Understanding ISO can dramatically improve your photography, especially in challenging lighting. High ISO numbers worry many because of potential graininess, but knowing when and how to leverage these settings is essential for capturing sharp, vibrant images without sacrificing quality.
Coming to you from Benjamin Jaworskyj - Simply Learn Photography, this straightforward video tackles the misconceptions around ISO, providing clarity on why embracing higher ISO settings is beneficial. Jaworskyj simplifies ISO, likening it to aperture and shutter speed, as another key element to adjust your image’s brightness. He advises against using artificial low ISO numbers like 50 or 25, noting their reduced dynamic range. He instead encourages starting with ISO 100 as your baseline, adjusting upwards as needed in lower-light situations. For scenarios like wedding photography in dimly lit churches, indoor sports, or wildlife photography, Jaworskyj emphasizes the necessity of higher ISO numbers to achieve faster shutter speeds and avoid blurred images. He openly shares his own usage patterns, mentioning his frequent reliance on ISO settings like 6,400 or even 12,800 for astrophotography, showing viewers that higher ISO settings can be practical and effective.
The video further emphasizes testing your camera's ISO capabilities through practical experimentation. Jaworskyj illustrates this with an example of capturing a village at dusk, where a high ISO is crucial for handheld photography. He explains clearly how adjusting ISO compensates for limitations of aperture and shutter speed, particularly when conditions are too dark for low ISO settings to deliver adequate exposure. Jaworskyj demonstrates this process with real-time examples, incrementally increasing ISO and adjusting shutter speeds accordingly. This methodical approach showcases the camera’s performance at various ISO levels, demystifying the often intimidating prospect of higher ISO settings. Through these tests, he effectively makes the point that a grainy image, which can often be improved through post-processing, is preferable to a blurry one, which cannot be fixed.
Expanding on the practical benefits of high ISO, Jaworskyj addresses common concerns about graininess. He argues convincingly that grain should not be feared, pointing out how even professional films intentionally add grain for a realistic and appealing aesthetic. He suggests photographers adopt a similar mindset, viewing grain as potentially beneficial rather than detrimental. He also recommends using noise reduction tools during editing or even adding grain intentionally for creative effect. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Jaworskyj.
Film grain is fine, it's a largely random distribution of varying sizes of silver halide crystals. They can overlap and/or lie in clumps. Electronic "grain" is not grain, it's electronic noise from amplifying the signal and is a set grid of noisy, coloured pixels. They are not the same thing. There is no similarity between film grain and digital noise.