An In-depth Discussion of M + Auto-ISO Part II

Alas, you are obviously both arrogant and clueless.
The feeling is mutual.
Good, glad we can agree on something.
You said yourself that you simply wanted to continue this discussion (as opposed to a different one)...
Correct, because goons filled up the last one with spam.
"Goon" obviously being defined as someone who disagrees with you (plenty of those around, I agree)
problem is that you have no new information to bring to the party.
forum is made up by many people, others may bring in new information to the party. (did you not get this part in my lasy post?)
Oh I get it. Yet, most of the posts are yours. Hmmmm. My comments were directed more at your "contribution", not others.
You simply want to use this forum as a springboard to repeat the same tired argument repeatedly -- i.e. flogging a dead (and now decayed) horse.
That appears to be you because you intentionally replied twice in this thread, not only adding nothing to the discussion, but is critical of the existence of the discussion itself. A cynical personal may call this suppression of freedom of expression and total disregard of other people's right to have an opinion.
Not critical of the discussion... just your part in it. Love the last comment... let's add a little drama to the thread shall we.
That said, I will take my cookie and find some threads where I might actually learn something (else).
I sincerely wish you would keep your word, unlike last time when you said

"OK, jumping off the pulpit now, but had to get this out. Disappearing back into the shadows (sort of)..."
Hard to resist, I admit. I'll try to show a bit more restraint going forward. Maybe we could both benefit from that, eh?
I'm sure you will continue to impress yourself here.
you are in danger of establishing a reputation of yourself for making unfounded and irrelevant bitter commentary.
Oh, I guess I'll take that risk. Been posting for 8 years here, and so far haven't gotten banned yet. We won't get into the sort of reputation you might be building based on this and the previous thread.
 
Correct, because goons filled up the last one with spam.
"Goon" obviously being defined as someone who disagrees with you (plenty of those around, I agree)
Far from it, WilbaW disagrees with me and I highly respect his input. Olga somewhat disagrees with me and I always welcome her opinion.

Goons are those who dont understand the technical issues or having nothing valid to contribute yet cant refrain from spamming, howard and fred are prime examples but of different sort. Having made 3 highly negative and non-contributory posts you have just made it into that rank.
problem is that you have no new information to bring to the party.
forum is made up by many people, others may bring in new information to the party. (did you not get this part in my lasy post?)
Oh I get it. Yet, most of the posts are yours.
that purported statement of fact is dishonest. did my post make up 76 or more out of 151 in the last thread?
Hmmmm. My comments were directed more at your "contribution", not others.
bend it however you want, you made your negative comment right after my original posts which was just to set a place for others to have their say.

speaking of contribution, why dont you count how many posts you have made in these two threads, which ones advanced the discussion or clarified any technical point?
You simply want to use this forum as a springboard to repeat the same tired argument repeatedly -- i.e. flogging a dead (and now decayed) horse.
That appears to be you because you intentionally replied twice in this thread, not only adding nothing to the discussion, but is critical of the existence of the discussion itself. A cynical personal may call this suppression of freedom of expression and total disregard of other people's right to have an opinion.
Not critical of the discussion... just your part in it. Love the last comment... let's add a little drama to the thread shall we.
not critical of the discussion? that is a disgusting denial. My original 3 posts in this thread is merely a slightly refined version of the original posts from last thread, it contained no personal or individual response to anyone's input. It was made purely to provide a foundation for others who may wish to add more to the subject. yet you jumped in an made your first strong worded objection.
That said, I will take my cookie and find some threads where I might actually learn something (else).
I sincerely wish you would keep your word, unlike last time when you said

"OK, jumping off the pulpit now, but had to get this out. Disappearing back into the shadows (sort of)..."
Hard to resist, I admit. I'll try to show a bit more restraint going forward. Maybe we could both benefit from that, eh?
you can certainly great benefit from it, and clearly, the quality of "man of his words" is a foreign concept to you.
Oh, I guess I'll take that risk. Been posting for 8 years here, and so far haven't gotten banned yet.
This forum doesnt ban people for being irrationally negative and counter-productive, definitely doesnt ban people for saying they would leave a discussion yet continue to pester.
 
