Auto ISO

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My 1d X is 95% set to auto-iso and I have the "Shutter speed limit" on My Menu, choosing, in Av, which shutter speed I won't go below. I found it to produce very good consistent results for me. Shutter usually MUCH more important than noise to me. Outdoor in daylight I Limit my shutter to 1/2000s-1/8000s and auto iso, and EC is dialed in with the rear wheel independently.
 
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I use it when I'm shooting TV, but it can mess things up. When I'm taking a lot of shots in a theater where spot lights and lighting in general rapidly changes, one shot might be ISO 1000 and the next 25600. Setting it manually is not practical. This means I have to use exposure compensation and recognize the types of scenes that need more or less.
If manual mode on my 5D MK III had exposure compensation, I'd use that.
 
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Thank you all. Seems like there are more people using auto iso than I thought. Will test it out over the weekend and see how it goes.

Maybe this is off topic, for those who like to shoot video, would you use auto iso when doing video as well?
 
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mw said:
Thank you all. Seems like there are more people using auto iso than I thought. Will test it out over the weekend and see how it goes.

Maybe this is off topic, for those who like to shoot video, would you use auto iso when doing video as well?

Without exposure compensation, it'll do just what it's supposed to do: 18% gray mode.
 
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Skirball said:
Auto ISO, in Av, with eTTL... At that point you might as well use the green square.

Av generally Does Not Do What You Want when using speedlights. Make sure you have read & undersand this:
http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/index2.html#flashmodes

I haven't used the 6D with flashes much yet, but when I was shooting lots of flash stuff with the 40D, the way I preferred to work in low light with flash was:

  • shoot in M mode
  • set ISO as high as tolerable (maybe 1000 or so)
  • user a wide-aperture lens & set shutter speed as low as tolerable (can be 1/30th for easy stuff with an IS lens, but more like 1/100 for dancing etc.
  • aperture one click off of wide-open
[*]set flash up for bounce off ceiling or 45° diffusion with a softbox, and use a color filter on it to get it close to the color of ambient light. Leave flash in auto e-ttl2.
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In M mode the flash becomes your 4th exposure parameter after ISO, aperture, & shutter, and it's automatic. Adjust flash exposure compensation to get ETTR where you want it.

This method augments the ambient light with the flash & gets very natural looking shots (if you get it right, many non-photographer people don't realize that they're flash photos). If you've got a decent amount of ambient light it also keeps the flash power down so that your batteries last longer & your speedlight recycles faster.

On the 6D I'd probably set the ISO to 6400 and be a little more conservative with the shutter speed, but so far I haven't needed flash as long as I stick to fast primes.

BTW I've got a little 270EXII that lives in the bag now, which compensates nicely for the lack of built-in on the 6D. I leave lithium batteries in it as they're as light as you can get & they don't fade.
 
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