Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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Can someone explain how ISO/Base ISO functions these days? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by Spirit-Subject@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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So generally, I’ve always understood that the lowest ISO is best to shoot at. Though with newer cameras, they usually have a higher base ISO and in some cases Dual ISO.

I usually work with the R5C, even for photography. It feels odd to take portraits at 800 ISO because I’ve always been told it should be as low as possible.

So does the Base ISO system, negate the need to shoot at lowest ISO for the clearest and least grainy image?

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[–] oldlurker114@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Native ISO is the natural ISO range that your sensor can handle without extra digital manipulation

The image sensor has no ISO range, or ISO setting at all.

Typically different ISO settings on the camera cause the sensor to be operated with different parameters (leading to different noise performance curve). May sound like nitpicking, but I think it's important to understand the difference.

So for example that would be like ISO100-6400 as a native range and the low setting (ISO50) and high setting (iso12800) would be extended ISO as they are digitally manipulated.

This is wrong.

Typically the image sensor operates at the same setting at "extended low ISOs" and with the "lowest normal ISO" (though some extended settings may use the same parameters of ISO 125 or ISO 160 for example). What is different is metering - with the extended settings the camera exposure program simply causes a larger exposure to be used by default, thus there will be less headroom (in the JPGs, thus no longer ISO standard compliant). That's it.

The "extended high" settings on the other hand typically add (digital) multiplication to the data. All it does for raw is that it cuts the headroom. For JPG shooters it's not relevant if it's "extended high" or not.