Nice job , excellent info we can all benefit from. The critics will always be here, some disagree just to disagree. Many fear change and still use their DSLR like their SLR, so they resist any view different from theirs about using the auto advance features of the cameras. But I and I'm sure many others who didn't post appreciated your time and effort to help others to understand the feature(A-ISO) better, and will try some of the suggestions. Ignore the Bullies, or stroke their egos cause they know it all!
--
Gw -Don't mind the noise in the market...jus' remember the PRICE of the fish!
 
Correct, because goons filled up the last one with spam.
Oh, you really are full of it, aren't you?

You want "discussion" (hah!) but when you get it, anyone who disagrees with you is a "goon".

The truth is, you're not interested in discussion or dialogue at all. You're (ab)using this forum by using it as a soapbox from which to spout your ill-informed, narrow-minded little agendas.

Your posts are a waste of bandwidth.

The fact is this: Auto-ISO as currently implemented - in the 7D, at least - misses the target by a pretty wide margin compared with the proven and much-appreciated Nikon implementation . And it misses because it lacks EC adjustment and a way to set lower and upper ISO limits.

Your complete inability to understand why these functions matter in Auto ISO disqualifies you from having any useful opinion on the subject as far as I'm concerned - you obviously don't understand Real World use of Auto ISO.

Well, I've used Auto ISO when it's done properly - it was my default setting as a Nikon user - and I don't use it at all on my 7D.

See if you can figure out why...
 
Ignore the Bullies, or stroke their egos cause they know it all!
You do this a lot, I've noticed - side with the muppets that cause the problems.

I imagine you don't even understand or care about the issues here, do you? But you wade in regardless...
 
The fact is this: Auto-ISO as currently implemented - in the 7D, at least - misses the target by a pretty wide margin compared with the proven and much-appreciated Nikon implementation . And it misses because it lacks EC adjustment and a way to set lower and upper ISO limits.
Gee - I dunno Keith. I use Auto-ISO quite a bit on my 7D. It works very well in most situations.

It's fine to disagree, but there are a few here who seem to be asserting that Auto-ISO is virtually useless - which is not the case.

I can see advantages to using manual ISO when you wish to compensate towards underexposure as you can use ISO to achieve that - though it's debatable (if people would just calm down!) whether you'll gain much doing this.

But, apart from that, I really think that Auto-ISO is just fine - and it is the default setting on my 7D.

There has been a lot of words from some here (not necessarily you Keith) stating that manual ISO will yield better images - but I think that's applicable to a minority of shots. And, it's in those unusual situations that I switch off Auto-ISO - the rest of the time it's just plain easier as there is no need to consider and change the ISO setting manually.

Really - it's like most things when it comes to exposure ... there can be no hard and fast rule! Different things work in different situations. But here are many situations when Auto_ISO works just fine and is very convenient :-)
 
Gee - I dunno Keith. I use Auto-ISO quite a bit on my 7D. It works very well in most situations.
Not saying that you shouldn't, either - it's Chuckles that's telling us what is and isn't acceptable.
It's fine to disagree, but there are a few here who seem to be asserting that Auto-ISO is virtually useless - which is not the case.
True - but there are also some folk who are in zealot-style denial that there's clear - and very well-informed, based-on-experience - room for improvement.
There has been a lot of words from some here (not necessarily you Keith) stating that manual ISO will yield better images - but I think that's applicable to a minority of shots.
Not at all me, mate - I'm not wedded to Manual as an end in itself. I never use it now, given how well Av does for me. But Manual + (what I consider to be) proper Auto ISO is fantastic and I'd use that 100% of the time if I had it .

In the genre I shoot ( ;) clue: http://www.capture-the-moment.co.uk/tp/reports/another-trip-to-e-yorks ) there's something amazingly liberating to be able to set the shutter speed I need and lock in the aperture for the DoF I'm after, and have the camera ride up and down the ISO between what I've decided are its limits, to maintain those settings, secure in the knowledge that lighting changes can be adjusted for in fractions of a second by shifting the EC and that I'll always get the very lowest ISO necessary to support the settings I've chosen.

Until I can do all that with my Canon bodies, Auto ISO doesn't really hack it for me.

