ISO, manual v auto

[TedPaul]

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Do you use auto or manual ISO. I have for the most part used auto. For some takes, races, moon shots I use manual. What is your experience?

[stuny]

My experience is pretty much like yours. I recently set iso to daylight with a slight increase in blue for shooting inside slot canyons, but usually keep it on auto or daylight.

[Jeff S]

Mine experience is pretty much like yours. I recently set iso to daylight with a slight increase in blue for shooting inside slot canyons, but usually keep it on auto or daylight.

 

I think he means auto-ISO, not auto white balance.

 

Jeff

[fotomas]

I stay away from auto since I like to have full control about the image quality and switching ISO manually works quite comfortably.

So I use similar ISO values for each set of pictures or specific light situations.

Mostly don't use any automation either. Sometimes auto white balance under changing conditions, since you can change it easily afterwards in the RAW file without a loss.

But I'm aware, that I'm a bit old school. Keep on working like in the film days.

 

Frank

[tobey bilek]

Why turn the Leica into an expensive point and shoot ?

 

Manual WB is more reliable than auto.

[Paul J]

9.9 times out of 10 I use manual exposure and even more so with ISO.

 

I have used Auto ISO when the urgency of shooting outweighs the time it takes to change it manually. Rare though.

 

It can also be used in a sort of shutter priority context and I found it useful once or twice in circumstances when I've needed or need to fix my aperture and shutter speed at certain settings.

[rob_w]

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Always use manual ISO (with my M9). Default is base ISO. If I know the light is poor I will bump it up to 640 and stay there. Any further exposure change is done in Lightroom where I can make precise adjustments to get the result I want. This can mean the photos look way too dark while in the camera but they come up fine in LR, like film development in the old days. (The technique was championed by Mitch Alland in a thread last year http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/292708-m9-colors-night-best-way-shoot.html and http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/301422-m9-iso-performance-new-life.html).

 

Don't know if I will change my approach with the Type 240 if/when one comes along. But it gets me excellent results with the M9.

 

In general I am a fan of keeping everything under control. I mostly set aperture, shutter speed, ISO to the right value for the environment I am in. Then make minor adjustments, if necessary, later. Much better than fiddling with, e.g. exposure compensation or the like. Only make exceptions if the conditions are changing rapidly.

 

PS come to think of it I have not seen any posts from Mitch for a while. Has anyone heard from him recently? Trust all is well.