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A comment on A Primer on Shooting in Manual Mode: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO [video]. Parent comment

Re:A Primer on Shooting in Manual Mode: Aperture, Shutter Sp... by ctrl-j on Wednesday August 14, 2019 @05:52PM (#20700367)
Camera sensors have a base sensitivity that will capture an image without additional voltage applied to it. Adding voltage allows the sensor to capture more information, at the cost of additional noise. The lower ISO values are also not usually the native, instead they are simulated in camera. The camera algorithms are pretty good these days, but they can still end up with clipping sensor data that you might want.

The native ISO isn't usually published along with typical product specs, but you can usually find it by searching online.

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Re:A Primer on Shooting in Manual Mode: Aperture, Shutter Sp... by megaman2 on Thursday August 15, 2019 @02:50PM (#20708377)
That's not entirely accurate. The native ISO ("base sensitivity") just means no analog gain is applied. This is a fairly complex area, but to simplify - for non-dual gain sensors - the sensor captures the same amount of information regardless of ISO setting. The ISO setting then determines how much analog gain to apply, and also how much digital multiplication to apply (if the ISO setting is outside of the analog gain range). No additional information is captured at higher ISO values.
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