Mr. Northrup : As a strictly amateur picture-taker (I would not presume to label myself a photographer), I find all your videos to be immensely helpful and will be ordering one or more of your books. I would like your guidance as to which books would be most applicable to what I do with my cameras. I have a Sony a6000 and an a6300, some native SONY eMount APSC lenses (mostly zoom and pancake), tripod and an external flash. My most frequent activities are photographing fast-moving dancer friends (latin, bellydance, folk etc) during their performances at festivals, weddings, and other community events, very often indoors under lighting conditions which are unpredictable and subject to random change by over-zealous DJ-s and lighting technicians. Just for fun and to provide pictures for my dancer friends. At these events I am most often not an "official" photographer - just a member of the audience so I have little or no advance control over lighting or knowledge of where (distance and angle) I will be able to shoot from i.e. I have to adjust rapidly on the fly with no possibility for test shots. Sometimes I am lucky, other times it's really hit and miss with many pictures coming out grainy, badly exposed or "deer-in-the-headlights" in the case of flash. In an attempt to get proper "freeze motion" I usually use shutter priority and, as I shoot, try to find a combination of aperture and ISO setting which works at that moment (auto ISO seems to pick really high ISO settings in this situation). I don't charge my dancer friends for being their "photographer/chauffeur and helper-outer" and they seem happy with the pictures I give them but I would like to increase the quality of my pictures and my "success rate". There doesn't seem to be many videos on RUclips covering this type of photography. My other photographs are general outdoors (buildings, cityscapes etc in daylight during travel) and low light indoor shots of stationary objects (inside museums, castles, churches etc) with no flash. Much easier. Which of your books would you recommend that may help me out for these dance performance situations ? (sorry for being so long-winded).
You guys literally have the best photography channel. You never make me feel stupid. Either by talking down, or not explaining things. Everything is explained perfectly. Thank you so much!
It's evident this man knows what he's taking about. Many others show you experiments they have done, cool ones, but you don't learn even the half you learn with each of these videos.
Can't believe I just watched 20+ minute video on ISO. There's a funny feeling that comes on when the content starts to go super geeky, and sometimes it's uncomfortable, but I love it! Thanks again!
Man, I enjoy your videos. While another youtube channels are very short and they just go to the point in less than 15mins, yours are very comprehensive. So this is what I do: I use first short videos in another channels to understand knowledge about a field where I'm completely ignorant, as a first step. Then, now that my brain absorbed the basic concepts and my understanding has improved, I come to your channel to get a wider coverage about the concepts. I think your channel is rather to master concepts, for those who really care about the foundations of photography and want to learn beyond the basic 10-step tutorial Thanks for helping us learning more !
The quality of Tony's technical videos keeps getting better. Loving the quantitative approach and the many references to existing videos to make it a compendium of knowledge.
I just discovered your channel. Yours are among the best technical analysis I've seen. Excellent compromise between clarity and details. Congratulations. I am an amateur photographer and my job is close to image processing, I love your channel
each time I watch any of the videos regarding ISO,shutter ,f stop etc' I learn something new ,this is really tricky triangle ....I'm new to this and it's totally exiting . Thank you Tony for the detail lesone.
Hi, Tony. I finally understand ISO. I have been using it forever, however if anybody asked me what it was, I'd have had great problems explaining what it was. Yes, I could have explained when and how to use it, however I feel better able to explain it.
Almost 22 minutes of amazing content without a bunny trail or even a stray "um..." It there is a more professional channel on RUclips, um....I'm not aware of it. Keep up the great work!
Pretty easy to understand for a beginner. I love it that you cover all these different topics in 1 video but not making it too short or too long to understand it.
As much as I like and appreciate the clear and concise information imparted about your particular subject matter per video, I chuckle every time Tony geeks out. Yes, I review the geek videos - although most of the science is a little beyond me - I still enjoy them. Thanks for what you do!
I understood ISO before this video, but i had some questions still. Since unlike Shutter Speed, (the PHYSICAL closing of the speed of the shutter shutter), and Aperture, (The PHYSICAL opening and closing of a hole in your lens allow more/less light in, make your depth of field more shallow/ less shallow), ISO is just a digital function. So it was nice to have an explanation since there is no physical movement of mechanics or something like that controlling ISO. It is just the intensity of the light hitting your sensor. Thanks Tony for another great video. You're the best out there and I can't wait to see you page continue to grow. :)
Joey Platania The signal is amplified by the ADC processor, there's where the ISO changes. The sensor delivers the data from it's sensitivity base level. When the signal is amplified, the low level noise signals are amplified too.
Hi Tony. I am using the Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens (non CPU) on my Nikon D7200. I had been shooting raw for quite some time with the 18-140 kit lens as well as the Nikkor 35mm F1.8G. I started experimenting with manual last week when the Rokinon arrived. One inconvenience to keeping the ISO down to 100, is that the live [post] view on the camera back is totally dark and I only see the result after viewing it (and lightening it up) in my raw viewer on the pc. I set up the Rokinon as a non CPU lens and learned to make the custom setting for using the external aperture ring. The absence of noise, compared to my earlier shots makes the new pictures stellar by comparison. I am going to try ISO 200 and 400 and probably get another flash unit as well. I am a hobbyist who just wants to take Stunning Digital Photography.
