You’ve probably heard the advice to always shoot at the lowest ISO possible. While this might seem like solid advice, sticking to it rigidly can be one of the biggest reasons your photos don’t turn out as expected.
Coming to you from Simon d’Entremont, this eye-opening video explains why raising your ISO isn’t the villain it’s often made out to be. The video dives into practical scenarios where higher ISOs are essential. For example, if you’re shooting moving subjects or working in low light, a higher ISO allows faster shutter speeds to freeze the action or smaller apertures to get more of the scene in focus. d’Entremont highlights the importance of adapting to your environment. In wildlife photography, for instance, low light is common, and fast shutter speeds are often needed to capture movement. A noisy but sharp image is far better than one that’s blurry from a slow shutter speed.
Low ISOs still have their place, particularly in controlled settings. Using ISO 100 makes sense when you’re on a tripod shooting landscapes or long exposures where movement isn’t an issue. Similarly, it works well with artificial lighting, such as flashes, where you can add light to achieve a clean exposure. However, the video emphasizes that these situations make up just a portion of real-world photography.
To manage high ISO effectively, d’Entremont suggests minimizing cropping to avoid magnifying noise, using noise reduction software for cleaner results, and properly exposing in-camera instead of trying to fix brightness later. He also recommends experimenting with auto ISO. This mode allows you to set your shutter speed and aperture manually, leaving the camera to adjust ISO for proper exposure. Modern cameras handle high ISO much better than older models, so it’s worth taking advantage of this feature. Check out the video above for the full rundown from d’Entremont.
On autoiso it could be useful to be able to change in 1/3 increments. Right now only 1 stop is possible in Canon, for example.
Another thing useful for noise is a high MP count camera, because IA reduction algorithms work better with high MP photos.
He leaves out one very important fact: "ISO Invariance". Sony sensors (so Sony & Nikon) are "ISO Invariant", meaning you can "shoot dark", to avoid the dynamic range penalty of high ISOs, and then boost the exposure in post with NO NOISE PENALTY! I do this in my basketball shooting, with the back screen set to Sunny Weather so I can chimp. Maybe he's a Canon shooter and doesn't know this?
ISO Invariance is not about no noise penalty. It's about you can take a shot with iso two stops lower (for example) and then push two stops up in postproduction, with similar noise that if you take the shot with appropiate iso.