ISO

[smoke665]

Try underexposing the shot a little. I prefer increasing the exposure in post rather than getting rid of noise.

Read Joe's comments, when raising ISO you need to fully expose in camera. The in camera noise suppression on most cameras does a good job of removing noise. Noise is a result of lack of signal, when you under expose then boost in post you are creating unecessary noise then globally amplifying it.

 

[ntz]

Hi! I’m manually setting speed and aperture, and letting the camera set the ISO. What is a good max setting for auto-ISO? My Rebel 2000D has a max of 6400, but for now I have it set at 3200. If I understand correctly, the higher the number, the lower the light level requirement, but with a trade-off in increased noise. So, max it out at 6400? Limit it to 1600? TIA!


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Hello Jeff ..

it's situational but as you describe that, I would like to know what you're shooting ... for static subjects like for example landscape or architecture or interiors you don't care for shutter speed, aperture always matter because it makes a depth of field .. if you need to care for the shutter speed, it means, that you're shooting probably some wildlife or sports, then typically you have large aperture but I am now confused about you saying that you use a manual mode - wildlife and sports are less likely shot in manual mode (of course - you could have set a camera to specific spot in the viewrange)

I suggest to care about your ISO and to think about your composition and technical aspects of given photo .. I think that you should learn to set an best static ISO for a given scenery (and/or conditions in general) rather than shooting with AUTO ISO based on your knowledge of your camera

let me share with you my workflow

In past, I was obsessed with shooting in manual mode, after few years, I've *abandoned that completely* ... Now I am shooting in A mode (manual aperture and auto shutter speed) 99% of time and I am using a +/- exposure correction instead - I can do it quickly, just dial + fn button

** for wildlife and sports, with my 70-200 lens, I typically use f/4-5.6 and I am usually not exceeding iso above 800, usually 250-500 .. that gives me times 1/500-1/1000+ which is enough for me .. as said above, I usually set ISO based on current light conditions, typically 400

** for static subjects like landscape or architecture I just try to use a lowest possible ISO .. from tripod just 100 or 200-400 while handheld (or when there are some significantly windy conditions) ..

regards,

~dan

Don't worry about the ISO. GET THE PHOTO. The ISO isn't causing the noise in the first place. All it's doing is brightening the camera output JPEG. The noise comes from the exposure. The noise comes from the shutter speed you set and the f/stop you set and how bright the scene is. ISO doesn't cause noise. In your camera ISO suppresses noise -- raise it to get less noise. GET THE PHOTO.

The photo below is from an APS-C sensor camera like yours. The ISO was set to 12800. See any objectionable noise? The ISO value isn't causing noise. Now, the photo below is a parlor trick. I wasn't forced and so I was able to manipulate the camera -- the exposure to control the noise. Normally when we're raising the ISO it's because we're forced. You can't do anything about forced -- you're forced and if you get a noisy photo it's because you're forced to reduce the exposure. The forced exposure reduction will cause noise, not ISO. In your camera raising the ISO if you're forced to reduce exposure will suppress noise. GET THE PHOTO.

ISO 12800

this is just rubbish .. sadly .. technically there is some merit in that post, but all and all around, OMG, it's coelho nonsense

 

[Ysarex]

Don't worry about the ISO. GET THE PHOTO. The ISO isn't causing the noise in the first place. All it's doing is brightening the camera output JPEG. The noise comes from the exposure. The noise comes from the shutter speed you set and the f/stop you set and how bright the scene is. ISO doesn't cause noise. In your camera ISO suppresses noise -- raise it to get less noise. GET THE PHOTO.

The photo below is from an APS-C sensor camera like yours. The ISO was set to 12800. See any objectionable noise? The ISO value isn't causing noise. Now, the photo below is a parlor trick. I wasn't forced and so I was able to manipulate the camera -- the exposure to control the noise. Normally when we're raising the ISO it's because we're forced. You can't do anything about forced -- you're forced and if you get a noisy photo it's because you're forced to reduce the exposure. The forced exposure reduction will cause noise, not ISO. In your camera raising the ISO if you're forced to reduce exposure will suppress noise. GET THE PHOTO.

ISO 12800

this is just rubbish .. sadly .. technically there is some merit in that post, but all and all around, OMG, it's coelho nonsense

Back up what you said and be specific. What specifically is nonsense?

