Digital Photography & Gallery

I've recently acquired a Canon 60D Digital SLR. Cameras have come a long way since my first prized AE-1 SLR. I had an array of lenses and had to constantly switch around. To simplify things, I've gone with the Canon 60D with an 18-200 lens at Costco. While the purists may suggest two lenses 18-55 and 55-200, my primary goal was simplicity to learn the features of the Canon 60D and to scale up later. I've also acquired Aperture 3 as the photo editing software... still figuring it out.  If you are thinking of experimenting with a digital SLR, it is important to get good photo editing software so you can create albums, edit photographs and share it with your friends. I should say that it was disappointing that Canon's photo software is not yet supported on the MAC OSX Lion. Canon has sent me a response saying that they will release the software in January 2012. So most of my writing is centered around using a Canon 60D with Aperture 3 on Mac OSX Lion.  

What does ISO do to pictures?

After you have saved a few dollars and have done exciting research on the latest models of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera, you are the proud owner of a brand name DSLR. After you bring the camera home, you realize that this new toy you have purchased is quite simple and sophisticated depending upon the settings you select. The best way to keep the interest going is to keep it in program mode (examples are based on Canon 60D, but applicable to other DSLRs as well) while dabbling with the plethora of settings available to the users. You can take incredibly good pictures and if you invest a little in photo editing software, you can touch up your shots and make them look the way you want them to look. Getting to the topic, I was trying to figure out what happens when the ISO settings are changed. The good thing about digital photography is that you can experiment by taking as many pictures as you want to see the differences and keep the ones that you like. there are 3 things that you need to understand: Aperture, Shutter speed, and ISO. This is called the Exposure Triangle. While these are topics in themselves, the simple explanation is that with increasing numbers of ISO, the "film" is more sensitive to light. The trade-off is grain which means that at higher ISO numbers the pictures tend to be coarser. This is not obvious in small formats show but does up when you enlarge the picture. I've taken a few pictures with different ISOs. The first 3 pictures were taken with identical settings on the camera with only the ISO changes. The first picture is with ISO100, the second with ISO 200, and the third with ISO 400. The difference is obvious. With increasing ISO number, you find that with the same lighting situation, the picture appears brighter. A simple rule of thumb is that use higher ISO numbers when shooting pictures in lower light conditions and you don't mind increased grain. The last picture in this collection has been taken with manual setting with a shutter speed of 1/30 sec and ISO 100. You can see the difference. 

I will be experimenting with the second vertex of the exposure triangle called aperture and will post the pictures...