Weekly Poll: Auto ISO or Manual?

[Nicole]

This week I'm asking a kind of technical question, which maybe will enlighten some people, maybe will inform some people, and hopefully will get some discussion of why we set our cameras the way that we do.

This week I would like to know if you set your camera to Auto ISO or set it manually to a certain speed. For people who are just starting to understand the various settings and how they work, there's a great article on the blog about ISO Settings and what they do and how they impact how your shot turns out.

If you use Auto ISO, do you use fully automatic selection by the camera or do you give it a maximum ISO that you will let it shoot at? Why do you use Auto ISO? Is it because you didn't know you could change it or because your camera does a pretty good job making decisions about it?

If you manually set your ISO, well, you probably change it for different situations, but, what is the most common ISO that you shoot at and why? How do you feel that your camera deals with high ISOs? Would you shoot at your camera's highest ISO in order to get enough light or would you change a different setting first? Are you a person who takes night shots with a high ISO (and short shutter speed) or a low ISO (and a long shutter speed)? Share your tips about what settings you start changing your ISO in.

Hopefully these more technical polls will help provide some useful information to people just starting out.

[aetnajojo]

My needs dictate that I capture images with minimal grain. So I fix my camera at ISO 80. If there is not enough light I may bump it up to ISO 100. If still there is not enough light, then I don't take a shot at all.

One exception though - if I'm deliberately after a grainy effect, then that's the time I go beyond ISO 100.

[peeperita]

i'm a manual girl.....and try to go as low as i can.....bumping it up only when all else fails....i generally reset it to 100 if at all possible.....

peeper

[Teewinot]

I have to admit that even though I've been stretching my manual repertoire of late (shutter speed, aperture, WB, focus, etc.), I have never manually set my ISO. This poll question makes me wonder if I should start!

[kirbinster]

I use Auto ISO, but with restrictions. I have it set at a base level of 200, and then let it ramp up when shutter speed wants to go below 1/25th of a second but only to a maximum of ISO 800. Seems to work quite well for me.

The only problem is that I need to remember that when I want to shoot in manual to turn Auto ISO off, I wish Nikon was smart enough that when you selected manual it would temporarily turn off auto ISO by itself.

[razad]

Always Manual ISO. I just don't trust the camera to set it for me in those crucial shots. I'm not afraid to go high ISO for better picture quality. On my Canon even ISO 800 looks fine without any PP.

[jdepould]

I waffle between the two. Sometimes Auto pisses me off, then I go for a month or two without using it. I usually go back to it after awhile though.

The D200 is nice because I can set an upper limit for the ISO, which I can't do on my D50. It avoids the problem of ISO1600 in broad daylight if I forget to change something.

[Sime™]

Abso-Manual-Lutely

[Quo Fan]

Strictly manual. Though I do on occasion forget that I can change it.

[MikeM]

I set it manually on my P&S. It's about the only control I have on influencing aperture and shutter speed on the little thing. When I migrate to a dSLR, I imagine I'll continue to select ISO manually out of habit and preference.

My Canon SD1000 has atrocious high ISO performance, so I don't shoot above 400 unless absolutely necessary. I've found that I can get away with 800 if the subject has enough texture so the noise isn't as apparent.