 

[jeffashman]

Thanks! I’m shooting mostly wildlife, especially birds, which are frequently in motion. I’ll continue to experiment to find that sweet spot.


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[ntz]

Don't worry about the ISO. GET THE PHOTO. The ISO isn't causing the noise in the first place. All it's doing is brightening the camera output JPEG. The noise comes from the exposure. The noise comes from the shutter speed you set and the f/stop you set and how bright the scene is. ISO doesn't cause noise. In your camera ISO suppresses noise -- raise it to get less noise. GET THE PHOTO.

The photo below is from an APS-C sensor camera like yours. The ISO was set to 12800. See any objectionable noise? The ISO value isn't causing noise. Now, the photo below is a parlor trick. I wasn't forced and so I was able to manipulate the camera -- the exposure to control the noise. Normally when we're raising the ISO it's because we're forced. You can't do anything about forced -- you're forced and if you get a noisy photo it's because you're forced to reduce the exposure. The forced exposure reduction will cause noise, not ISO. In your camera raising the ISO if you're forced to reduce exposure will suppress noise. GET THE PHOTO.

ISO 12800

this is just rubbish .. sadly .. technically there is some merit in that post, but all and all around, OMG, it's coelho nonsense

Back up what you said and be specific. What specifically is nonsense?

my dearest apologize, I am not going to drive myself discussing about this matter .. sorry, I have much better things to do ... I know you like "unusual" solutions .. you're ofc free to apply them ..

@jeffashman - increasing ISO will reduce dynamic range, tonal range, color sensitivity .... you typically want to set iso deliberately to level where you need/want it preferring the low levels as a general rule under normal conditions (ofc, set your ISO high if you're private eye and you're doing a spy photography of walking subject from the car with telephoto lens - you certainly won't suffer with lowered dynamic or tonal range in that case ) .. ISO matters

 

[Ysarex]

increasing ISO will reduce dynamic range, tonal range, color sensitivity .... you typically want to set iso deliberately to level where you need/want it preferring the low levels as a general rule under normal conditions (ofc, set your ISO high if you're private eye and you're doing a spy photography of walking subject from the car with telephoto lens - you certainly won't suffer with lowered dynamic or tonal range in that case ) .. ISO matters

Has anyone said it doesn't matter? Does ISO matter so much that you'd rather not take the photo at all than have to raise ISO?

 

[Scott Whaley]

I would rather not take the photo if I had to raise the ISO so high it effected the noise significantly. That's just me.

 

[ntz]

increasing ISO will reduce dynamic range, tonal range, color sensitivity .... you typically want to set iso deliberately to level where you need/want it preferring the low levels as a general rule under normal conditions (ofc, set your ISO high if you're private eye and you're doing a spy photography of walking subject from the car with telephoto lens - you certainly won't suffer with lowered dynamic or tonal range in that case ) .. ISO matters

Has anyone said it doesn't matter? Does ISO matter so much that you'd rather not take the photo at all than have to raise ISO?

you know what you said OMG ... it was

Don't worry about the ISO. GET THE PHOTO.

++ you continued on the topic .. that's my final endnote to this matter .. I kindly refuse to continue on this matter specifically with you and from this angle, thank you for respecting that, I fully stand for my previous statement

technically there is some merit in that post, but all and all around, OMG, it's coelho nonsense

 

[Ysarex]

increasing ISO will reduce dynamic range, tonal range, color sensitivity .... you typically want to set iso deliberately to level where you need/want it preferring the low levels as a general rule under normal conditions (ofc, set your ISO high if you're private eye and you're doing a spy photography of walking subject from the car with telephoto lens - you certainly won't suffer with lowered dynamic or tonal range in that case ) .. ISO matters

Has anyone said it doesn't matter? Does ISO matter so much that you'd rather not take the photo at all than have to raise ISO?

you know what you said OMG ... it was

Don't worry about the ISO. GET THE PHOTO.

And I stand by that. What that means is if the photo is something that you've decided is worth capturing then make sure and get the photo regardless of what it requires in terms of the ISO setting. If you have to raise the ISO as high as possible then do that but don't pass on the photo.

++ you continued on the topic

I continued to correctly explain the role of ISO in the camera/photo. That stuff I got right.

.. that's my final endnote to this matter .. I kindly refuse to continue on this matter specifically with you and from this angle,

That's fine you don't have to respond, but I will and what I posted about ISO was correct.

