Iso settings

[Ally]

Just a quick question, when you go out to photograph a subject do you have a iso to work to or do you just rate it by how you feel?(and light)
E.g I go to shoot golf, I want 1/1000th of a second. I get 1/1000@iso400, should I bump it down to get the almost noise free 100iso on the 20D with something like a 1/500th or 1/400th or do I go for the very good iso400 on the 20D with a little noise and a very fast shutter speed?

is it just what you personally like in your style of image? or should you always go for low iso where possible? I know in my time with my 20D I've only used iso100 5 times at most and I never feel guilty bumping it up to 1600 and 3200iso and in fact that is where the iso sits most of the time on my camera. It just dosen't seem right for my camera to be at those high iso's for such a long time? when other people seem to use 100iso alot of the time I'm at 400 or even 800.

Your comments and views would be very welcome.

 

[Warspite]

You bump the ISO when you must have shutter speed over quality, although noise removal tools can often make the difference negligible as they can clean up some very noisy images very well.

Situations requiring high ISO would be where you need to freeze the action, or dont have a tripod (so risk camera shake).

Where possible you ideally want to keep the ISO as low as possible.

(I've heard quite a few people will often use 200 for most task and go up from there, as alot of the newer cameras have almost no noise at the 200 to 400 level), personally I try to stick to 100 when conditions allow - and my pics still look ****

 

[Venomator]

... very well put ...

 

[Ally]

Thanks guys, I tend to shoot from 400 upwords and its starting to get to me a bit when looking and seeing that everyone is shooting at 100 or 200 and getting cleaner images.

My pic's tend to turn out **** aswell

 

[Witch]

When I set the 30D back to "failsafe" settings, it's "P" mode and ISO 200. That way I know I can just grab the beastie and shoot in regular-ish daylight. When Ihave time to fiddle or am specifically planning shots it's AV mode and whatever ISO the light requires. Night shots are always ISO 100 however. have taught the other half to always set the D30 he uses back to 200 as well. I've had one too many experiences of forgetting to change settings when I've been at speedway the night before shooting from the terraces at ISO 100 or something silly - even on a Canon 1600 in daylight shows a bit of noise. The day of the TP London meet the several shots I fired off without realising that the ISO had been changed to 3200 (not by me I hasten to add!) are definately what you'd call grainy!

 

[mole2k]

I keep mine nearly always at iso100. I find the shutter speeds are fine untill it the sun starts to drop then I would quite often jump up to iso400, occasionally if the shots are mostly for web use I would use 800 or 1600. I try to avoid 3200 even when shooting fast moving stuff indoors, its unavoidable at times though.

I would tend to shoot down to about 1/30th sec before I start bumping the iso up. I try not go go over iso400 in most cases and have gotten keepers with the 70-200 f4L down to about 1/6th of a second.

I've never taken pictures of golf so I dont know what the lower limit shutter speed wise would be but I would think you should be able to get some nice arm blur effects at 1/250 ~ 1/500th. For the r/c stuff I try to keep the shutter speed above 1/200th as I know through trial and error I need this to get a clean enough shot depending on where in the hall im shooting. I change iso quite regularily indoors keeping it as low as I can.

iso1600 - 70mm - f4 - 1/6th

iso800 - 200mm - f4 - 125th - indoors

iso100 - 18mm - f3.5 - 1/50th - indoors

 

[apodo]

I am nearly always at ISO 100, if as much as anything else because I forget about it and end up trying to handhold 1/8th second exposures in poor light. I am not even steady at 1/500th!

On the occasions I am fortunate to remember that I can change it I will just turn it up to whatever gives a decent shutter speed, say 1/250th upwards. But then forget about it and end up back at 1/8th of a second as light deteriorates further.

I see no reason, though, to use an higher ISO than is necessary for the shots you want to take. Unless you are trying to freeze motion and need the faster shutter all you are doing is giving yourself [slightly] poorer pictures. Conversely though you should not be afraid to turn it up when you need it to to get the shot you want.

My 'default' settings are Av Mode, f/8, ISO 100, and whenever packing the camera to take out will always check those settings.

Michael.

 

[Joe T]

The understood rule (but this doesnt always work) is that you want a shutter speed of 1/focal length. This is designed to eliminate camera shake. Therefore in lowish light, set the aperture to max and see if you have sufficient shutter speed. If not, then you may need to up the ISO.

This is really the only time when you need to move the iso off its lowest setting IMO.


HTH

 

[dod]

Mine is almost always set at ISO 200 but depending on the light have no qualms about going to ISO 800/1600 to get the required shutter speeds.

 

[Ally]

Thanks all , I'm hopfully going to do a bit of indoor basketball at the weekend so I'll try and think a bit diffrently towards it.