But I'm happy to to accept that it does for other folk...
 
there's something amazingly liberating to be able to set the shutter speed I need and lock in the aperture for the DoF I'm after, and have the camera ride up and down the ISO between what I've decided are its limits, to maintain those settings, secure in the knowledge that lighting changes can be adjusted for in fractions of a second by shifting the EC and that I'll always get the very lowest ISO necessary to support the settings I've chosen.
I'm fully in agreement regarding EC in M with Auto-ISO. I've been carrying-on about that for ages now too! :-)

The thing I'm left wondering is the limits issue - that's the bit I guess I'm struggling with a bit.

Say I set my upper limit to ISO800 (I find everything above 800 to be unacceptable - this is an example of course, I'm happy with 3200 in reality).

Now - I dial in my required aperture and shutter speed, I'm in auto-ISO with my limits set, and I'm tracking a bird (for example) through difficult lighting.

OK.

Everything is fine while the required ISO for my chosen settings is 800 or less.

But ... what about when the light suddenly requires a higher ISO for my manually chosen settings?

What's your take on this? Would you rather under-expose the shot, or have the camera go to the 'correct' ISO that allows the optimum gain to be applied for the light received by the sensor?

(In fact, as I think about this, I find your stance about ISO limits to be a little bit contradictory to your normal posts - you often post stating how good the higher ISO's on the 18MP sensors are.)

See, I'm in the same camp as ulti about ISO and exposure. It's my experience that a 'correctly' exposed ISO3200 image is every bit as good as a 1 stop underexposed ISO1600 image.

And, because of this, I'm struggling to see the advantage to being able to forcibly ensure that, when lighting changes and dictates it, my camera under-exposes images above a certain ISO.
 
Oh .. and BTW ... thanks for the link! Cool site! Very nice images on there :-)
 
But ... what about when the light suddenly requires a higher ISO for my manually chosen settings?

What's your take on this? Would you rather under-expose the shot, or have the camera go to the 'correct' ISO that allows the optimum gain to be applied for the light received by the sensor?
Well, I choose my upper limits based on what experience tells me I'm likely to be happy with IQ-wise. I've found that while I'm happy with (say) 6400 or even 12800 ISO shooting gigs, and up to 6400 ISO for sports, I've yet to take a bird image much over 2000 ISO (the first pic on the linked page was at 1600 ISO) that I've been properly happy with.

That's because I know that (for example) 2000 ISO light is just going to be bad light, and that regardless of how capable a camera is at higher ISOs the image will not be good. Bird photography carries with it very high de facto IQ expectations, and so I simply don't subscribe to the "any shot is better than nothing" premise in this genre.

So for birding, once the meter starts looking for, say, 3200 ISO I don't (generally) really care whether the camera simply doesn't take the shot, or takes it at the highest limit anyway, because I "know", pretty much, that I won't want the file anyway.

Diminishing returns, as I say.

For the same reason, I wouldn't want the camera to override my decisions and start underexposing to maintain the shutter speed: again, my upper limit is there for IQ reasons, and generally speaking, underexposure in already crappy light isn't going to help, IQ-wise.

That's my use-case for an upper limit. If I miss the odd shot this way, that's fine - they won't be "keepers" anyway.

And if a mega-rarity pops up in front of me for which I must get a record shot of some sort, how long does it take to switch from C1 to C2?
 
That's because I know that (for example) 2000 ISO light is just going to be bad light, and that regardless of how capable a camera is at higher ISOs the image will not be good. Bird photography carries with it very high de facto IQ expectations, and so I simply don't subscribe to the "any shot is better than nothing" premise in this genre.

So for birding, once the meter starts looking for, say, 3200 ISO I don't (generally) really care whether the camera simply doesn't take the shot, or takes it at the highest limit anyway, because I "know", pretty much, that I won't want the file anyway.

Diminishing returns, as I say.

For the same reason, I wouldn't want the camera to override my decisions and start underexposing to maintain the shutter speed: again, my upper limit is there for IQ reasons, and generally speaking, underexposure in already crappy light isn't going to help, IQ-wise.

That's my use-case for an upper limit. If I miss the odd shot this way, that's fine - they won't be "keepers" anyway.
LOL! Fair enough :-)

Though you do realise that, essentially, what your saying is that you don't want the camera to under-expose and once it goes above ISO2000, then you don't care about the image anyway.

