Can't Do That Shooting Film

Just curious how many of you change your ISO setting as often as you would change your shutter speed and aperture?

With imaging sensors getting less and less noisy at the higher ranges, I hear a lot of people using values previously reserved for only the most dedicated applications. Since the image quality does not appear to be grossly affected, are most of you using the 400~800 range for general shooting? I still leave mine at 100 and occasionally go to 200. Sometimes, I feel crazy and will shoot at 400 :p

I wonder if the need for faster lenses (i.e. f/1.2, 1.4, and even 2.0) in the future will be seriously questioned except for extremely shallow DOF work. I wonder if there is a theoretical limit to how sensitive the CMOS and CCD's of the future will be. ISO 6400, 12800, ...

We must still be in the dawn of digital imaging. Remember when the 486 computers just came out? Hard to imagine then what we have now after, what, a little over 10 years?

As much as I love Provia 100F and Velvia 50, I have a hard time going back to shooting film just because of the creative flexiblity that being able to change ISO settings on the fly affords. The low noise at ISO 1600 on my 1D MkII really gives me a lot of options in low light that really were obstacles to me when shooting film. I typically shoot most of my pictures at ISO 200/400 because the image quality is much better than on film at the same ISO. At 800/1600, it's not even close-digital is so much better. I still prefer to shoot with fast lenses however, simply because the quality of the lenses in this group are better than their slower and less costly siblings, and also because it's easier to see in the viewfinder.

Good point, Lionheart.

The faster lenses are generally the professional grade equipment which, in turn, have better glass in them. In Canon's line, these would correspond to the "L" lenses. So if Canon started to produce new L-lenses which are slower (to keep prices low) but had the same glass in them, you would save your money by buying the slower lenses?

I think Canon may have already started this trend with their 24-105mm f/4L IS. At the time, I went with the 24-70 f/2.8L instead because of that 1 stop increase and I didn't need the IS feature in this range. The cost was near identical between the two and I am very curious which becomes the better seller in about a year.

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Originally Posted by Loupey

Just curious how many of you change your ISO setting as often as you would change your shutter speed and aperture?

With imaging sensors getting less and less noisy at the higher ranges, I hear a lot of people using values previously reserved for only the most dedicated applications. Since the image quality does not appear to be grossly affected, are most of you using the

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I am using high ISO values all the time. I always saw 400 speed film as the upper limit for grain. With digital, 800 ISO is no big deal. Changing ISO on the fly allows me to choose the aperture and/or shutter speed I want and compensate for those days when the sun is going in and out.

i change ISO's very frequently, almost every game. I try to keep it under 400, but 640's fine too. I can go to 1600 without any real problem, but I try to not do it. That's what i didn't like when shooting sports on film. If the game started to get dark, you had to either have a different body with faster film, or just waste all the frames on the roll and switch to a new ISO.

It really depends on a lot of things as to how often I change ISO

1: What do I want out of the photo, motion blurr, no blurr
2: What conditions do I have light wise
3: what is my main subject
4: what does the customer want

In no particular order. Normally when shooting for the AP at Indy they require minimum 800 ISO and 1000 shutter with all control by the aperature for proper expsoure.

JS

because i have a slower general use lens (3.5-5.6) i generally stay at 200-400, but when im shooting my kid - i usually bump it up to 800-1600, at just under 9 months he doesnt exactly stop to say "cheese"! so i have to stop him with a fast iso! I use it on my faster lens too, but i just bring it back up to 3.5 in ap priority anyway, better dof.

I wish i had money for minoltas G Glass :(.... one of these days!

13 years for the 486. i believe. took one apart the other day! amazing lol, "ALL NEW! INTEGRATED ONTO THE MOTHERBOARD, drum roll please, THE MOUSE PORT!!!!" lol. oh and setting jumpers and irq addresses, oh that was real fun, thanks for the memories ;)

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Originally Posted by Lionheart

I still prefer to shoot with fast lenses however ... and also because it's easier to see in the viewfinder.

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And if it's easier for you to see thru the viewfinder, then it's easier for the AF to work in low light, too! I usually try to stick to the lowest ISO I can get away with, but have no problem going to 400. I'll use 800 if I need it which still looks very good. I suppose I could get good results out of 1600 if I put the time into working with Noise Ninja or something like that.

I don't adjust ISO as often as aperture or shutter speed, but a lot more often than I would have changed film types. We're definately in the dawn of digital imaging - imagine what will be out five years from now...

Lately I've been using 800/1600 and 100, with little in-between. But in general, yeah, I change ISOs a LOT. I used to carry a film puller with me to switch film mid-roll, but that would take several minutes even after a lot of practice.

Yet another reason I have not touched film in years.

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Originally Posted by another view

And if it's easier for you to see thru the viewfinder, then it's easier for the AF to work in low light, too! I usually try to stick to the lowest ISO I can get away with, but have no problem going to 400. I'll use 800 if I need it which still looks very good. I suppose I could get good results out of 1600 if I put the time into working with Noise Ninja or something like that.

I don't adjust ISO as often as aperture or shutter speed, but a lot more often than I would have changed film types. We're definately in the dawn of digital imaging - imagine what will be out five years from now...

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Noise Ninja is why I shoot at 800/1600 as much as I do. Best piece of software I've ever purchased (along with Breezebrowser, ACDSee, and AceFTP).

WOW! Great information! Thanks for responding!

This has been a real eye-opener for me. Changing ISO's on the fly, while I know it's on my camera, is something that doesn't come naturally to me. It's another degree of control to keep in mind for sure.