Tony, both you and Chelsea have a really superb way of explaining your subjects in such a way that makes it really interesting. You have the best tutorials! I have bought your book and find it incredibly informative. Extremely good value for money!!!
I just purchased your sdp book! It is really great, so far I ´ve been reading the ebook and the book should come soon. Really love all the videos as well!
you guys are great. my wife and i just bought a Canon Rebel t6s cant wait. Just purchased Stunning digital photography on amazing. cant wait for our journey and learning through you two.. Cheers!!!!
That logarithmic scale you referred to where ISO 100 = 21, ISO 200 = 24, and so on, in case anyone wants to look it up, is Deutsches Institut für Normung, or DIN for short. I remember DIN being quite popular in the film days.
I know this is an old video. But, I just landed on it. Very interesting stuff. Very helpful to me as I get back into photography in my "golden" years. I come from 35mm film and that was all i knew until recently. This business of being able to instantly, (even automatically), change "film" speed shot to shot blows me away.
I have used the technique you describe @6:50 for indoor soccer. Tests showed I needed ISO 6400 to get to 1/200s if I wanted my histogram to reach the right side, but my camera could only do ISO 3200. So I set to manual 1/200s and ISO 1600, pushed 2 stops in post and the pictures were less noisier and had more consistent colour compared to the ones I took at ISO 3200. My idea was that the amount of noise would depend on the light reaching the sensor, which depends on the aperture and shutter speed settings, not the ISO-setting and thus at 1/200s f/3.5 the ISO setting would be irrelevant unless the amplification would bring in more noise (more amplification = more output noise). That was my reason to use ISO 1600 instead, and it worked! (I have not tried setting ISO 800 though, because the display would be way too dark).
Great video. I ran the invariance test on my camera (Pentax K-3) and found that it performed similar to your findings with the Canon. I love learning about my gear. Thanks!
Thank you for posting so many interesting and informative videos. Very very good job. For me, the best photography channel on RUclips. Cheers from Brazil.
You may be a geek Tony but you really know your stuff. I have your book and watch a lot of your videos. I am super impressed. I think you and Chelsea are a really lovely couple who are making a positive difference to the world of photography.
I just want to thank you for your videos. We have always had problems with our pictures when we go on vacation. So I bought the Canon EOS 80D I haven't taken it out of the box yet. Im going to watch all your videos then get started. So far I have learned so much and I want to learn more. I will be ordering your books. When I get back from vacation I hope to share some of my pictures. We are going on a European Cruise so hopefully will get alot of good pictures Thank you
I would like to challenge the statement that big sensors gather more light. If you put the sensor in a lens system and project an image on to it a large sensor will collect the same number of photons as a smaller sensor observing the same scene. The number of photons per unit area received by a small sensor is higher than the those observed by a larger sensor observing the same scene but provided the system does not saturate all will be equal when the the result appears on the back of the observer's retina.
Great explanations, I especially liked the invariance comparison shots. Also, a lot of people might not know - ISO is the same organization that .iso disc image files are named for!
Wow. Best video on I.S.O. EVER. literally. Couldnt resist throwinh those periods in there ;) But seriously I learned more in the past 20 minutes than in the past month.
The exposure info in the first half of this video was extremely helpful. I’ve always felt that my Nikon D5500 in auto ISO had a tendency to use too high an ISO setting when I would’ve preferred another exposure element to be changed. For example, if I am in aperture priority I would prefer a slower shutter speed to a higher ISO. But this video tells me the settings are probably not unusual and has given me some clever workarounds.
Brilliant - what an exhaustive guide! Thanks so much Tony for taking the time to explain all this. I have often maintained it's easier to remove noise than fix a blurry photo!
Hi! No doubt this channel is the best for any photography lover. I watch all your videos and totally love them. I've Canon T6i and 55-250mm lens. I'm facing difficulty in FOCUS POINTS and MANUAL MODE settings. I'm shooting fashion clothes on mannequin in my room with tubelights and no studio light. Problem 1- I want full clothes in focus but only a point or two is coming in focus. Problem 2- I want fast shutter speed as I don't have a tripod and less ISO because I don't want grains. On setting my manual mode black pictures or grainy pictures are being clicked every time. Please, let me know the correct camera setting in my case and help me get the perfect picture. :)
The ASA rating for film was a measure of how sensitive the films was to light. A higher number meant higher sensitivity. The number was used to calculate exposure. Higher light sensitivity was attained with either large granules of chemical or different chemistry. For a given film chemistry finer detail was attained with smaller grain size which meant a lower ASA rating. Generally you selected the slowest film that would fit the lighting of what you were shooting. Aperature and shutter speed allowed you to shift the dynamic range of the scene to match that of the film and braketing was used to adjust for errors in exposure calculations. Its also why black and white photos had more detail, you had at least 3 times the grains for a given speed of film. Nowadays the camera sensor determines the ultimate detail that can be attained. A 20MP camera gives a maximu of 20M dots of color. The base sensitivy of the sensor isn't going to change, just the processing, electronic or digital that occurs after the base reading. The exposure is controlled by the apperature and shutter speed. The larger the pixel the more light it can absorb and therefore the more sensitive to light it can be. For a given sensor size the more sensitive the pixels, the fewer of them there are. It would be interesting to find out what the ISO setting actually changes. I have a hunch its one or more of the following: 1. Amplify the analogue signal before it is turned into a digital value. 2. After the analogue signal is changed to a digital value mathematically process that value to get a wider range of numbers. Note that for a given camera the underlying sensitivity of the pixel doesn't change.