So, in that case, Auto-ISO, as implemented without settable limits, should work just fine for you (apart from not having EC available, of course) ;-)
 
Correct, because goons filled up the last one with spam.
Oh, you really are full of it, aren't you?
as per my response to jerry on the same idiotic accusation:

Far from it, WilbaW disagrees with me and I highly respect his input. Olga somewhat disagrees with me and I always welcome her opinion.

Goons are those who dont understand the technical issues or having nothing valid to contribute yet cant refrain from spamming, howard and fred are prime examples but of different sort.

You want "discussion" (hah!) but when you get it, anyone who disagrees with you is a "goon".
not at all, you dont agree with me and I dont think you are a goon.
The truth is, you're not interested in discussion or dialogue at all. You're (ab)using this forum by using it as a soapbox from which to spout your ill-informed, narrow-minded little agendas.
please substantiate these allegations

what is my "ill-informed" agenda?
which part of my posts come is "narrow-minded"?

if you cant then they are baseless and are of pure bitching.

talking about narrow-mindedness. I have made it very clear many times on: 1, why limiting auto-iso is unnecessary. 2, I do not wish to convert anyone.

in the end of the day, if you still think you want limit auto-iso that is fine, but if you post this view in forum then you must accept that this view may get challenged, and when it gets challenged on its logical merit you must not ***** (for the lack of better word).

but that is exactly what you do, so far after many repeats of "you want limit to auto-iso" you have failed to really explain what possible merit it would bring, I in fact properly explained why it would be of no benefit. you have no real counter argument but you also can not get your head around, that makes you the narrow minded one.
Your posts are a waste of bandwidth.
then why do you waste yours opening my thread and posting in it with nothing but hate?
The fact is this: Auto-ISO as currently implemented - in the 7D, at least - misses the target by a pretty wide margin compared with the proven and much-appreciated Nikon implementation .
it is not as good as nikons, we know it and no one is challenging this view. you need not repeat it every chance you get. that does become a waste of bandwidth.

the only real hurdle is lack of fine tuned amplification 9and to a limited extent no EC). But as is it certainly doesnt miss the target by a wide margin , full stop amplification with software fill the gaps is perfectly usable. further more, it is an inherent fault of amplification system but not auto-iso itself, you dont get 1/3 stop amplification even if you dont use auto-iso.
Your complete inability to understand why these functions matter in Auto ISO disqualifies you from having any useful opinion on the subject as far as I'm concerned - you obviously don't understand Real World use of Auto ISO.
your complete inability to see or explain the lack of rationale in limiting auto-iso equally disqualified you off my book. further, you inability to understand or accept that I simply have a different view on usefulness of EC where it is only a matter of hardware vs software small step amplification shows that you are unfit for any further discussion on this topic.

what separates you and me is I can explain my acceptance of absence of EC, but you can not explain your intolerance of lack of max iso limit.
Well, I've used Auto ISO when it's done properly - it was my default setting as a Nikon user - and I don't use it at all on my 7D.
do whatever you like, this thread was never about what you do. canon doesnt care and I dont either.
See if you can figure out why...
no one give a phuck.
 
So for birding, once the meter starts looking for, say, 3200 ISO I don't (generally) really care whether the camera simply doesn't take the shot, or takes it at the highest limit anyway, because I "know", pretty much, that I won't want the file anyway.
...

That's my use-case for an upper limit. If I miss the odd shot this way, that's fine - they won't be "keepers" anyway.
As it has been pointed out to you several times, both in last thread and this one - All that you are saying is you dont want the shot if light level is too low (so iso needs to be too high), but that is in no way benefited from having max iso limit . Because all the limit does is makes you shoot the image underexposed. in the end, with or without the limit you have taken the shot, if you throw it away, the limit made no difference, if you dont throw it away, the iso 3200 image would be better than 1 stop underexposed iso 1600 image.
 
I went back and read his extremely long winded post, which he felt the need to repeat here, and he still just doesn't get it. Of special amusement is the was he dismisses EC. I don't think I'll waste my time. Although I feel bad for all the newbies who fall for his double-talk and end up with boring shots, where a little use of EC would have made them so much better.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 
After you read it again did you have to immediately take your camera outside and confirm you were still able to use a camera properly and get good pictures? During the last thread there were times I felt like my photographics instincts might have somehow been compromised by getting involved in such a lame-brained debate.

