A simple moon photo taught me I had ISO all wrong

I was looking at a shot of the moon I took last Tuesday in Portland, and it looked grainy and flat. Thought my lens was junk. Then a guy on a forum said to drop my ISO from 800 to 200 and just let the exposure be longer. Tried it that night and the craters actually showed up crisp for the first time. Anyone else spent months fighting high ISO before realizing the fix is that simple?

2 comments

2 Comments

james67225d ago

My buddy Steve spent six months blaming his old Canon for blurry shots of birds out near Forest Park. He was always cranking the ISO up to 1600 to freeze their wings, and everything came out looking like noise. Last fall I told him to drop it to 400 and try a slower shutter speed with a tripod. He sent me a photo of a heron the next week where you could see individual feathers. He said he felt like an idiot for not trying it sooner. That one change turned his whole setup around for him.

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finley93925d ago

Man, that's a great story and it rings so true. I had a similar thing happen with some night shots I was trying to get downtown. I was so worried about camera shake I was blasting the ISO and ending up with grainy messes. Then I finally just borrowed a buddy's tripod and dropped to like 800, and the shots came out way cleaner even with a longer exposure. Your buddy Steve's heron story is a perfect example of how the gear is usually fine, it's just the settings that need a tweak.