View Full Version : Auto iso


Steve Bleasdale
September 6th, 2011, 03:25 PM
Anyone use it during the day, i found last week just used it all day, then low light flipped to manual, am i being naughty?? hehe
I found in the footage it lacked nothing manual would give me in fact it was so much easier,, steve

John Wiley
September 7th, 2011, 04:55 AM
During the day I have it set permenantly to ISO100 anyway. I adjust exposure with aperture, ND's, or if i'm shooting at 50p, by adjusting the shutterspeed.

Charles Newcomb
September 7th, 2011, 07:15 AM
I thought I'd try it while filming my son's HS football game last week. The first fifteen minutes or so are in and out of the sunlight, with stadium lighs for fill.

It looked nasty... very amateurish. I won't do that again.

Edward Mendoza
September 7th, 2011, 11:20 AM
I think you can get away with it in certain circumstances (indoors with set (concrete) lighting conditions or outdoors with a gradual natural light change). But if you're shooting in circumstances where the light is constantly and/or dramatically changing (i.e. on the dance floor at a wedding or, as in Charles' case, at a football field that is half-lit by the sun where the players are running in and out of the light), you definitely want to be in manual mode. Footage looks bad when your camera's trying to balance itself. And it'll typically expose well for the better-lit parts of the frame while everything else is gonna be underexposed.

George Bean
September 7th, 2011, 02:07 PM
have you noticed a jump when in auto iso?

seems if the camera is in auto iso whenever there is a change from light to dark the images seems to jump. just curious if this happen outdoors with a more even light.

Steve Bleasdale
September 7th, 2011, 02:54 PM
Since i only do straight shots say 15 seconds at the most, then i move to frame i leave it to set itself in a second if that then shoot, rather than fiddle around changing iso. i dont pan or move the camera so its working at the moment but i understand what everyone means to change manually.

Bruce Foreman
September 8th, 2011, 11:06 AM
Anytime I need to evaluate exposure I put ISO to AUTO just long enough to see what ISO the camera wants, then I "dial in" that value. Using an LCD viewfinder loupe, I'll evaluate what I see on the LCD and make any changes necessary to get "what I want".

Edward Mendoza
September 8th, 2011, 11:36 AM
Good tip, Bruce. (Angelo State RULES!!!)

Nigel Barker
September 9th, 2011, 01:07 AM
There is no need to set Auto ISO to find out what exposure the camera thinks is correct just use the exposure meter or preferably take a test shot & look at the histogram. Don't forget that in Live Mode it only uses evaluative metering i.e. an average of the whole scene so if you have a lot of sky or windows in the background point downwards to grab exposure for the point of interest rather than the backlighting otherwise you will end up under-exposed.

Steve Bleasdale
September 9th, 2011, 01:25 AM
Thanks Nigel, i so love this site always good solid advice. thanks guys brilliant

Bruce Foreman
September 9th, 2011, 10:24 AM
There is no need to set Auto ISO to find out what exposure the camera thinks is correct just use the exposure meter or preferably take a test shot & look at the histogram. Don't forget that in Live Mode it only uses evaluative metering i.e. an average of the whole scene so if you have a lot of sky or windows in the background point downwards to grab exposure for the point of interest rather than the backlighting otherwise you will end up under-exposed.

More than one way to get desired result. For me, it's faster to set ISO to auto, dial in the value displayed at the bottom of the LCD when shutter button is pressed halfway, then look at the LCD to see what I'm getting at that ISO with shutter and aperture settings previously selected.

Then if bright areas are dominating the exposure, simple manual adjustment of ISO or slight change in aperture gets me exposure needed for subject and effect. Of course this only works with a loupe that excludes all extraneous light.

I worked "by the numbers" with exposure meters for decades, applying judgements based on how the films in use "behaved", so now it's good to be able to mostly do it "visually" and adjust for "effect".

Yes, I use the meter too, and often start out with a very short video "take" to review the histogram. But (again) to me what the imagery looks like on the LCD (through a loupe) is most useful.

Here is a link to another forum on dvinfo where I posted an article I wrote on manual exposure with the T2i, T3i, 60D and 7D:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-60d-rebel-t2i-eos-550d-hd/498717-manual-exposure-settings-video-mode.html#post1669009

Edward Mendoza
September 9th, 2011, 11:33 AM
Agreed, Bruce.