Anyway, I wasn't going to send this thread to the top of the queue again but since it won't go away I don't feel like I'm doing any real harm.

Part of the confusion I think is because of inexperience. His gallery has photos from cameras like the Sony H9, Pan LX3, Canon XS, 60D, and 7D dating back to '09. He makes statements like those below as if he is the authority on all digital photography....he chose the LX3 and it's the best so what's wrong with you that would make you disagree? Anyway, I could go on but I'm not wasting any more time confirming the obvious. He's not a bad photographer and no doubt he's learning, but he's a self-righteous kid that started with fully automatic cameras and has never known anything different. He thinks getting good photographs proves he's doing everything right and will never accept that technology might not always trump human judgement. His parents never said they loved him so when he gets attention for being a photographer it's the only validation he gets. :) Okay, that might be a little far fetched, but I'd still bet the only place he's ever felt accepted and useful is behind the camera. Good for him! Carry on! I hope he gets great shots despite himself.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=32414255
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1033&message=32414306
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1010&message=32821349
 
Really, reading between the lines it seems like the majority agrees. Intelligent auto-ISO is a good thing (you can always turn it off) but it's not very sophisticated in the 7D (shame on Canon.)

Whether you use it or not depends on whether you can live with it's limitations, and that's a personal decision based on shooting style. I'd like to see EC in manual mode, an upper and lower limit, and a focal length multiplier factor. A few lines of code. More valuable than half the custom functions or the C1-C3 dial settings. A feature that would actually motivate me to upgrade.

Intelligent automation under user control is a good option, provided it's truly intelligent.
 
Reasonable summary. However, I do find the C settings useful at times. I have one set as a starting point for daylight shooting, one set as a starting point for flash and one set as a starting point for low light. That way, if I have to grab the camera and shoot, I don't have to check every setting in the couple of seconds I have to get the shot. But normally I use Av mode.
--
Jeff Peterman

Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
http://www.pbase.com/jeffp25
http://www.jeffp25.smugmug.com

 
Your assertions are misguided because the logic behind them is based mostly on assumptions.
one shot at ISO 100 and underexposed by 3 stops, then increase exposure by 3 stop in raw processing software, while the other shot at ISO 800 and is correctly exposed. It would be immediately apparent to the viewer that the ISO 800 image has much less noise as well as better contrast and colour accuracy than the other.
Yep, because you're clipping shadow detail. CMOS sensors behave in a linear fashion like a bucket collecting photons rather than a piece of film with particles of varying sizes and sensitivities that allow for a less harsh response (curved at the top and bottom rather than linear) when reaching the point of clipping highlights and more forgiving of shadows areas as well. Underexpose by three stops and you've got areas of finely varying luminance levels clipped to zero. Try shooting an ISO 100 shot overexposed by 3 stops and see if you can bring it down three in ACR and get those highlights back. Nope, looks like crap. The best one can expect in ACR to recover highlights or shadows is somewhere between one and two stops if you're really lucky. If your forground and background vary by 1.5 (for the sake of argument) or more whatever detail you lost is gone forever. If you underexpose at ISO 100 by 3 stops then you've also drastically altered your signal to noise ratio by reducing the signal that must contend with the noise that will always be there. This is why an ISO 1600 shot looks better properly exposed than when it is underexposed....S/N is higher so noise is less apparent than when underexposed.
This is a very important point to remember, because it means by manually setting ISO, what you are dictating is the amount of amplification the camera will apply to the image after it is captured, whereas controlling aperture and shutter speed is controlling how much light is to be captured.
And in every situation aperture, shutter speed, and ISO can have drastically different roles to play, making the importance of each one vary dramatically. Simply choosing an aperture and slowest shutter safe shutter speed can sometimes be the worst thing to do. Choosing ISO also affects your dynamic range. Good references below. Experience can make things intuitively obvious, but science is rarely ambiguous.

http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/digital.sensor.performance.summary/#SNR
See figure 5a.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos7d/page17.asp

I hope you enjoyed some more bothersome spam. I really won't bother any more, but after looking for and finding scientific descriptions of things I'd learned through experience I decided to share. If nothing else, allowing ISO to go up without considering how to balance out the other variables could lead to some less than optimal results, wonderfully perfect metering system or not.
 

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