by Christopher Chatterton

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: November 07, 2008

Improve your Digital Photos by understanding your camera's ISO settings:

The vast array of jargon associated with photography can seem intimidating when you first pick up a camera.

If you haven't taken any pictures since the days of 35mm exposures, you needn't worry because the old principles of film still apply to the new digital technology. For example ISO manipulation can still be a significant contributing factor in improving your digital photographs.

As when we used to have to change the entire roll of film depending on the ISO setting, (ISO 200 for normal light conditions and ISO 400 for darker shots with less light), so too can we control the ISO of our digital camera's image sensors. That is because the image sensor in your digital camera works like an artificial ISO meter, but the great thing is you don't have to buy and load expensive and time-consuming film, it can be done with the flick of a switch!

History of ISO

The acronym ISO stands for the International Standards Organisation, which was established by the heads of various world national standards organisations in 1947, at its base in Switzerland. The organization was primarily concerned with maintaining international industry standards for a range of everyday products, including camera film.

Traditionally ISO referred to the light sensitivity of film, but nowadays ISO is more likely to denote the effective amount or limit of the range, that your digital camera's image sensor picks up light.

So how can changing the ISO help improve digital photographs?

Generally speaking a digital cameras sensitivity to light range (or ISO range), will be from ISO 100 to ISO 3200, where ISO 100 will be used for most everyday 'normal' light conditions and ISO 3200 will be used for extremely low light or dark scenarios. For example if you wanted to capture the colours of a firework display against the backdrop of the night sky, a higher ISO of 400 would be advisable to increase the amount of available light and thus pick out the colours against the black background.

Conversely if it were a sunny day there would be less need for a high ISO setting, as there would be enough natural light to get good digital photographs with a setting of ISO 100.

However, the mid-ranges of these values are actually the most common settings you will encounter, and can be changed via your cameras menu system (which can be altered by referring to your camera manual).

To improve your digital photographs, a grasp of how to use ISO settings in

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