Do you always shoot in ISO 100?

[ronlane]

No, I use what I need to get the shot. I do like to keep it as low as possible but after watching a video on street photography on KelbyOne and seeing the images that were shot in daylight at 1600, I started trying it myself with good success.

As Overread says, I once thought of it as the noise part of the equation.

 

[lambertpix]

44% of the shots I took this year were at ISO 100, according to LR.

 

[Big Mike]

A pro-photographer encourages me to shoot in iso100 all the times.

I actually talk about this in my DSLR class...I call it 'the ISO bias'. I tell the students that they might hear/see advice (usually from older photographers) that staying with the lowest ISO is the best way to shoot.

Of course, shooting at a lower ISO is almost always preferable because if gives you the least amount of digital noise. But if you have a good understanding of exposure (shutter speed, ISO and aperture) then you can make smart decisions about when to use a higher ISO.

The example I give is this:
Imagine that you want to shoot (photograph ) your kids playing and your settings are F5.6, 1/50 and ISO 100.
Is 1/50 fast enough to freeze kids running around? No, it's not.
So if you raise your ISO to 200, you can then have a shutter speed of 1/100. If you raise your ISO to 400, your shutter speed would be 1/200.
Is 1/200 going to freeze the action? Probably.
So there is a significant difference between 1/50 and 1/200, when it comes to freezing motion.
What is the difference in the amount of noise, with a modern DSLR, between 100 and 400? It is very little difference, I'd even call it negligible for most uses.
So in this case, raising the ISO was clearly the right choice.

Then I have another example where the settings are 1/2000, F5.6 and ISO 6400. Again, shooting a moving subject.
Is 1/2000 going to freeze a subject, almost certainly. But could we get away with a slower shutter speed and still freeze the action? What if we change the shutter speed to 1/1000? It would allow us to use an ISO of 3200. If we went to 1/500, we could further reduce the ISO to 1600.
Now, are we going to see the difference in the amount of noise between ISO 6400 and 1600? Probably we would. Would we see the difference in motion (of kids) between 1/2000 and 1/500? Probably not.
So in this case, it makes sense to lower the ISO.

The key thing is to understand when changing the ISO (or either of the other settings) will give you a more beneficial combination for the situation that you are in.

 

[Solarflare]

You can shoot at ISO 100 and nothing else if you're in the studio.

I dont even have a studio.

Thus I shoot at ISO 100-25600, depending upon light, which the maximum of my current camera.

A Sony A7s with native ISO 100.000 would be awesome for my needs. Except of course that camera has certain problems.

I use flash whenever its a good idea, but of course that doesnt always work.

 

[CameraClicker]

I use ISO 200 a lot. Faster and clean enough. 'coarse I also use much higher values as necessary.

 

[robbins.photo]

I dont shoot at iso 100 or even 200 that much, unless i have enough light to get a decent shutter speed.

 

[Braineack]

Nope. Rather worry about getting the shot.

 

[rexbobcat]

Whenever possible, which is mostly when using flash or in broad daylight. I us the 6D, which only goes to 1/4000, so it's sometimes difficult to shoot at higher ISOs when using apertures of f/2.8 and wider.

But then, I don't see any point in using higher ISOs in the first place when my shutter speed is above 1/1000.

 

[Derrel]

"Keep the ISO as low as you can" is bad advice for a beginner as a general tip for shooting.

This, ^^^^, to the tenth power!

Techboy, the "professional" photographer telling you to ,"Always shoot at ISO 100," is an idiot and a fool. Have you thought that he might be giving you deliberately BAD advice?

Seriously...anybody who advocates always using ISO 100 has a very,very, VERY limited grasp of the photographic process.

Oh, by the way--ALWAYS drive in second gear, between 1,500 RPM and as high as,oh, around 7,500 RPM....you get a LOT MORE TORQUE that way, you know, in second gear!!! Whatever the speed, ALWAYS drive in second gear!

 

[JerryVenz]

A pro-photographer encourages me to shoot in iso100 all the times. When I use a speedlight, I always shoot iso 400 to prevent recycle lag time and over draining the battery. Depending on how well the environment is lit, I can get lowest as iso 100, or if I shoot in still life. The iso 400 seems to have very good quality in photographs unless I zoom in or cropping large portion of the photograph. I don't think I can tell the differences between the whole photographs with iso 100 and iso 400. Do you always shoot in iso 100?

 

[Overread]

"Keep the ISO as low as you can" is bad advice for a beginner as a general tip for shooting.

This, ^^^^, to the tenth power!

Techboy, the "professional" photographer telling you to ,"Always shoot at ISO 100," is an idiot and a fool. Have you thought that he might be giving you deliberately BAD advice?

Seriously...anybody who advocates always using ISO 100 has a very,very, VERY limited grasp of the photographic process.

I think it can be a few things, such as :
1) Someone who might well have good skills, but who operates within a more niche segment of situations. So they might be shooting all day, every day in a studio with more than enough lights and skill to never need to touch the ISO (save on the odd occasion or when doing something - out of the ordinary). Thus to them its good solid advice that applies to them directly.

2) "Its just one of those things you say to newbies" not in a condescending way or an attempt to keep the newbies as newbies; but more that a lot of people who don't teach don't know how to teach. So when asked questions they can even end up giving stock advice - and keep the ISO low is a very stock reply. It's short, simple, quick and can many times actually work.

3) An attempt to make it 2 instead of 3 settings to balance. When starting out photography can be confusing - if you can disregard one whole setting and now only have to balance 2 (because you're keeping the ISO low so don't have to change it); its now a lot easier to grasp the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. Thus it can be advice that works for a good few new photographers (who yes will go and pass it on to others).

4) It's good advice for today (option 3) but they've not considered that down the line they've then got to almost un-teach someone the whole "Keep the ISO low" mantra; except by then that person has already got that habit in their system and process. It's a flawed approach because its a lot easier to teach something once and teach it right than it is to twist things and teach something twice, thrice etc...

I'm sure there are more reasons but those would strike me as common sources of the repetition of the line.

 

[JerryVenz]

As a full time professional portrait photographer I.S.O. is merely a tool to get me to the F-STOP needed for a given subject.
When doing a family portrait, say in the shade of a tree, an hour before sunset, to use f6.3 or f7.1, for adequate depth of field, I must START at 400 ISO. Then as the light starts to fade or I do some individuals of the kids I'll go to 800 ISO.
With a professional, full-frame, DSLR noise is not an issue at these ISO's.

 

[runnah]

Oh, by the way--ALWAYS drive in second gear, between 1,500 RPM and as high as,oh, around 7,500 RPM....you get a LOT MORE TORQUE that way, you know, in second gear!!! Whatever the speed, ALWAYS drive in second gear!

Well you will certainly get a lot of noise doing that!

 

[lambertpix]

Oh, by the way--ALWAYS drive in second gear, between 1,500 RPM and as high as,oh, around 7,500 RPM....you get a LOT MORE TORQUE that way, you know, in second gear!!! Whatever the speed, ALWAYS drive in second gear!

Truth be told, 2nd gear really is a lot of fun. ;-)

 

[runnah]

Oh, by the way--ALWAYS drive in second gear, between 1,500 RPM and as high as,oh, around 7,500 RPM....you get a LOT MORE TORQUE that way, you know, in second gear!!! Whatever the speed, ALWAYS drive in second gear!

Truth be told, 2nd gear really is a lot of fun. ;-)

You haven't lived until you've gotten second gear rubber.