Wow. Your work is truely incredible! I don't think I have ever seen such detailed explainations on photography-tech topics than from your videos. This one in particualar is vastly superior to any other "ISO-explained" video out there, especially in within the market of free ones. Great work! Plus: WIth all the 'geek'-videos you mentioned (and which I will definitly check out), I'll be trivia-king in our photogrpahy group once and for all :D
Yes! Thank you! Less DR! That's what I've noticed on the ISO 50 on my D750 as a headshot photographer. If I'm pushing the exposure, with a beauty dish say, and I'm at ISO50 unrecoverable highlight. Same equivalent exposure at ISO 100 and the highlight will hold and recover even more. As you say, less dynamic range. However a good use for the extended ISO is outdoor headshots, I'd rather use the extended ISO 50 then an ND filter. Thanks!
Thank you! I come from an engineering/manufacturing background and am very familiar with ISO standards that are used in the production of various products. When I started getting into photography I'd hear people say I...S....O.... and kept thinking they were saying it wrong but then I wasn't sure if it referred to the same ISO that I knew.
great video (as usual). somehow you manage to make what is essentially a very boring subject interesting and made me laugh. plus now I get how older cameras are still used and loved by professionals and why amateurs (myself included) think to rush out and upgrade to get cleaner images when the pros just stick with the same gear until a big upgrade is needed. cheers Tony!
Excellent video. You explain everything in both technical and practical terms. Would be great to see what your personal presets are in post production software are and walk us through why you chose those settings. Then sell them to us!
You really are the best at what you do. Always informative. Great perspective. Bought your books, learned and still learning so much. Can't wait for your Photoshop one! Thank you for all the great content.
What you described in the extended ISO part is true in regular ISOs as well. If you go from ISO 100 to 200, the TTL meter will tell you to close the lens by a stop, and the camera screen or Lightroom will brighten the image. So keeping exposure time and aperture fixed should give the same raw file (that's why you should be able to go back and get to both images looking the same in Lightroom), so I'm gonna look into how Canon does it because you point out that it might actually change the CR2 file, interesting point. And sensor size doesn't matter (I mean sure it does but not for sensitivity). The bucket analogy is good but refers to effective photosite area (what is known as pixel pitch although I don't like the word pixel for the sensor) The part on stretching ISO was great, I never thought of that !
+Tomy What you're saying is true, sensor size indeed doesn't matter for noise PER SQUARE (Area unit). But let's say a APS-C and Full sized frame camera generate 24MP photos, now the Full Frame sensor will generate the 24MP image with a bigger area, so although the noise performance in differently sized sensors is the same, the full frame photo will appear to have less noise because its a 'bigger' picture, and you view a more 'zoomed out' version of the same scene, crop the same image with 1.5/1.6x and the results will be identical. His bucket theory applies perfectly in reference to the 'Amount of light gathered' by the sensor, but of course you are right too, in the way that raindrops are going to interact in the same way with the water surface in the bucket, whether its bigger or smaller. :P
If you want to get Tony all riled up, ask him what ISO stands for. (Great video, though, Tony. Nothing but love for you, man. You've made my photographs 1000% better.)
With regard to high ISO photos, also worth noting the difference between color noise and luminance noise. It's the color noise that most us find most irritating. Lightroom does pretty well at reducing color noise, in my experience. Some 3rd party apps add new kinds of artifacts when removing noise artifacts.
love your videos mate... only thing i can ask for is you place the links you post on the videos and add them to the links in the info below where you put the info about the video. other then that its 10/10 mate.. learning so much from you
Excellent video. I "liked" it. I know pretty much all about this topic already, but it was still interesting to hear you put it (and show it) so clearly. This is probably the best explanation and overview of ISO I've heard. Moving on, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I will continue to call it "I.S.O." They just shouldn't have capitalized the letters. It's like the founder of "GIF"s wanting us to pronounce them like "JIF". It just sounds wrong, and anyway, the "G" is for "graphics", which is pronounced with a hard "G". Also, by the way, "Bokeh" is pronounced "boh keh" (not "boh kuh"), and "Nikon" is pronounced "Nee kon", not "Nigh con". (I know IPA phonetics, but I don't use them here, because most people don't know them anyway.) So I think as long as people keep up with their incorrect and sometimes illogical pronunciations, I'll (for now, at least) continue to use "I.S.O." Anyway, when you say it quickly, it's pretty hard to tell the two pronunciations apart.
+Rationalific Truth is...EVERY single photographer in the 70's and 80's said "I-S-O", so it's just a way of taking something old and making it new again. I will say it that way since that is what I heard when I was a kid. It is perfectly fine for him to choose to say it that way. No different then the planet Uranus. It was pronounced with the long-A sound from the very beginning and then someone decided they didn't like the way it sounded so they convinced everyone to say it with the stress on the first syllable and the non long-A sound.
***** Capitalizing every letter of that "word" doesn't make logical sense, either. So no matter what route you take, there can be some criticism of it.
Another good video! Very informative. The section regarding how some manufacturers might fudge their ISO settings a little is rather alarming, since the entire point of an ISO is standardization, hence the S. I guess this should not be shocking, though.
