Here’s a cropped shot I took yesterday. I’m standing on the ridge above Waimanalo at about 1100 ft. One of the outrigger canoe clubs was practicing out on the bay. They are about a mile from me.
This was with my BIG lens 
an AF Tokina 80-400 1/320 at f/9.0 ISO 200 on my Sony a700. I could’ve gone for a higher shutter speed but I think the larger aperture reduces the sharpness in the higher humidity and distance. Plus the bright light reflecting off white surfaces adds to the diffusion. I didn’t use a polarizer because it reduces the f-stop. Plus I find the filter further reduces the image sharpness at full zoom. I forgot to mention the trades are blowing in my face at about 15 mph.
By the way, this image was processed and outputted with Lightroom.
Outrigger crews working out
Continuing from the last post. My next opportunity to work in lowlight was the Lantern Floating Ceremony on Memorial Day. If you’re ever on Oahu during the Memorial Day weekend Ala Moana Beach in the evening is a great place to be.
At last years event I stuck to my KM 17-35 F2.8-4 Lens and 1600 ISO on my 7D and hand held. Here’s an example. Other than importing into Lightroom and exporting a JPEG version I made no adjustments.
I really had to work the failing light from the setting sun. This was 1/20sec f/2.8.
This year I used a tripod as a monopod and instead of light from the setting sun I used light from the stage to help my exposures. This photo is 1/100sec at f4.5 and 3200 ISO
The only adjustment was to the white balance.
Here’s the link for my slideshow of images of the Lantern Floating Ceremony
Since I got the Sony A700 DSLR about three weeks ago I’ve had a couple of opportunities to use it in low light. A couple of University of Hawaii night baseball games and the Floating Lantern ceremony at Ala Moana Beach Park.
The baseball game is difficult because I want to use a fast shutter speed to catch the action and my best lens is the Tokina AT-X 80-400mm 4.5 -5.6. During a day game I get good shots. At night it’s harder because the quality of the stadium lighting falls off the further away the action is. For instance, action I capture along the baseline I’m sitting near is okay. Moving out to second base or beyond is less good (to put it kindly). 
Here’s an image 1/800sec at f5.0. Since the baseball game were the first opportunity to use it I ran the ISO up to 6400. Beyond the default settings applied at import into Lightroom no other processing has been applied. With adequate stadium lighting this is not bad.
Compare it to a similar picture taken with my Maxxum 7D at ISO 3200 and 1/250 sec f5.6 such as this one from the year before.
