ISO settings, and other ramblings

Yesterday my wife and I went driving around the Ozarks, and I was snapping pictures with my new E-PM2, and it was a rainy, overcast day. She wanted me to take some pictures of roadside flowers, and I took this photo of mullein and some wild garlic for her.

Later on at a local cafe, I zipped the photos from the PM2 over to my phone, and sent them to her, and she loved the pictures. I apologized for leaving my camera on the ISO 5000 setting from the night before, where I was taking pictures of her garden in the dark I told her that I should have shot the mullein and garlic at a lower ISO and it would have made a better picture.

She asked why do you set the camera to ISO 5000, and I replied that the higher the ISO setting, the better the camera would take pictures in lower light, but the pictures would have more noise, or be more grainy.

She said she thought the pictures of the mullein and garlic were wonderful, and why would I think they were noisy or grainy?

Then she looked at my little PM2 and was of the opinion that was a cute little camera, and could she borrow that one to take around with her, when she went to farmer's markets?

I agreed.

She then said to set the buttons so it would take ISO 5000 and it would need less light to work. I replied there was an automatic ISO setting that would select the lowest ISO setting needed, and I could set the camera to use that one, for her.

Why, she asked, didn't I use that automatic ISO setting all the time?

And at that point, our lunch came, and I wondered,,,,,

Why in the world, don't we use Auto ISO all the time, anyway?

So why don't you use auto-ISO? I do, I set the limit to 6400 and forget about it.

Auto ISO often means you can't adjust exposure comp.

Sometimes I want to shoot outside what the camera thinks is safe. eg: A lower shutter speed than it thinks can be achieved.

People may have presets in their post processing designed to handle the noise at a given ISO range. Using ISO 5000 instead of 1600 may require different post processing methods.

Mark9473 wrote:

So why don't you use auto-ISO? I do, I set the limit to 6400 and forget about it.

That is a very good question, that I really couldn't answer.

Probably, because I just like playing with all the buttons and gizmos and such on the camera.

In any event, I switched over to automatic ISO, and came home and took this picture of her blackberries, after the sun came out.

She was very pleased with the blackberry pictures, and started sending them and the pictures of the mulaine and wild garlic to her garnding friends.

She asked me what ISO I used on the blackberry pictures, and I said the camera selected ISO 200, which was a very low ISO, and the default for the camera.

She wondered if the camera, was smarter than I was, about what ISO to use, and I agreed that usually it was.

If I remember to let the camera select the ISO, and don't go playing with all the buttons on it.

That's a stark difference. Looking back at your first picture, I think you have the high-ISO noise reduction set too high.

Martin.au wrote:

Auto ISO often means you can't adjust exposure comp.

Not on my Panasonic cameras.

Auto ISO would be my default setting for walkabout.  For more considered shooting off a tripod, I would like to make my own choices, not least between DR, shot noise, read noise and highlight posterisation.

Andrew

My wife asked me if there was some automatic setting on the camera that would set everything just right, every time, according to what Olympus thought  was best.

i replied that was Automatic.

She asked if I was smarter than the people who made the camera.

i said I pretended to be, otherwise I could just use the iPhone.

I tend not to use auto-ISO, preferring to keep ISO as low as possible.  Also, with auto-ISO, I found myself setting the max ISO frequently so why not just set the ISO directly - it's super quick to do on Olympus cameras.

Humansvillian wrote:

My wife asked me if there was some automatic setting on the camera that would set everything just right, every time, according to what Olympus thought was best.

i replied that was Automatic.

She asked if I was smarter than the people who made the camera.

i said I pretended to be, otherwise I could just use the iPhone.

Except "the people who made the camera" made all the other settings as well, certainly expecting people to use them.

Anyway, I don't think "the people who made the camera" would use the iAuto setting for everything, either.

I reserve the right to mess up my own photos in my own way.

Michael:

Amen! 

Welcome to the forum!

<<I reserve the right to mess up my own photos in my own way.

Michael>>

mpfrank wrote:

I reserve the right to mess up my own photos in my own way.

Amen bruddah.

FingerPainter wrote:

phil from seattle wrote:

I tend not to use auto-ISO, preferring to keep ISO as low as possible.

But Auto-ISO does keep ISO a low as possible, for the lightness you told the camera you wanted.

That depends on the camera. My G80 in A mode for example, will raise the ISO before lowering the shutter speed.