Auto ISO Behavior

Rod McD wrote:

Hi,

I'm going to be controversial and ask 'why switch to auto-ISO?' It doesn't seem to me to offer any significant benefits. It introduces more complexity than setting ISO myself and occasional hidden pitfalls for the unwary. Despite many threads on the subject, I still don't know why anyone bothers.

The Fuji gods put a thumping great knob on the top left hand end of my camera to control ISO in a system where their market purports to actually like analogue controls. It's got numbers on it. When the light is bright, I turn it to low numbers. When the light is low (or I specifically want faster SS's) I turn it to higher numbers. It's easy. The light never changes so fast that I need it automated. I knowwhat my camera is set to and I don't get any strange outcomes around the set-up parameters, DR management or electronic flash usage. It's kind of fail-safe - it works beautifully!

Cheers, Rod

Why? Because it can be set to do the same thing automatically that I would otherwise have to do manually, and it does it instantly and precisely. I am free to think about more important creative concerns like composition and aperture etc. (or I can just be lazier without screwing anything up).

There are exceptions, but most of the time one of my Auto-ISO preset minimum shutter speeds will suffice for my purposes - always maintaining a SS that's fast enough to avoid motion blur while always keeping the ISO as low as possible no matter what light I find myself in. All I have to worry about, in almost any situation, and without having to mess with any top dials or dive into any menus, is simply focusing and composing my image while tweaking the exposure/ISO as needed with my finger on the front dial (EC), period. With this arrangement I can walk from blazing sunshine and into a cave, shooting with optimal exposure the whole time without missing a beat or having to change any settings at all.

If, for some reason, I want a fixed ISO (maybe I put my camera on a tripod), I simply look down and turn the ISO dial from “A” to 200 (or whatever) …and I’m still in normal aperture priority mode.

If I need an especially high SS (maybe a hummingbird appears), I simply look down and turn the SS dial from “A” to 1/2000” (or more often “T” to control SS with the rear dial) …and I’m still in Auto-ISO mode, but with a fixed (and non-overridable) SS.

If I need full manual (for astrophotography or whatever), I simply set fixed values on both top dials.

None of these scenarios require anything more than a quick glance down and knob adjustment to engage or disengage an override  - without ever having to hassle with a menu (or even turning the camera on). Instead of constantly adjusting the top dials, I only use them, as needed, to override or partially override the automatic functions when necessary (not all that often).

That’s why I use Auto-ISO.