Good "nerdy" video. I would like to see more of these videos applied to the video side of the cameras. I know you guys are photographers first, but given your vast experience with video since you produce a successful RUclips channel and the fact that a lot of people are crossing over. Dealing with at least 24fps means more processing time in post, so most people would prefer to get it right in camera first. Hence the importance of ISO (gain in video cameras) and noise when comparing camera performance, especially in low light.
Another great video thanks tony! Loads of info for everyone from beginner to pro! (Once again shitty RUclips compression messes up multiple cameras at diff frame rates... Always makes 24p look stuttery on RUclips vs shooting 30p or 60p)
I followed this all the way but got very confused at 7:50 when Tony states that the ISO 100 picture has more noise than the ISO 6400 picture. I thought the lower the ISO (number), the less noise? Tony explicitly states this earlier on. What have I misunderstood at 7:50?
Ministry of Chocolate . Those pictures were taken in low lighting condition. And the image taken in ISO100 was underexposed. As the image was taken in raw format he increased the exposure of the image in post-production so it has more noise..
I know that improved ISO performance cycle. I recently went from a Nikon D40 to the D5500, and was shocked to see how much better ISO had gotten. On the D40 using the highest native ISO setting (1600, you could get to 3200 but it was horrible) produced some terrible noisy pictures. On the D5500 6400 looks way better. So I believe that 8 years cycle. Nice video!
Just discovered your channel, love it ! Got lost on Full frame vs APS-C however, if ISO is light intensity, and light intensity in the “cropped area” is the same between FF and APS-C, why would FF be cleaner at same ISO? Keep the Geek coming!
So according to 10:16, most cameras have similar ISO performance that improves twofold every 8 years. But I have seen how Sony's A7s series outperforms other cameras (including other Sony cameras) in low light situation, but this video doesn't offer an explanation for that. Could someone explain this?
about 13:00 why does total light matter than light gathered per square mm? I thought it was how much each pixel received that matters (larger pixels = more light etc)? Example: If you take the sensor/technology from a 7D and just add 3 more sensors on the side/top to form a medium/large format sensor. Wouldn't the ISO performance be the same? Are you saying it would be better because it has more total light? I am confused, thanks!
17:50 when you started talking about the International Organisational for Standardization, i was like "yeah, that's in my management accounting textbook". was wondering if it was the same people. thanks😅
About Expanded ISO, specifically lower ISO than lowest default (topic at 5:35), using it can actually have a measurable effect of increasing Dynamic Range. The video claims that an ISO 50 is simply an ISO 100 image digitally adjusted a stop down, making you lose a stop of dynamic range also. I'll prove that this isn't always the case. A camera that allows a lower ISO than default in its expanded options is the Pentax K-5/II. The lowest default ISO is 100 and you can go even lower when expanded to ISO 80. Tests by dxomark has shown that RAW files at ISO 80 do contain more dynamic range compared to ISO 100 (almost half a stop more). See yourselves from the 'Dynamic Range' tab at www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Pentax/K5---Measurements The tl;dr here is that for Pentax users, use RAW ISO 80 when shooting bright scenes if you want to maximize DR.
So ISO is pronounced “eye so”. And here I’ve been calling RAW “are aye double-you”. Seriously, thank you for clearing this up. This detail has been bedeviling me for years.
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Mr. Northrup : As a strictly amateur picture-taker (I would not presume to label myself a photographer), I find all your videos to be immensely helpful and will be ordering one or more of your books. I would like your guidance as to which books would be most applicable to what I do with my cameras. I have a Sony a6000 and an a6300, some native SONY eMount APSC lenses (mostly zoom and pancake), tripod and an external flash. My most frequent activities are photographing fast-moving dancer friends (latin, bellydance, folk etc) during their performances at festivals, weddings, and other community events, very often indoors under lighting conditions which are unpredictable and subject to random change by over-zealous DJ-s and lighting technicians. Just for fun and to provide pictures for my dancer friends. At these events I am most often not an "official" photographer - just a member of the audience so I have little or no advance control over lighting or knowledge of where (distance and angle) I will be able to shoot from i.e. I have to adjust rapidly on the fly with no possibility for test shots. Sometimes I am lucky, other times it's really hit and miss with many pictures coming out grainy, badly exposed or "deer-in-the-headlights" in the case of flash. In an attempt to get proper "freeze motion" I usually use shutter priority and, as I shoot, try to find a combination of aperture and ISO setting which works at that moment (auto ISO seems to pick really high ISO settings in this situation). I don't charge my dancer friends for being their "photographer/chauffeur and helper-outer" and they seem happy with the pictures I give them but I would like to increase the quality of my pictures and my "success rate". There doesn't seem to be many videos on RUclips covering this type of photography. My other photographs are general outdoors (buildings, cityscapes etc in daylight during travel) and low light indoor shots of stationary objects (inside museums, castles, churches etc) with no flash. Much easier. Which of your books would you recommend that may help me out for these dance performance situations ? (sorry for being so long-winded).
You guys literally have the best photography channel. You never make me feel stupid. Either by talking down, or not explaining things. Everything is explained perfectly. Thank you so much!
It's evident this man knows what he's taking about. Many others show you experiments they have done, cool ones, but you don't learn even the half you learn with each of these videos.