 

[Ysarex]

I would rather not take the photo if I had to raise the ISO so high it effected the noise significantly. That's just me.

I'll take odds against that. It was really dim in the hospital room when they handed my newborn son to his mother and she held him for the first time, but I got one very grainy photo before I got to hold him. You wouldn't take that photo because you couldn't get the ISO low enough?

 

[Scott Whaley]

There's always an exception. As for my normal photography, it still applies.

 

[smoke665]

Joe there are two types of participants in a debate, those who come prepared with facts to back their arguments and those who want to jump in and out of the debate when called to task on their claims. Over time I've learned you fall in the first category.

The only things that can change exposure are shutter speed, lens aperture or more/less light on the subject. The source of noise is underexposure. You want less noise, expose more.

ISO and the modern digital camera is probably the most confusing aspect of exposure today. Maybe it's because it's a relic from the days of film when actual coatings on the film dictated the sensitivity. In comparison today's digital sensor is only going to measure the light it receives, no more, no less. ISO in a digital camera is nothing more than gain, amplification of the signal received by the sensor.

This is where most go off the rails in their understanding of ISO in digital imaging, and noise. To understand it you first have to recognize where the noise comes from. First in any image there's digital noise that comes with any electronic circuit. A quick and easy way to see this, is leave your lens cap on, crank the shutter speed up, and the aperture down, then take a shot. It's completely black right? Now take it in LR or something similar and crank up the exposure. See the noise? The second type is shot noise, random photons bouncing around, that varies with intensity based on light levels. Finally there's signal to noise ratio (SNR) the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise.

If you raise the intensity of the light striking the sensor the SNR goes up. As Joe said slowing your shutter, opening your aperture or using supplemental light. Likewise increasing the ISO or gain (amplifying the signal from the sensor) the SNR goes up. So how does raising ISO affect the noise in an image? First, raising the ISO has no effect on shot noise, it came from the scene entirely independent of camera settings. The only thing it affects is digital noise. Now what most don't realize is that for typical cameras at normal settings, raising your ISO will actually lower the amount of electronic noise, by increasing the SNR.

Saying always use the lowest ISO is an oversimplification and can be incorrect. If you lower ISO without a compensating adjustment to aperture or shutter, you'll end up with a dark image that needs brightening post, but when you brighten post you reveal all the noise you tried to hide in the first place. Generally speaking you raise ISO because you couldn't adjust the shutter or aperture. Not using ISO in the exposure triangle to get a good exposure is silly. Not getting a shot because it would require a high ISO is crazy. My avatar is an "extreme" crop from a shot I took of a night time laser light show show that was projected onto the surface of Stone Mountain in GA. I was a good 300 yrs away, set at ISO 25600. I use whatever settings I need to get the shot I want. Like shutter speed and aperture, ISO should be adjusted as required.

I believe its important to disseminate factual information so for those that want to fact check me here's some reading on the subject. What Is Noise in Photography? , Understanding Dynamic Range in Digital Photography and Ins and outs of ISO: where ISO gets complex

 

[Ysarex]

Joe there are two types of participants in a debate, those who come prepared with facts to back their arguments and those who want to jump in and out of the debate when called to task on their claims. Over time I've learned you fall in the first category.

The only things that can change exposure are shutter speed, lens aperture or more/less light on the subject. The source of noise is underexposure. You want less noise, expose more.

ISO and the modern digital camera is probably the most confusing aspect of exposure today. Maybe it's because it's a relic from the days of film when actual coatings on the film dictated the sensitivity. In comparison today's digital sensor is only going to measure the light it receives, no more, no less. ISO in a digital camera is nothing more than gain, amplification of the signal received by the sensor.

Appreciate the vote of confidence. You're absolutely correct that failing to apply a higher ISO can make your photo noisier by increasing the contribution of digital noise. I struggled constantly with my students over this. They make the connection from the nonsense they see on the Internet that constantly attaches noise to ISO until they believe the relationship is causal. So they choose to produce a darker photo at too low an ISO setting thinking they're avoiding more noise while in fact they're causing more noise. Relative to noise ISO is causally either noise neutral or it suppresses noise. The camera matters in this and the OP identified his specific camera which I recognized as one that especially benefits from the noise suppression that derives from ISO analog gain.

