Poll: Is intelligent/ programmable Auto ISO an important feature for future FW updates?

No one WANTS to change the ISO as a primary parameter. You may wish to reduce grain, or change the shutter speed, or change the aperture to vary the depth of field. But unless you're looking for grain on purpose the only reason you care about ISO is that the IQ deteriorates as it goes up. Well lately high ISO IQ has been improving and we're capturing higher resolution so noise reduction with a loss of size is possible. So that won't be as big an issue in future.

So if you use auto-ISO, you can have an automatic exposure mode in "manual" mode that allows you to fix the aperture and shutter speed and then fire and forget - especially useful in highly variable light (like going from outdoors to indoors....or shooting a plane flying by from frontlit to backlit. Granted you're still at the mercy of the cameras exposure algorithms but they really are very good and you can recover a couple of stops of exposure easily these days if you shoot RAW.

I can already so something very similar with my Nikon D90.(Pity they changed the algorithm when using flash for later models). Set

-manual

- f/8 to f/11 (stop down further in plenty of light if i have to bearing in mind diffraction softening)

- shutter at flash sync speed (1/200th) if using flash or roughly 1/1.5* max focal length for long zoom

(or if I wish aperture priority with auto ISO triggering below 1/200th shutter speed)

Now the camera does the heavy lifting for exposure and I'll just tweak it as needed while focusing on the creative aspects...and I retain full control.

I'd REALLY like to see a fully programmable camera that runs user programs when deciding parameters for a shot. Something like CHDK on steroids.

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Sammy.
My forum postings reflect my own opinions and not those of my employer. I'm not employed in the photo business.