Finally... a tutorial on ISO that actually does a great job of explaining the concepts.
Well done!
Can't believe I just watched 20+ minute video on ISO. There's a funny feeling that comes on when the content starts to go super geeky, and sometimes it's uncomfortable, but I love it! Thanks again!
Man, I enjoy your videos.
While another youtube channels are very short and they just go to the point in less than 15mins, yours are very comprehensive. So this is what I do: I use first short videos in another channels to understand knowledge about a field where I'm completely ignorant, as a first step. Then, now that my brain absorbed the basic concepts and my understanding has improved, I come to your channel to get a wider coverage about the concepts.
I think your channel is rather to master concepts, for those who really care about the foundations of photography and want to learn beyond the basic 10-step tutorial
Thanks for helping us learning more !
The quality of Tony's technical videos keeps getting better. Loving the quantitative approach and the many references to existing videos to make it a compendium of knowledge.
I just discovered your channel. Yours are among the best technical analysis I've seen. Excellent compromise between clarity and details. Congratulations. I am an amateur photographer and my job is close to image processing, I love your channel
each time I watch any of the videos regarding ISO,shutter ,f stop etc' I learn something new ,this is really tricky triangle ....I'm new to this and it's totally exiting .
Thank you Tony for the detail lesone.
+Avishay Gold Thanks!
Hi, Tony. I finally understand ISO. I have been using it forever, however if anybody asked me what it was, I'd have had great problems explaining what it was. Yes, I could have explained when and how to use it, however I feel better able to explain it.
Almost 22 minutes of amazing content without a bunny trail or even a stray "um..." It there is a more professional channel on RUclips, um....I'm not aware of it. Keep up the great work!
Pretty easy to understand for a beginner.
I love it that you cover all these different topics in 1 video but not making it too short or too long to understand it.
Thank you for clearly explaining extended ISO! I've watched so many videos that have failed to clearly explain this; your explanation is great!
+Tomas Waz Thanks!
As much as I like and appreciate the clear and concise information imparted about your particular subject matter per video, I chuckle every time Tony geeks out. Yes, I review the geek videos - although most of the science is a little beyond me - I still enjoy them. Thanks for what you do!
oh and i agree with Carlos...this is a wonderful "scientifically-based" reliable youtube channel in the world of photography! Quite impressive!
I understood ISO before this video, but i had some questions still. Since unlike Shutter Speed, (the PHYSICAL closing of the speed of the shutter shutter), and Aperture, (The PHYSICAL opening and closing of a hole in your lens allow more/less light in, make your depth of field more shallow/ less shallow), ISO is just a digital function. So it was nice to have an explanation since there is no physical movement of mechanics or something like that controlling ISO. It is just the intensity of the light hitting your sensor. Thanks Tony for another great video. You're the best out there and I can't wait to see you page continue to grow. :)
Joey Platania The signal is amplified by the ADC processor, there's where the ISO changes. The sensor delivers the data from it's sensitivity base level. When the signal is amplified, the low level noise signals are amplified too.
Denis Guerra Oh okay thank you! Even more clarification :)
I'm not a photographer, by any standard, yet all of a sudden i'm interested in Photography and even know a little bit about it! Thx Tony
Your teaching and speaking style makes my brain feel like it's a genius (but I know it's all you.) Thanks, awesome explanation.
Hi Tony. I am using the Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens (non CPU) on my Nikon D7200. I had been shooting raw for quite some time with the 18-140 kit lens as well as the Nikkor 35mm F1.8G. I started experimenting with manual last week when the Rokinon arrived. One inconvenience to keeping the ISO down to 100, is that the live [post] view on the camera back is totally dark and I only see the result after viewing it (and lightening it up) in my raw viewer on the pc. I set up the Rokinon as a non CPU lens and learned to make the custom setting for using the external aperture ring. The absence of noise, compared to my earlier shots makes the new pictures stellar by comparison. I am going to try ISO 200 and 400 and probably get another flash unit as well. I am a hobbyist who just wants to take Stunning Digital Photography.
Such a great explanation, well done Tony
Tony, both you and Chelsea have a really superb way of explaining your subjects in such a way that makes it really interesting. You have the best tutorials!
I have bought your book and find it incredibly informative. Extremely good value for money!!!
Thanks, Warren!
I just purchased your sdp book! It is really great, so far I ´ve been reading the ebook and the book should come soon. Really love all the videos as well!
+Peter Bucek Thanks!!
you guys are great. my wife and i just bought a Canon Rebel t6s cant wait. Just purchased Stunning digital photography on amazing. cant wait for our journey and learning through you two.. Cheers!!!!
adam edge and 10mos later your camera is replaced with a 77d!!
Dry but to the point. I really am grateful that you put in some research for this video.
i just bought a lumix gx85 and don't know anything about using it. this youtube channel is helping immensely.
That logarithmic scale you referred to where ISO 100 = 21, ISO 200 = 24, and so on, in case anyone wants to look it up, is Deutsches Institut für Normung, or DIN for short. I remember DIN being quite popular in the film days.
this is the greatest ISO video in RUclips history! =)
I know this is an old video. But, I just landed on it. Very interesting stuff. Very helpful to me as I get back into photography in my "golden" years. I come from 35mm film and that was all i knew until recently. This business of being able to instantly, (even automatically), change "film" speed shot to shot blows me away.