One note for the sake of accuracy and we want to be careful about if we're going to get technical. It's tempting to slip into defining ISO by how it's most commonly implemented -- applied signal gain -- but that gets us into trouble. Gain/amplification is how ISO increases are most commonly implemented but the ISO standard does not specify how to achieve the lightening of the output image and it's not always done with gain applied to the sensor signal. It can also be implemented in the camera image processor which would work with the raw data.

Most commonly ISO is implemented using analog amplification applied directly to the signal from the sensor. This accounts for the vast majority of cases and it's critical to note that this implementation permanently alters what ends up in the raw data.

I'm not happy with the term but folks have settled on digital gain. The sensor signal is analog -- electrical voltage. Eventually we have to transform that to digital data and we do that in the camera's ADC (analog to digital converter). The result is our raw data. Digital gain is simply multiplying numbers in the ADC process and ISO lightening can also be implemented that way. Just like analog gain this process permanently alters what ends up in the raw data. Digital gain accounts for a small percentage of ISO implementation but it's use is increasing. We're seeing a lot more mixed application where the camera maker uses both analog and digital gain together.

If all ISO implementation was covered by the above two processes then we could conclude that all ISO increases are baked into raw data and we'd be safe defining ISO by how it's done -- applied signal gain -- rather than what it is. But many camera manufacturers (Canon, Fuji, Olympus, Ricoh, Pentax for example) also implement ISO changes in their image processing software which does not affect raw data. It's always a pretty specific case, DR expansion functions are a common example, but it's done enough that we have to allow for it. ISO is a standard that establishes a methodology for determining the lightness in the camera output image that results from a measured exposure of the camera sensor. How that's implemented is up to the camera maker.

This is where most go off the rails in their understanding of ISO in digital imaging, and noise. To understand it you first have to recognize where the noise comes from. First in any image there's digital noise that comes with any electronic circuit. A quick and easy way to see this, is leave your lens cap on, crank the shutter speed up, and the aperture down, then take a shot. It's completely black right? Now take it in LR or something similar and crank up the exposure. See the noise? The second type is shot noise, random photons bouncing around, that varies with intensity based on light levels. Finally there's signal to noise ratio (SNR) the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise.

If you raise the intensity of the light striking the sensor the SNR goes up. As Joe said slowing your shutter, opening your aperture or using supplemental light. Likewise increasing the ISO or gain (amplifying the signal from the sensor) the SNR goes up. So how does raising ISO affect the noise in an image? First, raising the ISO has no effect on shot noise, it came from the scene entirely independent of camera settings. The only thing it affects is digital noise. Now what most don't realize is that for typical cameras at normal settings, raising your ISO will actually lower the amount of electronic noise, by increasing the SNR.

Saying always use the lowest ISO is an oversimplification and can be incorrect. If you lower ISO without a compensating adjustment to aperture or shutter, you'll end up with a dark image that needs brightening post, but when you brighten post you reveal all the noise you tried to hide in the first place. Generally speaking you raise ISO because you couldn't adjust the shutter or aperture. Not using ISO in the exposure triangle to get a good exposure is silly. Not getting a shot because it would require a high ISO is crazy. My avatar is an "extreme" crop from a shot I took of a night time laser light show show that was projected onto the surface of Stone Mountain in GA. I was a good 300 yrs away, set at ISO 25600. I use whatever settings I need to get the shot I want. Like shutter speed and aperture, ISO should be adjusted as required.

I believe its important to disseminate factual information so for those that want to fact check me here's some reading on the subject. What Is Noise in Photography? , Understanding Dynamic Range in Digital Photography and Ins and outs of ISO: where ISO gets complex

 

[jeffashman]

I’ve guess it would help to point out that I’m on major release 6.0 of myself, and was introduced to photography in the early 70’s, when ISO was tied to the film one used, and for most occasions I used 100 or 200, and it was very rare for me to use anything over 400. It’s unfortunate that ISO is used with digital, as Smoke pointed out, since there is little similarity between film and digital formats. I can say, I’m learning new things here. Glad to see folks are passionate about something. Just gonna keep this extinguisher close by... [emoji16]


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[smoke665]

This accounts for the vast majority of cases and it's critical to note that this implementation permanently alters what ends up in the raw data.

Oh I know, but for simplicity sake I only mentioned gain. There's some good reading on the process in the links I posted for those that really want to understand. Another point that adds confusion is there are no established standard as to "how" manufacturers achieve those high ISO.