Use of ISO

[tballphoto]

Why do all the talking heads online, and so many "professional photographers" with you tube channels all tell me that I should NEVER shoot my DSLR with an ISO beyond 800?

 

[mshchem]

It depends on the camera. Probably a good safeguard against a lot of noise.

With pro models ISO of 50,000 will make very good images.

 

[Down Under]

Ah yes, Youtube. Talking heads or talking turkeys.

There is an easy solution to this one.

Do your own ISO tests, check the results, and decide which you like best for any given subject/scene.

It's known as thinking for yourself...

 

[tballphoto]

ah yes thinking for myself.... hmm lets seee

Id dont quite get the concept of someone buying a 3,000$ dslr, and only going up to 800 iso.... its sort of like buying an original shelby cobra, and having the engine replaced with something that came out of a yugo

 

[DMJ]

As @ozmoose said, test your camera, shoot raw and see where you see an increase and maybe different kind of noise, above 800 or 1600. Depending on the sensor type CCD or CMOS, signal is amplified differently. ISO in digital is signal amplification which introduces noise. It seems that dslrs have an analog amplifier before ADC that max at 800 or 1600. Above that, the signal is amplified digitally. That might the reason behind the 800 iso recommendation. Personally, I only shoot at the lowest ISO.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Ah yes, Youtube. Talking heads or talking turkeys.

There is an easy solution to this one.

Do your own ISO tests, check the results, and decide which you like best for any given subject/scene.

It's known as thinking for yourself...

or find out what the native ISO of your camera is.(not an easy task as camera manufacturers seem to keep that value a secret for some reason.)

 

[Jim Jones]

I've freely used the top ISO for sports. Better a grainy picture than non picture at all.

 

[MattKing]

I always wonder at the tendency of created internet resources like YouTube videos to include "Never" or "Always" recommendations rather than "better" or "to be used with caution" recommendations.
It is like a world with too many used car dealers.

 

[Chan Tran]

I do see noise with my camera at ISO 800 but it's not all that bad until it gets past 6400.

 

[Auer]

There are plenty of ppl out there that spend 10K+ on equipment and then take pictures of brick walls at ISO100.

Sharpness is a curse. Fuck you Ansel!

 

[George Mann]

There are plenty of ppl out there that spend 10K+ on equipment and then take pictures of brick walls at ISO100.

Sharpness is a curse. Fuck you Ansel!

To each his own.

 

[grat]

Because they're stuck in 2010?

My current DSLR is an EOS 90D. Not widely regarded as an top end sensor (although it's actually pretty good). I shoot on auto ISO as a rule, with the upper limit at 6400. It'll do 25,600 (!!), but you really don't want it to. The noise/grain is acceptable up to that speed.

 

[removed account4]

There are also people who don’t think
Digital cameras make photographs
And a 35mm frame SHOULDN’T be
Enlarged past 5x7...
Don’t bother me at all
I’m happy people are happy

 

[gdavis]

I always wonder at the tendency of created internet resources like YouTube videos to include "Never" or "Always" recommendations rather than "better" or "to be used with caution" recommendations.
It is like a world with too many used car dealers.

Never listen to anyone who dictates absolutes.

 

[Auer]

Never listen to anyone who dictates absolutes.

Best advice ever.

 

[wiltw]

I've freely used the top ISO for sports. Better a grainy picture than non picture at all.

That statement serves as a good base for my own belief about ISO..."Use the lowest possible ISO which permits you to GET A SHOT, with your desired DOF control!"

 

[MattKing]

Never listen to anyone who dictates absolutes.

Don't you mean, "Be wary about listening to anyone who dictates absolutes."

 

[tballphoto]

i use a D7500. Shoot largest photo size, use the highest quality RAW format, save an identical size lossless jpeg, file size is roughly twice as big with the RAW. the jpegs dont loose quality until i enlarge them on my 332" hdtv screen about 300%. Havent been able to open a RAW image on my pc yet, as i havent had time to transfer files.

 

[tballphoto]

then again i use auto ISO.... its funny how a change in shutter speed can redue the iso from 20,000 down to 800

 

[grat]

Never listen to anyone who dictates absolutes.

All generalizations are false.

 

[Rockaway Studios]

I never, ever speak in absolutes

 

[wiltw]

then again i use auto ISO.... its funny how a change in shutter speed can redue the iso from 20,000 down to 800

And that unpredictability, combined with the radical magnitude of change of the ISO selected by the camera, is precisesly why I normally never use Auto ISO!

In Av or in Tv, if you change one by 1EV, the other changes to offset by -1EV...there is a correlation to the selected change. Why does that correlation not always apply to Auto ISO,..what was the criteria for the selection programmed in by the engineers who wrote the software? The unpredictability is also why I dislike Evaluative metering, unless I want to use my camera in 'without thought' like a snapshooter with a Kodak Brownie.

 

[wiltw]

I never, ever speak in absolutes

I think you meant, if sincere, "I usually do not speak in absolutes, but there are exceptions"!

 

[Bronson Dugnutt]

Come on, feel the noise


(P340, Hi 1, minimal noise reduction)

High ISO's in color photography are generally pretty nasty looking (except for certain special effects) but one of my favorite things is shooting max ISO in b&w. The smaller the sensor the better. Its an aspect of digicam performance that is often overlooked but can be appreciated by a film shooter.

 

[grat]

Digital sensors have improved to the point where there are a number of them that are supposedly "ISO invariant"-- because people can take the RAW image, change the ISO to whatever they want, without appreciable increase in noise. Those same people tell you sensor noise doesn't exist. They also get incredibly offended when you claim ISO is part of the exposure calculation.

They're also the primary reason I don't visit DPReview very often.

As for George Mann, he reminds me of a neighbor I grew up near, who had a very cogent argument for why man had never landed on the moon-- God said we weren't supposed to (I don't know where He said this), and if we had landed on the moon, humanity would have been destroyed. We're still here, so we never landed on the moon. The logic is sound, but the premise is a bit shaky. He also claimed if anyone ever used anything but a bull to plow his field, you'd never get a decent crop out of it again-- his son proved him right on that one, but it might have been because the son was a lousy farmer.

George is welcome to his opinion that digital photography, which is based on entirely the same principle of capturing light as silver-gelatin photography (although it takes a hard right turn in the developing stage), isn't actually photography, just as I never argued with my neighbor.

I'm with Sal. It's photography.