roy4711 Loc: Spring Valley IL.

I do not understand iso settings could someone explain it to me I am and amature.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Your ISO setting basically adjusts your sensors sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the higher the light sensitivity allowing you to shoot with less light available.

SonyA580 Loc: FL in the winter & MN in the summer

In order to understand ISO you also have to understand shutter speed and f stop as all 3 are interrelated and commonly referred to as the exposure triangle. I'd suggest you search here on UHH, u-tube, or Google for "Exposure triangle".

Quixdraw Loc: x

ISO is like the old Film Speed - when it is bright, you use Low ISO (less sensitive to light) - when it is dim you use High ISO (more sensitive to light). As mentioned "The higher the ISO, the higher the light sensitivity allowing you to shoot with less light available." The Exposure triangle Son referred to is the relationship between F stop (lens aperture) how much light gets in, Shutter speed how long the light is let in for, and ISO sensitivity of the sensor. These can be combined in many ways to achieve successful exposure and image.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

One doesn't need to complicate things. MT Shooter's definition was quite sufficient.
--Bob

CO

The camera's sensor always has the same sensitivity. The signal is boosted to achieve a higher ISO. The Photography Life website has a good explanation.

Is ISO “Sensor Sensitivity”?
This is the most common myth related to ISO. It is something you will see all over the web (and in print). However, although it may help you to think of ISO as “acting like” camera sensor sensitivity, that’s not what it actually does. Instead, digital sensors only have a single sensitivity, regardless of your ISO. It is more accurate to say that ISO is like a mapping to tell your camera how bright the output photo should be, given a particular input exposure.

Quixdraw Loc: x

One person's complication is anothers' clarification. You can't take for granted that a beginner has the same photo vocabulary as someone with experience.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Right answer.

The sensor's sensitivity is fixed at the base ISO.

If you reduce the exposure (higher shutter speed and/or smaller aperture) the image gets darker unless you offset that with an increase in ISO.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is a standard and I assume you're asking about this one: ISO 12232:2019 PHOTOGRAPHY -- DIGITAL STILL CAMERAS -- DETERMINATION OF EXPOSURE INDEX, ISO SPEED RATINGS, STANDARD OUTPUT SENSITIVITY, AND RECOMMENDED EXPOSURE INDEX

https://www.iso.org/standard/73758.html

The standard includes options the most common of which are right there in the name. Some cameras adhere to the REI (recommended exposure index) option while others adhere to the SOS (standard output sensitivity) option. Which option your camera uses will be noted in the EXIF data saved with your images.

Very simply what ISO does is establish a standard methodology for determining the brightness in the camera output JPEG that results from a measured exposure of the camera sensor.

What goes on under the hood in terms of implementation can be fairly complicated and is different one camera to the next but it's the end result that the standard is concerned with.

In practice using the camera it's important when we encounter variations in illumination intensity and have to set an exposure. We set an exposure by selecting a shutter speed and lens f/stop on the camera. Those choices must consider how the shutter speed renders motion both in the subject and in the camera and how the f/stop is involved in rendered depth of field. Applying those limitations (illumination level, shutter speed, f/stop) we decide to select different exposure levels.

To maintain a consistent brightness level in the finished photo then we can adjust ISO to accommodate our selected exposure. We raise the ISO (larger numbers) to accommodate less exposure and we lower the ISO (smaller numbers) to accommodate more exposure.

Joe

BebuLamar

But of course you can't tell us what it is. Not only you but we must each pay ISO for us to read the standard. Expensive knowledge.

uhaas2009

ISO lights up the hole pics. So higher the ISO so more grainy your pics will be.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

It's about $120.00. There's a pretty good way around that. When the ISO standard was revised to apply to digital cameras and sensors the International Organization for Standardization worked closely with CIPA and basically adopted the already existing CIPA standard DC-004 which is freely available online: http://www.cipa.jp/std/std-sec_e.html

It's not word for word but it basically gets the meaning across correctly.

Joe

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Nobody here cares about the ISO standard - the $120 version or the free recapitulation.

Your final paragraph would have been sufficient. But how is it any different from what I had already posted?

Are you here to help people or just to show off?

srt101fan

I agree that nobody cares about what the ISO standard says. Well, at least I don't care...😐

SteveR Loc: Michigan

As noted earlier, aperture, shutter speed and iso all work together. For instance, if you were to double your shutter speed and lower your iso by half you would get the same exposure.