Concerning a digital camera, ISO denotes how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present.

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General rule of thumb: The lower the light, the higher the ISO should be. You can consider ISO the “eye” of the camera. To let in more light, move the ISO number setting up. For less light, have the number setting down.

For example, if you’re taking a photo outside on a bright sunny day, use a low ISO number setting. If on the other hand you were taking a photo of someone in a darkened room where the light is low and you don’t want to use the flash, use a high ISO number setting.

Note: Digital cameras obviously do not use film. ISO settings come from the days of film cameras. What this means is that ISO concerning a digital camera is the ISO equivalent.

ISO is automatically set if your digital camera is set to any automatic shooting mode. However if you want to exert more control over your photos you may want to manually adjust this setting if your camera allows it (which most do even on the most inexpensive models.)

Manually Adjusting ISO Settings

This is done on a per-model basis. Some digital cameras allow for manual adjustment of settings while others do not.

Generally speaking, if your digital camera is 5-megapixel or higher capable, it most likely has the ability to have this setting adjusted manually.

As far as where to adjust this setting, on most digital cameras there is a “manual” shooting mode. This mode will usually allow you to set the ISO to 100, 200, 400, 800 or Auto. The lower number would be for bright-light situations, the higher for low-light situations.

If you are worried about whether manually adjusting ISO settings will “ruin” your digital camera, I can assure you it won’t. The worst that can happen is either your photo will be all black, all white, or “spotlighted” where there are splotches of light everywhere. If this happens, re-adjust the setting appropriately. Also bear in mind that most view-screens on digital cameras will show before you shoot whether it will look any good or not when the ISO is adjusted manually.

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