When shooting film, I always carry post-it notes and a pen. I rewind the film back just enough that the leader is sticking out. I then use the post-it to hold the leader and to label what frame number I was at. I didn't do this to change film speeds, just to switch back and forth from negative to positive film.

Anbesol, somewhere in storage is my first computer that I used while in college. It has, if memory serves me right, an "8086" processor (predecessor to the 286's). It cost me $2,000 (1989 price) and had a 20MB (yes, with an "M") hard drive, a monochrome monitor, and a modem. Tell you what, I felt soooo smart dialing in to OSU's mainframe engineering computer from my room while my lab mates were sitting in the computer room at one o'clock in the morning. Of course back then, the mainframe used these giant 8" floppy disks. I have no idea how they are doing it now.

Giilty as charged, I change ISO to meet the lighting amd extend my shooting time.
I had to mentally slap my own wrist when using my OM10 and I reached for the ISO adjuster !

Yes, I change ISO a lot. Depending on the lens used, it will have a known 'sweet spot' in aperture and since so much of what I shoot professionally has to be very high resolution and readable, with the Canon's I can go way up the scale and still get what I need.

I won't tell you the first PC I worked on but you can extrapolate one of the few choices, perhaps, from this, the first computer I worked with extensively was a DEC VAX 700 with an additional 128k of memory and a 64k Matrix Processor. I worked with digital imagery on the first Mac's and on the Lisa (anybody know what that was??).

As part of what is arguably the first full micro controlled TV station, I lived with IBM PC-AT serial number ... 32.. for nearly a year. Had number 34 as the test unit for switching software. This was 80286 technology. Lots of cool video gear floating around at that time. Now all that stuff is beyond primitive.

One serious advantage, even with early DSLR's was not having to carry two or three bodies just to have different film loaded. Even with noise issues it was a big step.

I'm new to the digital SLR, and I have found that in my casual type shooting the ability to change ISO on the fly is a Godsend.

When I shot film I tended to use Fuji 400 all the time, but now I can switch the camera down to 100 for outdoor shots and go up for indoor shots. Using 1600 lets me get hand-held indoor shots with no flash that would have been impossible even with 1600 film - and with far less grain.

I had a Pascal class in college. We would go to the computer lab, work on a program, send it to the compiler and wait... There - now you know exactly how old I am... :)

One thing about higher ISO settings - I notice at 800 and 1600 that images have more contrast. Seems like the higher you go on the ISO scale, the less latitude there is. I don't notice a real difference between 100 and 400, but higher than that starts having a different look.

Our labs were in Fortran. But similiar scenario :)

I've been testing out my 10D and ISO 100 and 200 are similar but I can really start to see noise at 400 and up.

I will be shooting the interior of a 17,000 sf house in an hour and a half for the designer. I'm afraid that I will have to shoot at at least ISO 400 and pull out all my tricks - wiiiiiide angle, remote release, multiple lighting, and heavy tripod.

I'll try post a few results when I get back.

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Originally Posted by Loupey

Just curious how many of you change your ISO setting as often as you would change your shutter speed and aperture?

With imaging sensors getting less and less noisy at the higher ranges, I hear a lot of people using values previously reserved for only the most dedicated applications. Since the image quality does not appear to be grossly affected, are most of you using the 400~800 range for general shooting? I still leave mine at 100 and occasionally go to 200. Sometimes, I feel crazy and will shoot at 400 :p

I wonder if the need for faster lenses (i.e. f/1.2, 1.4, and even 2.0) in the future will be seriously questioned except for extremely shallow DOF work. I wonder if there is a theoretical limit to how sensitive the CMOS and CCD's of the future will be. ISO 6400, 12800, ...

We must still be in the dawn of digital imaging. Remember when the 486 computers just came out? Hard to imagine then what we have now after, what, a little over 10 years?

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I find that I still use the same ISO settings in the same situations as when I use film. 100 ISO for landscapes, 400 ISO for moving about outdoors, 800 ISO indoors with flash or fast lenses and 1600 ISO when I have no choice. The result is better than film.

I'm just waiting for the 18-200 VR to become available then I can eliminate my tripod as well.

Charles

Huh, punch cards, paper tape and 8Meg disk drives the size of a washing machine.
Does that make me an ancient geek?

Hey, Drg: Huh?! Can't say I recall those machines :p

Paul: I seem to recall teachers showing us (in elementary school) punch cards as the "wave of the future" type thing :D

Charles: All this new technology sure has changed the way photographs are captured.

The book that first got me involved in photography during high school was the black, Time Life series titled, The Camera. I must have signed that book out consecutively from the library until I had it memorized. Although the principles are unchanged, the techniques explained seem so simple compared to today''s whiz-bang technological state.


So I guess that we all agree that we are holding, in our hands, the 486's (possibly 486DX2's) of our digital evolution? But the 486's sure were great before the first Pentium showed up.

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Originally Posted by SmartWombat

Huh, punch cards, paper tape and 8Meg disk drives the size of a washing machine.
Does that make me an ancient geek?

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Which came first paper tape or punch cards - I must be so old I can't remember.

I remember the old DEC RK05's 2.5Mbytes on a disk with a circumfrance bigger than a washing machine drum, and writing assembly code in all manner of clever ways to save a few bytes of storage on both disk and memory.

Those were the days! - I can't believe I just said that.

Roger

PS I change my ISO to suit the needs of the photo but try and keep to the slower settings for quality. However using canon slow is very fast compared to film