Photography ideas, camera & image editing

ISO stands for International Organisation For Standards. For camera and photography, it is used as a indicator of the sensitivity of the recording sensor (in digital camera) or film (in film camera) to light.

Typically ISO parameters are 100, 200 and 400. If you are using a non-digital camera, the ISO setting is in the roll of film itself. Digital cameras have it better, because the ISO setting can be changed on the camera itself.

As the ISO number gets higher, the more sensitive it is to light intensity. Usually ISO 100 is used for taking photo in bright sunlighted outdoor conditions. ISO 200 and above are for more dimly lighted scenarios.

Shutter speed also is another factor that must be considered together with the ISO used. For example, ISO 400 allows a night scene to be captured at a faster shutter speed than at ISO 100. Therefore using higher ISO can reduce or prevent blurring caused by slow shutter’s reaction to movement.

It must be noted that the higher the ISO number goes, the grainer the image will be. Generally, this is not something to be desired. If the images have to be captured at very high ISO, denoising might have to be done digitally using Denoising Programs such as Noise Ninja.

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