Today we are going to talk about ISO. If you missed Part 1, you can go read it here. To start, what does ISO even mean? There is actually some debate about that, but a common definition is "International Standard Organization". In a nutshell, ISO is your camera's sensitivity to light. It's kind of a hold over from film days. You had to pick your film based upon the level of lighting in which you'd be shooting. Today, your camera can change ISO pretty easily. As previously stated, ISO is how sensitive your camera sensor is to light. If it is a bright and sunny day, there is plenty of light around and you can have a very low ISO. But if you're at a concert or something with not a lot of light, you'd need to bump that number up to get a decent picture. Here, you can see that my ISO is set to 400. On my camera, a Canon t5i, 100 is my lowest ISO. That's the number I'd use on a bright, sunny day. My highest ISO is 12800. Some cameras, higher levels than mine, allow you to go in between the "standard" numbers, like 1200. So what do all these numbers mean to you? Simply speaking, the larger the number, the more sensitive it is to light. That means that it can "gather" the light better in darker situations. There is a drawback though. Have you ever seen images that are spotty? They look like they have dirt or sand on them? That's called grain. Grain is the price you pay for high ISO. Some higher-end cameras can work at a pretty high ISO without having too much noticeable grain, but it's still the trade off. I keep my ISO as low as possible, but if I cannot compromise on my shutter speed and aperture, then I have to bump up my ISO. It's not my favorite, but if it's a choice between no picture or a grainy picture, I'm usually going to pick a grainy one. Let me know if you have any questions about ISO. Next week will be on aperture and then I'll tie them all together.
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Hi! I'm Sarah!
I am a natural light portrait photographer. I've been taking photos since 2014 and would eat a smoothie from Tropical Smoothie Cafe for lunch everyday if I could. Thank you so much for stopping by. I blog about sessions, things I'm learning, stuff in my life, and information for YOU, my client. If you like what you see around the site, I'd love to work with you! I'd also love to connect with you on Instagram. I'm @sarah_jayne_photo :) Archives
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