Photography for beginners - part 2-ISO

ISO setting

Photography for beginners - ISO

The basics of the different shooting modes in the digital camera were covered in part 1. One of the settings mentioned in the post, ISO, is a very useful one, and we will go over some of the ISO facts and details. This setting is nothing but the amount of light that is necessary by the sensor for obtaining the right exposure.You can see that the exposure is perfect if the DISPLAY button shows a perfect bell shaped graph.

• The ISO values could be set as low as 100 or set as high as 6400 .Typically if you are shooting outside, on a sunny day ,ISO level of 100 should be sufficient.
• On a cloudy day ,you could try turning up the ISO level to 200 or 400 and so on till you get the proper exposure.
• If you are shooting indoors , say inside a  restaurant or museum you may need to set it as high as 1600 or more.
• Thing to keep in mind is as you increase the ISO , the 'noise' is increased which increases the tiny grains that appears on the picture , especially where there are darker shades and the final look will not be appealing.
• There is also an option to set ISO mode to AUTO , in this case ,the camera sets this option depending on the available light and when the picture is being shot.One can define the upper limit as well.This option is very useful for beginners .
• When the ISO numbers increase, the speed of time to capture the image also reduces.For example if for ISO 100 it takes 1 second  to capture ,then for ISO 3200 it may take 1/30 of a second to capture. In the case you are trying to capture a fast moving car, with a shutter speed 1/250 and ISO 100, increasing the ISO will help to get a sharper image and avoid blurring.