Pro's Know this about ISO & Beginners Avoid It! (at least i did)

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In this week’s episode, we discuss what pro photographers know about ISO that most beginners avoid. Seems that beginner photographers, especially those aspiring landscape photographers, are all conditioned with the mindset that the only way to obtain a clean and noise free photograph is to use ISO 100 and only ISO 100. And, if this value is ever increased, well it could mean absolute destruction to the overall image quality of your photograph! The reason I know this is because I was one of these beginner photographers that was stuck in this "ISO 100" mindset for years, but once I broke free from this habit, a whole new world of photographic possibilities opened up for me. I hope you enjoy this week's video and as always thanks so much for watching! - Mark D.

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#landscapephotography​​ #iso

**LETS CONNECT**

[MarkDenneyPhoto]

🌟QUICK QUESTION: Do you say Eye-Soh or do you say Eye-S-Oh?

[account-pending-deletion]

Outside of portrait photography, I just use whatever ISO fits the shutter speed and aperture I need. I can't think of a single instance where I've taken a properly exposed photo and thought "this is unusable because of light noise" but I can think of PLENTY of times where I've had an unusable photo because my shutter speed was too low

[kevins]

As a bird photographer, I lost my fear of high ISO a long time ago. Current noise correction software is now standard practice.

[draughonc]

Set Aperture to desired depth of field, then set Shutter to min. fastest to get sharp focus, then ISO to level needed to expose correctly. Remembering that as light dims, you don't need to stick at f11. Its okay to open it up.

[DMurdock]

I find that noise is only really a problem when you make an image look brighter than it actually is. But outside of that, a lot of the time the grain actually looks aesthetically pleasing. The fear of noise is a learned behavior. Non-photographers either don't notice it, or they like how it looks.

[aedreezy]

I actually got over the whole "Never go above 100-200 ISO" when I got into Film photography. When I saw that Film "speeds" were actually the equivalent of ISO on digital cameras, I thought, "Oh - if people have been using up to 3200 ISO for years on film, then why should I care?" Now I set my camera to Aperture priority, which is something I never did my first 4 years of photography - and now I love shooting digital again, haha

[tothesummit]

I started as a film photographer in the 80s and I resisted digital as long as I could in the early 2000s. I was never scared to play with ISO. I shot astrophotography and lightning/thunderstorms since the days of film. I was always experimenting with different films to get different results. Digital made it so much easier (and cheaper, not burning rolls of film) to experiment with all my settings. Still these days I am sometimes surprised when I find a camera setting that works well under a condition that I wasn't expecting. My recommendation to photographers of today, especially if you never had to deal with the days of film, try lots of different things and shoot until you find what works best. And be grateful it doesn't cost you 30 cents every time you release the shutter! LOL

[garrydelday]

In my short journey so far (2 years or so) the general advice has always been “ISO, keep it LOW” I’m inclined to agree with that general consensus but there are times that you have to up it and sometimes quite high to get the right shutter speed. I love to include wildlife in my landscape shots whenever possible, to show scale and add interest. A lot of the time this will be birds in flight and you have to get a quick shutter speed, especially when they are close to camera. I have no problem with upping the “EYE-SO” to achieve this at the slight expense of noise. What I do with my images, a tiny bit of noise is acceptable. A blurred bird is not. To any beginners out there, don’t be afraid of ISO, experiment with it 😉

[SilverLarry]

Another important thing to know is if your camera has a dual native ISO sensor, and if so, determine what that second ISO setting is. The second ISO is always less noisy than the 2 or 3 ISO stops lower. So knowing that will help you get better results. Most camera manufacturers use dual native sensors but don't necessarily promote it. For instance, on my D850, 400 is less noisy than 320 and 250 and equally noisy with 200. On my Z6ii, 800 is less noisy than 640 and 500 and equally noisy with 400. So sometimes in darker situations, I just switch to my higher native ISO and work around that. Mark, if you were using a Z6ii (which makes no sense for you - it's just an example) you wouldn't set your ISO to 640 as you did in the video. You would set it to 800 and bump up your shutter speed to compensate and get a cleaner image. I believe some Fujis have dual native ISO sensors but I don't know which models.

[jwp]

I'm an Eye-S-Oh guy but I completely agree with your take on ISO. That's why I usually leave it on Auto and worry more about the aperture or shutter speed I want for the particular image I'm looking for. Love your videos. You're a great photographer and a great communicator.

[chrisfor]

Good stuff Mark. One of things that I look back at making a big difference in my images is when I figured out that selecting shutter speed was more important than ISO.

[andreask.]

First of all, as a photographer from Germany, I pronounce ISO Eehzo :-)
I always shoot - with very few exceptions - with the ISO Auto setting. However, I usually have this limited to ISO 1600. Beyond that, the noise increases significantly with my Canon APS-C cameras.

