Don’t Fear the Noise. Part 1.
The first thing you’re meant to learn as a photographer is the exposure triangle.
The exposure triangle consists of three (obviously) elements:
Aperture. How wide your lens is opened to expose the image sensor or film.
Shutter Speed. How long your lens is opened for exposure.
ISO. The sensitivity level of your image sensor or film.
When you’re on a shoot, you first start by changing either your aperture or shutter speed. Usually you start with aperture, unless your subject is moving quickly, such as with sports or wildlife photography.
ISO is always the last thing you adjust, unless you’re just in pitch darkness with no external light sources. Increasing your ISO allows your camera to take images with less light. This function isn’t just necessary for night photography.
Take the following image for example.
Queen Tribute Band “Stache Gordon” performs Under Pressure w/ Jak Locke.
This image was taken on stage at New Orleans’ Southport Hall, lit by giant stage lights. That should be more than enough, right?
Nope. This shot was taken with an old Nikon D5000 at an ISO of 4000. We have a tendency to think of light in terms of how well we can see. The human eye is an astounding device, capable of seeing in situations thousands of times better than the average camera. And so, even in situations with what might seems to be plenty of light, your camera requires adjustment.
So why don’t we just constantly walk around with jacked up ISOs? I’ll explain that and the title of this post in Part 2.
*By the way, if you’ve been wondering, ISO is an acronym for the International Organization for Standards, even though it should technically be IOS. The IOS goes around setting standards of measurements for things. Kind of like the United Nations for Pant Sizes. ISO does not stand for Image Sensitivity Objective, even though that makes WAY more sense. Why? Because we live in an insanely dumb world. Go figure.
