Day 4 | Controlling the Faucet - Learning ISO

Day 4 | Controlling the Faucet - Learning ISO
ISO is a measurement of how sensitive your camera is to light. Together, ISO and shutter speed control how much light gets to your sensor.
Grab that trusty camera, put it on program mode. 
Set your ISO to the lowest number you can see. 
Take a picture and note the shutter speed your camera chooses. 
Stay in the same place, shoot the same subject again. 
Move the dial one notch - doubling your ISO. 
Take a photo, and note the new shutter speed.

My sister's boyfriend helped me re-learn ISO a few months ago when we were taking long exposure photos of the night sky whilst on holiday. I have appreciated feeling more flexible with the amount of light I can allow to reach the sensor by manipulating this variable since then.

I really REALLY appreciated learning the shortcut to changing ISO on my camera when reading my camera manual a few days ago. So easy now! I was previously reluctant to change it much as I had to go through the shooting menu and this is time consuming. time consuming and shooting impromptu photos of a 3 and 1 year old don't really go hand-in-hand. By the time I've made my way through the menu's the moment is usually over. But the shortcut I learnt this week changes all that.

For today's assignment I snapped these shots of my son at 3pm on a rainy grey afternoon. We were confined indoors and so light was an issue. Hence the shutter speeds chosen in program mode are very low - lower than I would ever consider shooting my kids. There is considerable blur in the first couple of shots, and as you can see, my son was a fairly reluctant participant by the last shot! And the "noise" evident at the larger ISO values is quite considerable (though perhaps not that evident in the size of the images below).

The relevant specs for these shots:
Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6
Photo 1: ISO 100 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/4 (Top left)
Photo 2: ISO 200 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/8 (Top centre)
Photo 3: ISO 400 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/20 (Top right)
Photo 4: ISO 800 Aperture f/3.3 Shutter Speed 1/40 (Bottom left)
Photo 5: ISO 1600 Aperture f/3.5 Shutter Speed 1/50 (Bottom centre)
Photo 6: ISO 3200 Aperture f/4.5 Shutter Speed 1/80 (Bottom right)

Four days in and I have learnt so much already. The extra practice of using the different features on my camera is really helping me, and its only taking 10 minutes a day. Awesome for a Mum of 2 small rambunctious boys (and who this week seem to going downhill yet again with illness). Tomorrow I want to try out the High ISO NR option I have just re-read in my camera manual. Actually, its an app of my camera manual called D80 DSLR. I am loving having my camera manual on my iPhone - I don't always have my manual with me, but I do always have my iPhone. Genius.