I have used the technique you describe @6:50 for indoor soccer. Tests showed I needed ISO 6400 to get to 1/200s if I wanted my histogram to reach the right side, but my camera could only do ISO 3200. So I set to manual 1/200s and ISO 1600, pushed 2 stops in post and the pictures were less noisier and had more consistent colour compared to the ones I took at ISO 3200.
My idea was that the amount of noise would depend on the light reaching the sensor, which depends on the aperture and shutter speed settings, not the ISO-setting and thus at 1/200s f/3.5 the ISO setting would be irrelevant unless the amplification would bring in more noise (more amplification = more output noise). That was my reason to use ISO 1600 instead, and it worked! (I have not tried setting ISO 800 though, because the display would be way too dark).
Great video. I ran the invariance test on my camera (Pentax K-3) and found that it performed similar to your findings with the Canon. I love learning about my gear. Thanks!
Thank you for posting so many interesting and informative videos. Very very good job. For me, the best photography channel on RUclips. Cheers from Brazil.
You may be a geek Tony but you really know your stuff. I have your book and watch a lot of your videos. I am super impressed. I think you and Chelsea are a really lovely couple who are making a positive difference to the world of photography.
+Pauline Follett Thanks!
I just want to thank you for your videos. We have always had problems with our pictures when we go on vacation. So I bought the Canon EOS 80D I haven't taken it out of the box yet. Im going to watch all your videos then get started. So far I have learned so much and I want to learn more. I will be ordering your books. When I get back from vacation I hope to share some of my pictures. We are going on a European Cruise so hopefully will get alot of good pictures Thank you
I would like to challenge the statement that big sensors gather more light. If you put the sensor in a lens system and project an image on to it a large sensor will collect the same number of photons as a smaller sensor observing the same scene. The number of photons per unit area received by a small sensor is higher than the those observed by a larger sensor observing the same scene but provided the system does not saturate all will be equal when the the result appears on the back of the observer's retina.
The way you explain is really fascinating
The Invariance section was really interesting, never thought about it that way. Thanks, Tony!
Most informative photography channel. Always indept
Great explanations, I especially liked the invariance comparison shots. Also, a lot of people might not know - ISO is the same organization that .iso disc image files are named for!
Love the I-S-O video, Mr. Northrup. Thank you.
Really enjoyed the history portion, nice departure from just the technical jargon.
Also, very interesting!
One of the best videos ever about concepts of photography, Well done!
Wow. Best video on I.S.O. EVER. literally. Couldnt resist throwinh those periods in there ;) But seriously I learned more in the past 20 minutes than in the past month.
The exposure info in the first half of this video was extremely helpful. I’ve always felt that my Nikon D5500 in auto ISO had a tendency to use too high an ISO setting when I would’ve preferred another exposure element to be changed. For example, if I am in aperture priority I would prefer a slower shutter speed to a higher ISO. But this video tells me the settings are probably not unusual and has given me some clever workarounds.
Brilliant - what an exhaustive guide! Thanks so much Tony for taking the time to explain all this. I have often maintained it's easier to remove noise than fix a blurry photo!
Top video, great explanation. You're very good at explaining technical stuff in a way that is easily understood. Thanks for posting this!
Hi! No doubt this channel is the best for any photography lover. I watch all your videos and totally love them. I've Canon T6i and 55-250mm lens. I'm facing difficulty in FOCUS POINTS and MANUAL MODE settings. I'm shooting fashion clothes on mannequin in my room with tubelights and no studio light. Problem 1- I want full clothes in focus but only a point or two is coming in focus. Problem 2- I want fast shutter speed as I don't have a tripod and less ISO because I don't want grains. On setting my manual mode black pictures or grainy pictures are being clicked every time. Please, let me know the correct camera setting in my case and help me get the perfect picture. :)
The ASA rating for film was a measure of how sensitive the films was to light. A higher number meant higher sensitivity. The number was used to calculate exposure. Higher light sensitivity was attained with either large granules of chemical or different chemistry. For a given film chemistry finer detail was attained with smaller grain size which meant a lower ASA rating. Generally you selected the slowest film that would fit the lighting of what you were shooting. Aperature and shutter speed allowed you to shift the dynamic range of the scene to match that of the film and braketing was used to adjust for errors in exposure calculations. Its also why black and white photos had more detail, you had at least 3 times the grains for a given speed of film.
Nowadays the camera sensor determines the ultimate detail that can be attained. A 20MP camera gives a maximu of 20M dots of color. The base sensitivy of the sensor isn't going to change, just the processing, electronic or digital that occurs after the base reading. The exposure is controlled by the apperature and shutter speed. The larger the pixel the more light it can absorb and therefore the more sensitive to light it can be. For a given sensor size the more sensitive the pixels, the fewer of them there are. It would be interesting to find out what the ISO setting actually changes. I have a hunch its one or more of the following:
1. Amplify the analogue signal before it is turned into a digital value.
2. After the analogue signal is changed to a digital value mathematically process that value to get a wider range of numbers.
Note that for a given camera the underlying sensitivity of the pixel doesn't change.
Wow. Your work is truely incredible! I don't think I have ever seen such detailed explainations on photography-tech topics than from your videos. This one in particualar is vastly superior to any other "ISO-explained" video out there, especially in within the market of free ones.
