when should i use low/high ISO, aperture, shutterspeed

[Lakhesis]

I already know their definition.... but I don't know how to apply it...
like what should be the best setting when picturing a person at night...
picturing a bird.. picturing a person in a garden.. having a coffee.. etc etc..
I just want some few examples from an expert )


excuse my english btw

 

[SCraig]

There is no single answer to that question. You have to look at each photograph and decide what is important. In low light you will need to get as much light to the sensor as possible which normally means a relatively high ISO, wide aperture and slow shutter speed. When shooting sports you need to control motion. This normally means a faster shutter speed, and depending on light conditions it could also mean a higher ISO and wider aperture. Wide aperture also lessens depth of field and higher ISO adds noise. When shooting landscapes you may need a narrow aperture to increase depth of field which may mean a slower shutter speed and or higher ISO.

Everything is always a balancing act which is what separates a photographer from a guy with a camera.

 

[table1349]

Get this book: Amazon.com: Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera (9780817439392): Bryan Peterson: Books

Read this tutorial: Digital Photography Tutorials

 

[weepete]

ISO for me is pretty simple, just use the lowest you can to get the shot you want.

 

[TCampbell]

While there are no "rules", I can give you some guidelines, and... this is how I personally approach the question on settings.

1) Is the subject stationary?

If they are stationary then it frees the constraints... you can use any settings with to shoot a stationary subject while using a stationary camera. In this case I prioritize by control over depth of field. This means I'll set the aperture (f-stop) first. Keep in mind that any photo of a subject isn't usually *just* the subject... it may have foreground elements and will almost always have background elements. Do you want those foreground or background elements to be focused as well as the subject? If the answer is "no", then set a low f-stop (f/2, f/2.8, f/4). If the answer is "yes", then set a high f-stop (f/11, f/16... or even f/22). If the depth of field doesn't matter (everything is at roughly the same distance... no foreground or background elements are visible) then go for the middle f-stops... usually f/8.

After selecting the f-stop, THEN I set the shutter speed.

If the camera is truly stationary (on a solid tripod -- note that I did use the adjective "solid" in front of tripod and not just "tripod". There are lots of junk tripods that are too shaky to give a solid shot with a slow shutter speed) THEN the shutter speed doesn't matter. In THIS case, since I can pick ANY shutter speed, I put priority on low noise so I'll first set a low ISO (e.g. ISO 100) and then set the shutter speed LAST to whatever it needs to be to get a correct exposure (not underexposed... not overexposed.)

If the camera is NOT truly stationary then shutter speed _is_ important because you can only hand-hold a camera steady enough for a shot to a point. The guideline for that speed is the inverse of the focal length multiplied by your camera crop factor. e.g. on a full-frame camera (crop factor = 1) using a 50mm lens then the minimum shutter speed needs to be 1/50th. If you have a crop-factor camera such as an APS-C DSLR (the vast majority of DSLRs are APS-C) then your crop factor is either 1.5 or 1.6 (Canon is 1.6, most others are 1.5) -- in which case with a 50mm focal length you'd need a minimum shutter speed of 1/75th or 1/80th. If you have a lens with image stabilization then it may allow you to shoot a few stops slower. Most image stabilizers are good for at least 2 stops... some are good to 3 stops, and a _few_ even offer some noticeable improvement at as much as 4 stops slower. BUT... image stabilization is not a guarantee. Also the guideline about the minimum shutter speed is based on YOU have good camera-holding technique and are actually trying to be steady.

Basically... if I have a stationary subject then I set aperture first.

2) Is the subject moving?

If the subject IS moving then the shooting flexibility is more constrained. I either want to completely "freeze" the action OR I want to "control" the level of either subject motion or background motion and that level of deliberate motion blur is intended to imply the motion to the viewer.

In this situation I set the shutter speed first. You can freeze the motion of most subjects by shooting with a shutter speed of 1/500th or higher. For some subjects even 1/250th may be fast enough to completely freeze the action. But if I want to imply some motion in the image (create some deliberate motion blur) then I'll set a slower speed -- perhaps 1/60th, and I may track the subject (aka a "panning" shot where the lens follows the movement of the subject so that the subject seems to be still but the background appears to be moving.) The panning technique takes practice.

With the shutter speed set, I view the available f-stops. At higher shutter speeds it'll be more likely that you'll need to use a lower f-stop (unless you have an abundance of light -- with enough light you can have some flexibility with aperture, but often you wont have that much light and your choices are limited.). Since the lens restricts your lowest available f-stop, it may be that even at the lowest f-stop you still wont have enough light for a correct exposure, so you'll have to increase the ISO.

3) Set the lowest ISO you can get away with while still getting a good exposure.