[kencawley]

Eye-so for me. I've started using higher ISO levels for the reasons you covered. Unfortunately, my D7500 is a bit grainy above ISO 400. Invested in Topaz DeNoise AI which has helped tremendously.

[brandonmjohnsonphotography]

When I started photography, I was told ISO 100 was the best, but I've always used different ISO. Now, I use the ISO to best match what shutter speed I am wanting. I think for beginners it's because normally they start out with super basic cameras which don't do well with high ISO.

I actually say both. It just depends. 🤣

[secretrat]

Noise isn't the problem from increasing ISO, and what little there is can be easily dealt with in post. But take a series of shots at a color checker target, keeping aperture constant and increasing ISO and shutter speed to keep the exposure constant. Load all the images as layers in Photoshop and watch the color histogram as you move from layer to layer, from low ISO to high ISO. You will see a flattening of the peaks and an overall "muddying" of the color. Depending on your camera, you might also see a color shift on the middle gray patch.

So you are right in a way. Don't fear noise and use your ISO dial to get the shot you want. But be aware that doing so impacts the color, maybe more than you would like.

[williamblaker]

My father began teaching me photography back in the 1970s when I was a kid. He was a professional photographer, an author of photography books back then, as well as working at the university. He taught me to pronounce each letter: I.S.O., so that's how I've continued to say it. However, I never think about anyone being incorrect if they pronounce it EYE SO. I get that it saves a syllable when speaking. Neither way is right or wrong. We all understand each other, either way.
As far as shooting considerations, I usually set my camera either to aperture priority or to shutter priority, depending on what I'm trying to achieve. Then, I choose the lowest ISO that I can, so long as I achieve the image that I want. I mainly photograph two types of subjects: birds or botany. Birds demand a fast shutter speed; for botanical photos aperture is more important. My camera is a Nikon D850 which doesn't handle ISO noise as well as the newer cameras, so I start to see noise at around ISO 800. However, I value a sharp bird image more than I care about ISO noise. I can fix ISO noise with an AI denoise program, to some extent. My preference is to shoot at an ISO below 800, but I occasionally need to grab a poorly illuminated bird at ISO 2, 400 in a shady forest. However, a few days ago I was photographing wildflowers on a windless day in good light, and I had the luxury of using ISO 100 at f/1.4 to f/2.8 and the images came out gorgeous. For botanical shots it's oftentimes desirable to get good separation of the subject (say, a flower, or a seed pod) from the "cluttered" background of leaves, grasses and twigs, so a wide aperture does the trick. In those cases, the shutter speed only needs to be fast enough to eliminate shutter vibration, or a swaying subject. Oftentimes, I'll use something to hold the plant steady, like a clip, or my free hand, if it's breezy. Sometimes, I'll use my hat, held out-of-frame, to block the breeze.
Long story, short: shutter speed & aperture are the primary considerations. After those are decided upon, then factor in using the lowest ISO I can get away with to create a clean, vibrant image. With my camera, a lower ISO does make a prettier image than a higher ISO. Better color and more detail in the shadows, with smoother tonality.
My friends who shoot with the latest high-end mirrorless cameras enjoy much better ISO performance than I can get away with. My Nikon D850 is a good camera with lots of great features, but not so great at high ISOs.

[drmathochist]

It's "Eye-Soh". The International Organization for Standardization specifically picked the *Greek word* "ISO" rather than an acronym that couldn't be correct for all languages.

[bigdaftorangedog]

I heard somewhere recently that "ISO" is actually a word and not an abbreviation or an acronym - since then I've been in the "eye-so" camp. On a somewhat-related note I recently came into a "new" old Canon EOS 1DS Mark II (shutter count of 200) which allows for expanded ISO with a low end of 50. I thought hey why not but was very disappointed with the results. Turns out it's some sort of electronic enhancement so it's definitely not the sharpest ISO setting on the camera. Won't do that again - live and learn I guess. Keep up the great work, Mark - I have learned so much from your videos over the years!

[lawrencelunsford]

I'm back into photography after about a 15 year break and I'm amazed at how good high ISO images look compared to what I used back in the early 2000s. When I moved to all digital (from medium format film cameras) in the early 2000s I was using Nikon D1X, D100, and Fujifilm S3. I doubt I used any of them over ISO 400, MAYBE ISO 800. I now shoot with Nikon D700, 7100 and 7200. I can comfortably shoot them at 1600. Newer models may be better at higher ISOs than what I currently have, but I'm very happy with the results so far. Just subscribed. :)

[arnantos]

Yes, I think the concerns to use low ISO is back when we were still using film. Back then we have to plan what film ISO we are going to use for the photo session, otherwise we bring many cameras with different ISO films. Since changing ISO was difficult that day, obviously we need to plan what kind of photo session we are going to shoot. It was common to use ISO 100 for landscapes and nature and higher ISO for sport events. Nowadays with current digital photography technology, we can even have the auto setting to make the camera (designer) decide which is best for the shoot. The technology also made less noise for higher ISO, and also to filter the noise.