Expandable to 3200

[Chevylover54]

I have a Nikon D3000. The ISO goes up to 1600. However I see it says it's expandable up to 3200. Can someone explain what that means? Thanks.

[jdepould]

The HI settings are the expanded ISO range.

[inkista]

It basically means that the camera will use iso 1600, underexpose by one stop, and then the in-camera processing will increase the exposure up by one stop (aka 'push' the exposure), thereby giving you the equivalent of iso 3200. This process, however, tends to add even more noise than simply cranking up the voltage gain across the sensor (which is how the "real" iso levels are achieved). Similarly, the expanded iso 100 level on cameras where the base iso is 200 is done by doing the reverse: shooting an image with iso 200, overexposing by one stop, and then having in-camera processing adjust the exposure down by one stop (aka 'pull' the exposure).

You can do this yourself with RAW files in post-processing.

[hpotter101]

thats the HI on the iso panel