Do not be afraid of Auto ISO
By Brendan Brooks on January 16, 2014, Updated November 21, 2024
Reading Time: 2 minutes
We have all run into this scenario before, going from a well-lit place to a dark place and trying to figure out how to adjust to compensate for the lighting conditions.
It just so happened that I found myself in that situation with a client that didn’t have much time and we had to get the shot and the only thing holding us up was me trying to figure out I was going to make the shot look good without manually adjusting the ISO and make the video look “jumpy.”
Luckily photographer extraordinaire Jim Heck was standing next to me, and he noticed I was starting to sweat and I was just a few seconds away from crawling into a fetal position and placing my thumb in my mouth.
Jim suggested I place the ISO in auto mode. “AUTO MODE?” I am a professional photographer, I do not do Auto.
Well to appease Jim (just to show he was wrong) I placed the ISO in auto and the shot went off without a hitch, it was seamless. Jim was right. I had to argue with my ego for a while, but it conceded as well.
Two things I learned, don’t be afraid of the AUTO function on your camera, and just because you think you know everything… you don’t! Listen to your friends if your struggling, ask questions, and always carry a positive attitude.
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