Great work!
Plus: WIth all the 'geek'-videos you mentioned (and which I will definitly check out), I'll be trivia-king in our photogrpahy group once and for all :D
Yes! Thank you! Less DR! That's what I've noticed on the ISO 50 on my D750 as a headshot photographer. If I'm pushing the exposure, with a beauty dish say, and I'm at ISO50 unrecoverable highlight. Same equivalent exposure at ISO 100 and the highlight will hold and recover even more. As you say, less dynamic range. However a good use for the extended ISO is outdoor headshots, I'd rather use the extended ISO 50 then an ND filter. Thanks!
Thank you! I come from an engineering/manufacturing background and am very familiar with ISO standards that are used in the production of various products. When I started getting into photography I'd hear people say I...S....O.... and kept thinking they were saying it wrong but then I wasn't sure if it referred to the same ISO that I knew.
Excellent video. Right down to the correct way to say ISO!
great video (as usual). somehow you manage to make what is essentially a very boring subject interesting and made me laugh. plus now I get how older cameras are still used and loved by professionals and why amateurs (myself included) think to rush out and upgrade to get cleaner images when the pros just stick with the same gear until a big upgrade is needed. cheers Tony!
Excellent video. You explain everything in both technical and practical terms. Would be great to see what your personal presets are in post production software are and walk us through why you chose those settings. Then sell them to us!
You really are the best at what you do. Always informative. Great perspective. Bought your books, learned and still learning so much. Can't wait for your Photoshop one! Thank you for all the great content.
+David QuikPic Thanks!!
Thanks Tony. Very helpful and I have your book. I always use manual ISO but after this, I will try auto. I have the A7R2 and auto will help for video.
Thank you for the experienced and good evaluation of the ISO. Greetings from istanbul, Turkey.
What you described in the extended ISO part is true in regular ISOs as well.
If you go from ISO 100 to 200, the TTL meter will tell you to close the lens by a stop, and the camera screen or Lightroom will brighten the image.
So keeping exposure time and aperture fixed should give the same raw file (that's why you should be able to go back and get to both images looking the same in Lightroom), so I'm gonna look into how Canon does it because you point out that it might actually change the CR2 file, interesting point.
And sensor size doesn't matter (I mean sure it does but not for sensitivity). The bucket analogy is good but refers to effective photosite area (what is known as pixel pitch although I don't like the word pixel for the sensor)
The part on stretching ISO was great, I never thought of that !
+Tomy Re: photosites, sdp.io/density
+Tomy What you're saying is true, sensor size indeed doesn't matter for noise PER SQUARE (Area unit). But let's say a APS-C and Full sized frame camera generate 24MP photos, now the Full Frame sensor will generate the 24MP image with a bigger area, so although the noise performance in differently sized sensors is the same, the full frame photo will appear to have less noise because its a 'bigger' picture, and you view a more 'zoomed out' version of the same scene, crop the same image with 1.5/1.6x and the results will be identical.
His bucket theory applies perfectly in reference to the 'Amount of light gathered' by the sensor, but of course you are right too, in the way that raindrops are going to interact in the same way with the water surface in the bucket, whether its bigger or smaller. :P
I really like to listen and learn from your technical expertise. Keep it coming!
If you want to get Tony all riled up, ask him what ISO stands for. (Great video, though, Tony. Nothing but love for you, man. You've made my photographs 1000% better.)
Tony you are the best. I'm always learn something new overtime I watch your channel.
I love your chats and explanations, Tony. You are truly knowledgeable. Thank you. You are they best of ALL the channels I subscribe to. Great !!!
With regard to high ISO photos, also worth noting the difference between color noise and luminance noise. It's the color noise that most us find most irritating. Lightroom does pretty well at reducing color noise, in my experience. Some 3rd party apps add new kinds of artifacts when removing noise artifacts.
Very good presentation. Thank you for sharing.
Tony and Chelsea. Great sharpness on this video!
I don't even own a camera.... Academic curiosity lead me here.
You're my guide. Keep sharing. Am a fan, bought the book.
love your videos mate... only thing i can ask for is you place the links you post on the videos and add them to the links in the info below where you put the info about the video.
other then that its 10/10 mate.. learning so much from you
Excellent video. I "liked" it. I know pretty much all about this topic already, but it was still interesting to hear you put it (and show it) so clearly. This is probably the best explanation and overview of ISO I've heard.
Moving on, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I will continue to call it "I.S.O." They just shouldn't have capitalized the letters. It's like the founder of "GIF"s wanting us to pronounce them like "JIF". It just sounds wrong, and anyway, the "G" is for "graphics", which is pronounced with a hard "G". Also, by the way, "Bokeh" is pronounced "boh keh" (not "boh kuh"), and "Nikon" is pronounced "Nee kon", not "Nigh con". (I know IPA phonetics, but I don't use them here, because most people don't know them anyway.) So I think as long as people keep up with their incorrect and sometimes illogical pronunciations, I'll (for now, at least) continue to use "I.S.O." Anyway, when you say it quickly, it's pretty hard to tell the two pronunciations apart.