I'd always _like_ to shoot at ISO 100. In the real world that's not always possible. But the higher the ISO, the more "noise" you'll see in your images. You may not notice it if the image size is small (e.g. a small image posted to a website can hide a lot of noise because the image has to be resampled at a lower resolution and the process of reducing resolution causes the software to sample many pixels to create 1 pixel. That tends to average out the noise. With larger image sizes, the noise is more obvious.



Summary:

1 - I'd LIKE to set aperture (f-stop) first and if I have complete freedom, I will.
2 - If the shooting situation necessitates a specific shutter speed, THEN I set shutter speed first and aperture is lower priority.
3 - After satisfying either the aperture or shutter speed needs, I then set the ISO to the lowest setting I can reasonably use.

 

[nola.ron]

While there are no "rules", I can give you some guidelines, and... this is how I personally approach the question on settings.

1) Is the subject stationary?

If they are stationary then it frees the constraints... you can use any settings with to shoot a stationary subject while using a stationary camera. In this case I prioritize by control over depth of field. This means I'll set the aperture (f-stop) first. Keep in mind that any photo of a subject isn't usually *just* the subject... it may have foreground elements and will almost always have background elements. Do you want those foreground or background elements to be focused as well as the subject? If the answer is "no", then set a low f-stop (f/2, f/2.8, f/4). If the answer is "yes", then set a high f-stop (f/11, f/16... or even f/22). If the depth of field doesn't matter (everything is at roughly the same distance... no foreground or background elements are visible) then go for the middle f-stops... usually f/8.

After selecting the f-stop, THEN I set the shutter speed.

If the camera is truly stationary (on a solid tripod -- note that I did use the adjective "solid" in front of tripod and not just "tripod". There are lots of junk tripods that are too shaky to give a solid shot with a slow shutter speed) THEN the shutter speed doesn't matter. In THIS case, since I can pick ANY shutter speed, I put priority on low noise so I'll first set a low ISO (e.g. ISO 100) and then set the shutter speed LAST to whatever it needs to be to get a correct exposure (not underexposed... not overexposed.)

If the camera is NOT truly stationary then shutter speed _is_ important because you can only hand-hold a camera steady enough for a shot to a point. The guideline for that speed is the inverse of the focal length multiplied by your camera crop factor. e.g. on a full-frame camera (crop factor = 1) using a 50mm lens then the minimum shutter speed needs to be 1/50th. If you have a crop-factor camera such as an APS-C DSLR (the vast majority of DSLRs are APS-C) then your crop factor is either 1.5 or 1.6 (Canon is 1.6, most others are 1.5) -- in which case with a 50mm focal length you'd need a minimum shutter speed of 1/75th or 1/80th. If you have a lens with image stabilization then it may allow you to shoot a few stops slower. Most image stabilizers are good for at least 2 stops... some are good to 3 stops, and a _few_ even offer some noticeable improvement at as much as 4 stops slower. BUT... image stabilization is not a guarantee. Also the guideline about the minimum shutter speed is based on YOU have good camera-holding technique and are actually trying to be steady.

Basically... if I have a stationary subject then I set aperture first.

2) Is the subject moving?

If the subject IS moving then the shooting flexibility is more constrained. I either want to completely "freeze" the action OR I want to "control" the level of either subject motion or background motion and that level of deliberate motion blur is intended to imply the motion to the viewer.

In this situation I set the shutter speed first. You can freeze the motion of most subjects by shooting with a shutter speed of 1/500th or higher. For some subjects even 1/250th may be fast enough to completely freeze the action. But if I want to imply some motion in the image (create some deliberate motion blur) then I'll set a slower speed -- perhaps 1/60th, and I may track the subject (aka a "panning" shot where the lens follows the movement of the subject so that the subject seems to be still but the background appears to be moving.) The panning technique takes practice.

With the shutter speed set, I view the available f-stops. At higher shutter speeds it'll be more likely that you'll need to use a lower f-stop (unless you have an abundance of light -- with enough light you can have some flexibility with aperture, but often you wont have that much light and your choices are limited.). Since the lens restricts your lowest available f-stop, it may be that even at the lowest f-stop you still wont have enough light for a correct exposure, so you'll have to increase the ISO.

3) Set the lowest ISO you can get away with while still getting a good exposure.

I'd always _like_ to shoot at ISO 100. In the real world that's not always possible. But the higher the ISO, the more "noise" you'll see in your images. You may not notice it if the image size is small (e.g. a small image posted to a website can hide a lot of noise because the image has to be resampled at a lower resolution and the process of reducing resolution causes the software to sample many pixels to create 1 pixel. That tends to average out the noise. With larger image sizes, the noise is more obvious.



