Loving Auto-ISO

[hkgharry]

I just wish they'd give you a choice between 800 and 1600 on where to limit it to because my D80 starts to look pretty gritty above 1250 or so. And I'd rather have stuff looking pretty good right off the camera rather than having to tweak it later.

If noise above ISO 1250 is a concern, if you are willing to shoot in raw you could try leaving the ISO max at 800 and subsequently adjusting the exposure in your raw converter as required. You MIGHT find the noise to be less.

Explanation - I've read on some forums (discussed/argued by people I would tend to listen to) that above the base ISO (100 for the D80?) the camera is only "pushing" the ISO anyway with some combination of hardware amplification (which introduces additional noise) and firmware modifications to the signal from the sensor. Apparently the quality of "pushing" by post-processing in a raw converter may be as good as or even better than what is done in camera.

To share experience: I tried that for a while but in the end decided that on the D200 I don't mind the ISO performance up to 1600. Letting the camera ISO go to 1600 then gives me the leeway to adjust the exposure upward 2eV in Nikon NX (other converters may allow more).

You might give it a try and see if you like the results better than what the camera gives above 1250.

 

[bender73]

it's funny how photographers tend to "judge" each other on the skills of shooting all manual all the time when in reality, the technology of today is designed to help the photographer so he/she does NOT have to adjust everything!

i used to feel like a "good" photographer left the camera in manual mode. the reality IMHO is that it's not the settings, it's the composition of the scene that is ultimately judged. let the camera do all the work!!! turn off the left brain so your right brain can concentrate on capturing the beauty of the scene.

the more i shoot, the more i tend to drift away from manual mode to program auto...or at leat A or S mode. auto ISO is beginning to look good now as well.

we have the technology...i guess it's meant to be used.

 

[Cougar8045]

the more i shoot, the more i tend to drift away from manual mode to program auto...or at leat A or S mode. auto ISO is beginning to look good now as well.

we have the technology...i guess it's meant to be used.

So true. That's why I use auto focus instead more often than manual focus. :smile:

 

[cajun angel]

WOW! I'm gonna try this next time I go to the rookery! It was a mess today trying to get everything right! That may just get me a few more keepers!

 

[cwilt]

If noise above ISO 1250 is a concern, if you are willing to shoot in raw you could try leaving the ISO max at 800 and subsequently adjusting the exposure in your raw converter as required. You MIGHT find the noise to be less.

Explanation - I've read on some forums (discussed/argued by people I would tend to listen to) that above the base ISO (100 for the D80?) the camera is only "pushing" the ISO anyway with some combination of hardware amplification (which introduces additional noise) and firmware modifications to the signal from the sensor. Apparently the quality of "pushing" by post-processing in a raw converter may be as good as or even better than what is done in camera.

This does work and I often use it. On the D2x I set the ISO to 320, the shutter speed and aperture as desired and let it under expose the image. Then bring it back up in RML. Less noise and more dynamic range.

As an example, here is the extracted jpeg....

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And what I ended up with....

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ISO would have been at least 800 for me to handhold this at f8.

 

[gvk]

This does work and I often use it. On the D2x I set the ISO to 320, the shutter speed and aperture as desired and let it under expose the image. Then bring it back up in RML. Less noise and more dynamic range.

After reading Iliah's appends on this technique a while back, I have also been experimenting with it. However, I am using NX for the post processing, since I cannot get RML to produce quality output.

 

[Bennettskaya]

After setting ISO to Hi1 on my D40 by accident a day or two ago (I can't see the LCD without my glasses) I will try this. Thanks for the prompt.

 

[epicfish]

Thanks. I'll be sure not to discount the auto-ISO feature.

 

[myphotossux]

This does work and I often use it. On the D2x I set the ISO to 320, the shutter speed and aperture as desired and let it under expose the image. Then bring it back up in RML. Less noise and more dynamic range.

ISO would have been at least 800 for me to handhold this at f8.

what's RML?

 

[cwilt]

Sorry about that. RML = Raw Magick Lite

 

[myphotossux]

thanks! in your opinion, how is RML better than Capture or ACR?

 

[cwilt]

thanks! in your opinion, how is RML better than Capture or ACR?

When it comes to image quality RML is the best. Detail, color, micro contrast, noise, sharpness, dynamic range, etc, etc.

But!

Its not for everyone. The UI needs a lot of work, which I believe they are working on. Most will struggle with it for a while. Also, the conversion process is not a speed demon. All those things that give it the best image quality, and the use of floating point math, take time.

Its not for a machine gun wedding shooter with a deadline.:wink: When you need the best image quality possible its the one to use.

 

[ultimind]

I'd be nice to see someone compare the RAW development from each application so we can see which one handles it the best. I do the max ISO, RAW push all the time. I'll generally underexpose by 2 stops to get my desired shutter speed and then push it in Lightroom. Before I owned fast glass, this was the only method I could do to maintain sharp images. I find Lightroom does a wonderful job compared to Aperture especially when it comes to speed of RAW conversion. Neither application is fast (on my MacBookPro) but Lightroom is noticeably faster.

 

[dmwphoto]

Interesting. I find Aperture speed to be very good on both my macbook pro but especially on my Macpro. The UI seems to make the process faster as well. I guess there will always be opinions one way or the other and I am glad there are many products to choose from. I still like my copy of Lightroom and use it for some things.

 

[ultimind]

I prefer the organization of Lightroom over Aperture. I used both for a couple projects to see which was better and I settled on Lightroom. Both equally capable programs though.

 

[Harry Lavo]

Yeah, it is a great option. I think it would be especially useful for action (sports) photography, when shutter priority is a must. I'm going to play around with it more in the future.

Some folks have suggested that for sports, so long as you are in the right range, to set shutter speed and apature manually while letting auto-iso do the adjusting. I haven't tried it yet, but it is an interesting idea. Could have used it the other night (see my latest post in the "oh, for another..." thread).

 

[Harry Lavo]

I just tested this last night with great success. A few innings into the game, I set up on manual with ss1/1000, f2.8, and iso800, then put auto-iso on. I could shoot that way and when the auto-iso light started flashing I knew I was at iso1600. When finally the over/under meter in the window showed occasional brief bursts of "under", I reduced ss to 1/750 and repeated. Worked my way all the way down to 1/250 before running out of light along about the 7th inning. I probably could have switched to raw and continued shooting in underexposed mode, but instead just settled back and enjoyed the remainder of the game, which my home team won. All in all, a satisfying evening for both sport and photography.

 

[lisantica]

Sure glad I clicked into this thread! I'm going to give that Auto ISO a whirl tomorrow.
Thank you original poster for using a catchy title, it piqued my interest :biggrin:

Lisa

 

[lisantica]

Gave it a whirl today and WOW! I love it too!
One less setting to mess with while I try to nail every other feature. Will go back to perhaps self-adjusting the ISO in the future, but for now, it's nice to concentrate on shutter, aperture only plus the occassional exposure compensation.

Lisa

 

[Anthony747]

I have it set on my D200 in the 100-400 ISO range. Works great!

Anthony