Skip to main content

ISO

 In digital photography, ISO refers to the sensitivity to light of the camera sensor. When using actual camera film the ISO is dependent on the specific films sensitivity to light (Nikon). When your ISO is placed quite high (above ISO 800) is will create a brighter exposure whereas a low exposure will give an under-exposed image. However, using the ISO to artificially brighten the photos does have some effect on the image quality, the image will have more noise to it if the ISO is a lot higher (Moura). Noise in film can be used to your advantage, for example, commonly in horror movies such as Paranormal Activity a lot of noise is in the shot as the shots are mainly produced at night in order to make them scarier. The noise in film can create a handheld feel to it which in horror films can make them seem more scary as you feel as though it is more real (The Photographic Angle).


As you can see in these images I have taken, the top images are less exposed to light suggesting that they have a lower ISO, each image I took, the ISO doubles therefore the first image is 100 next is 200 and so on. The first images may be darker however, they are more in focus and have less grain visible the last image taken is using an ISO of 1600 therefore you can see a lot more grain in the image. When shooting at night it is a lot easier to capture grain in your images in order to reflect the results of ISO more clearly.

My Example of ISO


In my example using different ISO I have used an ISO of 1600, 400 and 100. Due to the fact that I shot outside in the day time the shots look overexposed. If I was to shoot again I would alter by aperture in order to correctly expose the shot however, I wanted to present the difference each ISO has on film. As you can see in the footage, the higher the ISO the brighter the images becomes. As well as that we can see that in the images with a high ISO there is a lot more grain, it is always good to stick to a low ISO to combat this. I believe a better way to show grain in footage would have been to shoot at night, when it is darker the grain in the image is a lot clearer.


References

Nikon, ISO Control (Online)
Available at : https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/a/products-and-innovation/iso-control.html#:~:text=High%20ISO%20film%20was%20called,f%2Fstop%20and%20shutter%20speed.
The Photographic Angle, 2012. The Basics - Film Speed (Online) 
Available at : https://www.thephotographicangle.co.uk/the-basics-film-speed-iso/
Moura, G., 2016. What is ISO (Film Speed) (Online)
Available at : http://www.elementsofcinema.com/cinematography/iso-film-speed/ 

Comments