Which ISO Setting to Use - Camera Basics Explained

You may have mastered shutter speed, aperture and white balance now it is time to master your cameras ISO settings. ISO isn't taught enough in my opinion to new photographers and I can't for the life of me understand why because the ISO settings you choose will not only effect the exposure of the image but it will also affect the overall image quality. In this article I will teach you everything you will need to know to master your cameras ISO settings.

Back in the olden days when film was the main way to take photographs you would have different variations of film, the higher the ISO of the film the more sensitive it was to light. These days we use digital cameras so we no longer need to worry about film, we do however need to learn which settings make our camera more sensitive to light, this is where the ISO settings come into play.

High ISO

Most DSLR cameras will have the ability to go up to ISO 1600; this is the highest ISO setting on the camera making it the most sensitive setting to light. By raising the ISO of the camera you will be able to shoot at higher shutter speeds. There are many reasons to do this, some include:

? Letting more light in to avoid motion blur

? Shooting at low light

? Increasing shutter speed to freeze the action

Raising your ISO settings by 1 increment will make your camera 1 stop of light more sensitive. This may sound good to you at this current moment and you may be thinking if you can do all of this with a high ISO why would you want to shoot with a lower ISO, well there is a catch.

Shooting at a high ISO will decrease the quality of your image. The higher the ISO the more likely there will be noise in your image. If you don't know what noise is then imagine your television set when it is not programmed into a channel and you turn it on, the black and grey mess looks exactly like noise.

Some DSLR cameras are better at higher ISO levels than others.

When to use certain ISO settings

As a rule of thumb I would prefer a noise image over an image with motion blur in it, simply because blurry pictures aren't usable where as a high noise picture can be still used. I however would recommend using the lowest ISO settings that you can to get your correct exposure.

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