Summary:

1 - I'd LIKE to set aperture (f-stop) first and if I have complete freedom, I will.
2 - If the shooting situation necessitates a specific shutter speed, THEN I set shutter speed first and aperture is lower priority.
3 - After satisfying either the aperture or shutter speed needs, I then set the ISO to the lowest setting I can reasonably use.

This helped me so incredibly much. I just started playing with manual mode yesterday... while I understood what each setting did, I didn't know how to really apply it to most situations. I did in some but my decision making was sooo slow and guessing. Now I really "get" how the triangle really works together, and what I should prioritize depending on shooting scenario or targets. THANK YOU.

 

[Overread]

I've not much to add after TCampbell's post save to:

Firstly reinforce the view that its a case of weighing up what is your key setting for a shot, what key element is it you have to capture and work with and then base your choices off that key element. Note that often you'll have more than one key element and that what settings you can select will also be limited by the lighting and situation you have before you. Don't get daunted, it can seem confusing at first, but the more you shoot and the more you are in charge of the camera (either using full manual or one of the priority modes - eg aperture or shutter priority) the more you'll get into the swing of things and the more these thoughts will become background thoughts

Secondly I'd strongly suggest setting your ISO to 400 if you're shooting regular shots (not in the middle of the day sunlight of course) and setting it to 800 if you're shooting any form action. One of the Biggest mistakes new photographers can make is to run their ISO low. Using a low ISO is very good, but real world photography (especially of action) is almost always light limited; as a result you need to have the experience and confidence to use a higher ISO when needed. With modern DSLR also giving very clean higher ISOs it makes full sense to get used to seeing and working with those high ISOs early on.
You can fix high ISO noise and in printing or web publishing much of it vanished from view anyway - but you can't fix motion blur and underexposure always shows up more noise as well when fixed. So use those high ISOs - get used to them and then operate by dropping down the ISO to a lower value when you get the chance to (rather than working on always "bumping it up" mentality).

 

[pic_chick]

great post Tim. Overread you always give the best info I look FOR your post just wanted to say thanks for being here.

 

[weepete]

I guess I'm re-enforcing what the guys above have said. Don't be afraid of bumping up your ISO if it gets you the shutter speed and aperture settings you need, really an in focus photo is what counts

 

[LesFraser]

:hail:

Thanks Tim, great post. Explained it perfectly!

 

[ratssass]

I've not much to add after TCampbell's post save to:

Firstly reinforce the view that its a case of weighing up what is your key setting for a shot, what key element is it you have to capture and work with and then base your choices off that key element. Note that often you'll have more than one key element and that what settings you can select will also be limited by the lighting and situation you have before you. Don't get daunted, it can seem confusing at first, but the more you shoot and the more you are in charge of the camera (either using full manual or one of the priority modes - eg aperture or shutter priority) the more you'll get into the swing of things and the more these thoughts will become background thoughts

Secondly I'd strongly suggest setting your ISO to 400 if you're shooting regular shots (not in the middle of the day sunlight of course) and setting it to 800 if you're shooting any form action. One of the Biggest mistakes new photographers can make is to run their ISO low. Using a low ISO is very good, but real world photography (especially of action) is almost always light limited; as a result you need to have the experience and confidence to use a higher ISO when needed. With modern DSLR also giving very clean higher ISOs it makes full sense to get used to seeing and working with those high ISOs early on.
You can fix high ISO noise and in printing or web publishing much of it vanished from view anyway - but you can't fix motion blur and underexposure always shows up more noise as well when fixed. So use those high ISOs - get used to them and then operate by dropping down the ISO to a lower value when you get the chance to (rather than working on always "bumping it up" mentality).

...only recently have i discovered how much i was trapping myself using low (100-400) ISO.Now I've gone to the other extreme.Shooting 3200 ISO without fear.I'll soon level out and use the lowest that produces the results I seek.It sure has opened up alot of territory.

 

[nola.ron]

I've not much to add after TCampbell's post save to:

Firstly reinforce the view that its a case of weighing up what is your key setting for a shot, what key element is it you have to capture and work with and then base your choices off that key element. Note that often you'll have more than one key element and that what settings you can select will also be limited by the lighting and situation you have before you. Don't get daunted, it can seem confusing at first, but the more you shoot and the more you are in charge of the camera (either using full manual or one of the priority modes - eg aperture or shutter priority) the more you'll get into the swing of things and the more these thoughts will become background thoughts

Secondly I'd strongly suggest setting your ISO to 400 if you're shooting regular shots (not in the middle of the day sunlight of course) and setting it to 800 if you're shooting any form action. One of the Biggest mistakes new photographers can make is to run their ISO low. Using a low ISO is very good, but real world photography (especially of action) is almost always light limited; as a result you need to have the experience and confidence to use a higher ISO when needed. With modern DSLR also giving very clean higher ISOs it makes full sense to get used to seeing and working with those high ISOs early on.
You can fix high ISO noise and in printing or web publishing much of it vanished from view anyway - but you can't fix motion blur and underexposure always shows up more noise as well when fixed. So use those high ISOs - get used to them and then operate by dropping down the ISO to a lower value when you get the chance to (rather than working on always "bumping it up" mentality).

