ISO Tips: Change the Brightness, Keep Your Camera Settings

^{Note: This tip comes from Canon’s article - How to Photograph Wild Birds}

So, you are at a point where you understand the settings of the shutter and aperture priority modes, but your pictures sometimes come out dark or blurry. You can solve these problems by adjusting the image sensor's sensitivity to light.

That setting is known as the ISO. 

Here are some valuable tips on using the ISO setting to adjust brightness when you prefer not to change your camera's shutter speed or aperture settings.

This can be particularly useful when maintaining a specific depth of field or motion blur, which is crucial for your shot.

First, Let’s Identify two lighting scenarios that will make it difficult for your camera meter to achieve the best exposure value (brightness) without your intervention.

A bright area behind your bird subject, which is typically the sky, can cause your camera meter to underexpose your shot.

Understanding ISO

ISO measures the sensitivity of your camera's sensor to light. A lower ISO value (e.g., 100 or 200) means less sensitivity, resulting in darker images, while a higher ISO value (e.g., 800 or 1600) increases sensitivity, making images brighter.

Tip  #1 - Steps to Adjust Brightness Using ISO

Assess the Current Lighting: Determine if your current ISO setting suits the lighting conditions. Do you have a bright or dark background? Do you have backlighting on the bird?

Increase ISO for Low Light, bright background, or backlighting: If the bird subject is too dark and you don’t want to slow down the shutter speed or open up the aperture, increase the ISO setting. Start with small increments (e.g., from ISO 100 to 200) and check the brightness.

Decrease ISO for Bright Conditions: Conversely, if the scene is too bright and your bird subject is overexposed and you don’t want to decrease the aperture or speed up the shutter, lower the ISO setting.

Test and Adjust: Take a few test shots to see how the ISO changes affect the image brightness. Adjust accordingly until you achieve the desired exposure.

Tip #2 - Using ISO to Adjust Brightness

1) Keep an Eye on Noise: Higher ISO settings can introduce noise (graininess) to your images. Find a balance between brightness and image quality.

2) Use ISO in Combination with Other Settings: While adjusting ISO, keep in mind the interplay with aperture and shutter speed to maintain the overall aesthetic and technical quality of your photos.

By mastering ISO adjustments, you can gain greater control over your photography, especially in challenging lighting situations.

Want more? If you want to learn more about bird photography, and capture beautiful shots of your own, we recommend downloading and printing out Photzy’s 10 Bird Photography Cheat Sheets (Special bonus available now!)