More Digital Than Before

I’ve been shooting digital exclusively for more than 25 years. I was today years old when I finally figured out the best way to get proper exposure.

I come from the film world where film choices were narrow. and once you decided which film to use you were stuck with it for 36 exposures. Begin a roll of Panatomic-X at ASA 25 or 32? End at 25 or 32. Load a roll of Tri-X at 400 ASA? finish at 400. Push Tri-X to 1600 or 3200? The entire roll is 1600 or 3200.

That restriction made better photographers because it required more planning and an increased ability to judge exposure requirements at an assignment. Almost all old-school newspaper film shooters could look at a scene and tell you the exposure without needing an exposure meter.

“125th at f2.8 at 400,” was the stream-of-consciousness thought of every photographer who attended a news conference.

That’s the way I’ve always made digital photos. Set the ISO, set the aperture, use aperture priority exposure, and fire away. If the shutter speed dropped too low for the subject, raise the ISO. Control the settings. Be in control of the settings.

Until today when I switched all my digital cameras to auto ISO where I set the aperture, the camera follows my instructions for the slowest shutter speed I want to use and adjusts the ISO accordingly. No more on-the-fly ISO adjusting.

I can go from shadow to open sun and then onto a porch without worrying about the ISO.

I’m still working to better understand exactly how the system works but after one day of just letting go and allowing the digital system to make my exposures more perfect, it is a good thing.

The auto ISO capability has been on my camera for several generations, but I never used it because the higher ISOs are usually noisy, or grainy in the film work vernacular. Recently, with the technology employed in mirrorless systems, noise is not as significant a problem at higher ISOs. At higher settings, software like Photoshop and Luminar Neo are very effective at removing noise without damaging the sharpness.

Where I once worried about going over 1600 ISO because of the noise, it’s not uncommon for me to set it to 12,800 in certain conditions. Once edited the casual viewer would never know it was made at a noisier ISO.

Today, I’m a new man with a higher power.

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