...only recently have i discovered how much i was trapping myself using low (100-400) ISO.Now I've gone to the other extreme.Shooting 3200 ISO without fear.I'll soon level out and use the lowest that produces the results I seek.It sure has opened up alot of territory.

I get a ton of noise when I jump up to above 800 ISO on my d3000. Is my camera that limited or is there a way to remove remove it in PP that I have not learned yet? I shoot in RAW.

 

[Overread]

If you need to go higher you need to go higher with ISO - if you underexpose you'll only show more noise when you brighten in editing than if you'd used a higher ISO when shooting - any blur is also unfixable; so if you need that higher ISO for exposure or motion stopping you've got to raise the ISO - or risk lowing one of the other two settings if possible.

That said when it comes to the topic of noise removal there are lots of topics (even whole books) written on this subject. In general it will vary depending upon what editing product you have access to use. That would be the best starting point and from there you can start to consider if you need to branch out to a more powerful editing software option or specialist noise removal software (specialist isn't always "better" but can often allow additional controls or options which can produce better results if used correctly - note also that different noise reduction software options work differently; this means that whilst there is no clear "best" they will vary a little as to how best they work on a specific photo - however the differences are often marginal and thus its not oft worth using various options and cherry picking the best).

 

[ph0enix]

I've not much to add after TCampbell's post save to:

Firstly reinforce the view that its a case of weighing up what is your key setting for a shot, what key element is it you have to capture and work with and then base your choices off that key element. Note that often you'll have more than one key element and that what settings you can select will also be limited by the lighting and situation you have before you. Don't get daunted, it can seem confusing at first, but the more you shoot and the more you are in charge of the camera (either using full manual or one of the priority modes - eg aperture or shutter priority) the more you'll get into the swing of things and the more these thoughts will become background thoughts

Secondly I'd strongly suggest setting your ISO to 400 if you're shooting regular shots (not in the middle of the day sunlight of course) and setting it to 800 if you're shooting any form action. One of the Biggest mistakes new photographers can make is to run their ISO low. Using a low ISO is very good, but real world photography (especially of action) is almost always light limited; as a result you need to have the experience and confidence to use a higher ISO when needed. With modern DSLR also giving very clean higher ISOs it makes full sense to get used to seeing and working with those high ISOs early on.
You can fix high ISO noise and in printing or web publishing much of it vanished from view anyway - but you can't fix motion blur and underexposure always shows up more noise as well when fixed. So use those high ISOs - get used to them and then operate by dropping down the ISO to a lower value when you get the chance to (rather than working on always "bumping it up" mentality).

...only recently have i discovered how much i was trapping myself using low (100-400) ISO.Now I've gone to the other extreme.Shooting 3200 ISO without fear.I'll soon level out and use the lowest that produces the results I seek.It sure has opened up alot of territory.

I get a ton of noise when I jump up to above 800 ISO on my d3000. Is my camera that limited...

To answer your question, the ISO performance of the D3000 is rated at 563 by DxOMark. It means that there will be considerable amount of noise above the 500 setting. The newer D3100 is rated at 919 and D3200 at 1131 which is about a full stop better than the D3000 but still pretty low. The entry level Nikon DSLRs are not designed to perform well in low light conditions.

 

[nola.ron]

If you need to go higher you need to go higher with ISO - if you underexpose you'll only show more noise when you brighten in editing than if you'd used a higher ISO when shooting - any blur is also unfixable; so if you need that higher ISO for exposure or motion stopping you've got to raise the ISO - or risk lowing one of the other two settings if possible.

That said when it comes to the topic of noise removal there are lots of topics (even whole books) written on this subject. In general it will vary depending upon what editing product you have access to use. That would be the best starting point and from there you can start to consider if you need to branch out to a more powerful editing software option or specialist noise removal software (specialist isn't always "better" but can often allow additional controls or options which can produce better results if used correctly - note also that different noise reduction software options work differently; this means that whilst there is no clear "best" they will vary a little as to how best they work on a specific photo - however the differences are often marginal and thus its not oft worth using various options and cherry picking the best).

Now that makes sense.. some of my first photos that were underexposed (before I learned how to use the light meter and adjust) would noise out during brightening in post.

Headed out with my camera for the day soon. Going to try higher settings today. Learned a ton from this thread!