Hey everybody, Calvin at Canon here and welcome
back to another episode
of Canon Quick Tips.
In this series, we want to help you get the most
out of your Canon gear and inspire you
to create lasting images.
In this episode, we're going to go over ISO
and how to use it to achieve different looks.
First off, what is ISO?
ISO is one of the three pillars of exposure in photography,
along with shutter speed and aperture.
If you want to get fancy,
it stands for
International Organization of Standardization.
This organization rated film stocks
based on their sensitivity to light.
And then this carried over to digital photography.
While aperture is controlled by the lens,
and shutter speed is controlled by the shutter.
ISO is directly related to the camera sensor itself.
Or the film stock in the old school days.
Everything else being equal,
lower ISO settings will produce a darker image.
while higher ISO settings will produce a brighter image.
A doubling of ISO will double your sensor's
sensitivity to light.
It's equivalent to opening up your lens by a whole F-stop
or having your shutter speed.
It's important to keep in mind,
how all three of these settings work together to achieve
your desired results.
Doubling or halving one setting will require
adjusting another setting
by the same amount to achieve the same exposure.
ISO also directly affects the noise or grain of an image.
Lower ISO values will produce a cleaner image.
While higher ISO values would produce a noisier,
or grainier image.
Different camera models,
have different maximum ISO settings, too.
So some cameras might be more suitable
for low light photography.
When you know you're going to need
to use a lot of high ISO.
The Canon EOS R6, is a great camera
for high ISO photography, for example.
Here are some examples of images
at different ISO settings.
Notice the environments were low ISO settings are ideal.
In places where high ISO setting where high ISO settings
are more likely to be used.
For event and sporting photography
you might be mostly working in the higher ISO range.
This helps you freeze the action
and also get a sharp image.
For landscape and studio photography,
you will probably be mostly working in
the lower ISO range.
For daytime photography,
you will most likely be using lower ISO values.
For night photography,
you will most likely be using high ISO values
In ambient light situations,
We will need more light for low ISO settings
and less light for high ISO settings.
On sunny dayswill have plenty of ambient light.
At night, or on really cloudy days
we have less ambient light.
For handheld, dusk and night photography,
You're probably going to be using some
pretty high ISO settings.
Unless you have a very fast lens
and are using it wide open, at say, a fast aperture like F2.
On a tripod, In darker environments,
we can use a low ISO setting to drag the shutter speed out
and give us long exposure effects.
Or to just create a really nice clean image.
While many assume you used higher ISO settings
for night photography.
With a tripod, you don't have to.
If you want grainier images, you can do handheld photography
in these same low light environments.
While setting your camera, in manual mode will give you
the most control over the image.
One cool feature that a lot of Canon cameras have,
is the auto ISO setting.
You can manually set your aperture and shutter speed
to maintain a consistent look,
but have the ISO automatically adjust
to maintain consistent exposure as the lighting changes.
You can also set ISO limiters to control how clean or grainy
you want these images to be,
as the camera automatically adjust ISO
within your specified range.
As with all things in photography,
the best thing to do is take out your camera and experiment.
Now, let's transport ourselves to a real photography
shoot with San Francisco ballet principal, Sasha De Sola
and esteemed photographer, Alexis Cuarezma.
Here on set, we'll see how changing our ISO effects
not only our aperture and shutter speed,
but also the amount of lighting power we need to achieve
our desired look.
If we want a grainier image for effect, we can reduce
lighting power in boost ISO.
If we want a cleaner look, we can boost up
our lighting power and reduce our ISO.
If we want a happy medium, we can do that too.
We can move our lighting closer or further away from Sasha,
and adjust ISO to compensate.
In tricky situations,
where you were limited on lighting placement,
this is really useful.
Adjusting our ISO can also help us achieve
a good balance between ambient lighting,
and artificial lighting.
Using the Canon EOS R6, we've also got a camera sensor
with really impressive high ISO performance
and pleasing noise structure.
If we're in a situation with limited lighting power,
we can still get great results utilizing high ISO settings,
on this camera.
The most important thing to remember with ISO
when it comes to the overall look of an image,
is that by using a low ISO setting
we get a nice clean smooth image.
By using a high ISO setting, we get a grittier,
grainier image.
But sometimes you want a gritty or grainy or look.
It all depends on the look and mood
you are trying to achieve.
Thank you for watching this Canon Quick Tips episode.
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Stay tuned for more great episodes of,
Canon Quick Tips and keep photographing.