+Rationalific Truth is...EVERY single photographer in the 70's and 80's said "I-S-O", so it's just a way of taking something old and making it new again. I will say it that way since that is what I heard when I was a kid. It is perfectly fine for him to choose to say it that way. No different then the planet Uranus. It was pronounced with the long-A sound from the very beginning and then someone decided they didn't like the way it sounded so they convinced everyone to say it with the stress on the first syllable and the non long-A sound.
***** Capitalizing every letter of that "word" doesn't make logical sense, either. So no matter what route you take, there can be some criticism of it.
Brilliant.Thank you Tony.I enjoy your tutorials.
Another good video! Very informative. The section regarding how some manufacturers might fudge their ISO settings a little is rather alarming, since the entire point of an ISO is standardization, hence the S. I guess this should not be shocking, though.
Good "nerdy" video. I would like to see more of these videos applied to the video side of the cameras. I know you guys are photographers first, but given your vast experience with video since you produce a successful RUclips channel and the fact that a lot of people are crossing over. Dealing with at least 24fps means more processing time in post, so most people would prefer to get it right in camera first. Hence the importance of ISO (gain in video cameras) and noise when comparing camera performance, especially in low light.
excellent detailed video about iso. this is exactly why i watch you guys videos, keep up the good work. :)
Great video as usual, love the bucket in rain metaphor, thank you
Another great video thanks tony! Loads of info for everyone from beginner to pro! (Once again shitty RUclips compression messes up multiple cameras at diff frame rates... Always makes 24p look stuttery on RUclips vs shooting 30p or 60p)
Thanks for the great tutorial Ton-ye
I think u finally nailed your skin tones, no more umpa lumpa 🖖
+David Salazar I was going to mention colors, maybe they used GH4 for this video.
+ObelixCMM no they stopped using gh4
David Salazar This video looks like old GH4 videos, maybe they went back to it.
Definitely appreciate your researches.
Great video, but what's the deal with the framerate in this video? looks like too low framerate
I followed this all the way but got very confused at 7:50 when Tony states that the ISO 100 picture has more noise than the ISO 6400 picture. I thought the lower the ISO (number), the less noise? Tony explicitly states this earlier on. What have I misunderstood at 7:50?
Ministry of Chocolate . Those pictures were taken in low lighting condition. And the image taken in ISO100 was underexposed. As the image was taken in raw format he increased the exposure of the image in post-production so it has more noise..
Like, super like, hyper like, uber like...
I love your in depth explanations, Tony!
Thank you Tony, very clear explanation.
Thanks Tony, this video make me Understand the ISO clearly ..
I know that improved ISO performance cycle. I recently went from a Nikon D40 to the D5500, and was shocked to see how much better ISO had gotten. On the D40 using the highest native ISO setting (1600, you could get to 3200 but it was horrible) produced some terrible noisy pictures. On the D5500 6400 looks way better. So I believe that 8 years cycle. Nice video!
Wow....this is a really helpful tutorial! Please keep up the great work!
Very good video! It help me to move forward. Thanks.
As always, great job Tony!!!
Good job Tony. Thanks.
Awesome video Tony - ISO is not International Organization for standardization? :)
Great video, you break things down in a way that is very clear to me. Thank you for the content!
Just discovered your channel, love it ! Got lost on Full frame vs APS-C however, if ISO is light intensity, and light intensity in the “cropped area” is the same between FF and APS-C, why would FF be cleaner at same ISO? Keep the Geek coming!
keep up the good work... please do more photography tutorials!!
So according to 10:16, most cameras have similar ISO performance that improves twofold every 8 years. But I have seen how Sony's A7s series outperforms other cameras (including other Sony cameras) in low light situation, but this video doesn't offer an explanation for that. Could someone explain this?
Love the charts and graphs!
about 13:00 why does total light matter than light gathered per square mm? I thought it was how much each pixel received that matters (larger pixels = more light etc)?
Example: If you take the sensor/technology from a 7D and just add 3 more sensors on the side/top to form a medium/large format sensor. Wouldn't the ISO performance be the same? Are you saying it would be better because it has more total light? I am confused, thanks!
i thought, "i think i know all about iso" ,wow tony, i'm so gonna buy your book :D
Great video and informative as always. Keep it up Tony!
17:50 when you started talking about the International Organisational for Standardization, i was like "yeah, that's in my management accounting textbook". was wondering if it was the same people. thanks😅
You're a riot, Tony!
You help me feel "normal" by comparison.
Thanks as always.
Keep it coming! :)
About Expanded ISO, specifically lower ISO than lowest default (topic at 5:35), using it can actually have a measurable effect of increasing Dynamic Range.
The video claims that an ISO 50 is simply an ISO 100 image digitally adjusted a stop down, making you lose a stop of dynamic range also. I'll prove that this isn't always the case.
A camera that allows a lower ISO than default in its expanded options is the Pentax K-5/II. The lowest default ISO is 100 and you can go even lower when expanded to ISO 80. Tests by dxomark has shown that RAW files at ISO 80 do contain more dynamic range compared to ISO 100 (almost half a stop more).
See yourselves from the 'Dynamic Range' tab at
www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Pentax/K5---Measurements
The tl;dr here is that for Pentax users, use RAW ISO 80 when shooting bright scenes if you want to maximize DR.
So ISO is pronounced “eye so”. And here I’ve been calling RAW “are aye double-you”.
Seriously, thank you for clearing this up. This detail has been bedeviling me for years.