speed, but the stadium designers knew what they were doing; the lighting is pretty much perfect for the field, picking it out from the shadowed background. Dropping the exposure would have made it seem unnaturally darker. The histogram shows that we lean just slightly left of the midpoint as it is, but not by much (except in the blue channel, which is well into the shadows.)

Also, at 150mm or longer f/2.8 is as open as it gets. There's no such thig as a 150mm f/1.2.

Thus if I dropped the ISO, it would have been at the cost of a "longer" exposure. By a few hundredths of a second? Sure, but football is an incredibly fast moving game. (If you have any doubts, note that the next image in this gallery was taken 33 seconds later... at the other end of the field, in Milan's goal square rather than ours.)

What I would have decreased in ISO graininess, I would have increased in motion blur. I further would have diminished the chances of grabbing these "fraction of a second" shots of moments that will never come again.

So, did I do the right thing? Y'know, the only way I'll ever know is if I do a lot more shooting with various settings. The problem is that AS Roma has not toured since 1966 so who knows when or if they'll be back? I see no option but to do these tests at Stadio Olimpico, which means making the deep personal sacrifice of going back home to live for a few months.

Or years, to be on the safe side.