LX7 "ISO Limit" and "Extended ISO" Basic Questions

[Mike P Russell]

Hi, I am new to DP Review and I am a digital photography novice. I just got a LX7 and read the extended manual and have a couple of ISO related questions.

When ISO is set to "Auto", ISO is set up to 1600 depending upon the conditions. I am OK with this.

There is also an "ISO Limit" setting that I do not understand. If ISO is set to "Auto" then this field's setting options are Auto, 200, 400, 800, 1600, or 3200. Can someone help me understand what this field does and do you have a suggested setting?

Also, there is a setting called "Extended ISO". What does this setting do?

Regards, Mike

 

[ianmoodya]

"Extended ISO" lets you pick from a couple of even higher ISOs that are a bit bad quality wise but can be useful in a push. You wouldn't want most people to use them, so they are off by default, but if you know you need them you can turn them on.

I use them for composing night shots in darkness - the images are basically garbage, but they let you compose a shot in almost no light.

 

[ianmoodya]

The ISO limit setting is simply the highest ISO the camera will allow itself to pick when making a shot on any kind of auto mode.

Once it reaches this ISO limit its only choice to get the exposure is to give a longer shutter speed.

The reason it is a choice is that different people have different needs and accept different quality output.

In normal lighting, family shots, I'm happy with anything up to 1600 if if thinks it needs it.

With arty landscape stuff you might set it lower.

If you are doing indoor night stuff then you need to accept a trade off in quality and set it higher, just so you get non-blurry photos.

You need to take a few shots at different ISOs and see where you draw the line.

Finally, if you are using tripods etc then you would set it lower as you will be able to handle the longer shutter speeds.

Finally finally, once you are a bit happier with ISOs you'll probably want to pick it manually anyway in many cases.