ISO explained (sort of)

[koolbraider]

Way back in the good old days, when we used film, I remember how exciting high ISO speed was. Suddenly it went from 100 to 200 to 400. Gasp! It meant that film was able to take photos in low light situations. Or, in other words, it was a measure of how sensitive to light the film was. Great for those indoors at night shots. So, after Googling, I found two good explanations:

photographylife.com/what-is-iso-in-photography
www.digital-photography-tips.net/digital-photography-terminology.html

And for those who follow Digital Photography School you'll see that every camera reviewed gets checked from the lowest to highest ISO to see where "noise" starts to creep in.

This is why I try to photograph my stuff at the lowest ISO possible. Lately I've noticed most cameras only go down to 100 although Canon seems to keep 80. Come to think of it, if you check the kitchen set up in my first post you might notice how grainy it looks. I had to take that one in the evening with an overhead light and as slow a shutter speed as possible and fiddled with the f-stops as well.

[caeterle]

My Canon has 80, but I still think it was set to 200 when I got it which is why I used that as my "base" unless I wanted to take shots in the dark (always expecting them to be grainy, usually just to catch a cat doing something ).

[siikibam]

I generally try to stick to 100, going to a maximum of 400. The camera can go down to 80 but it's never been light enough for it. But definitely the lower the better.