Korean Job Discussion Forums

IncognitoHFX · Joined: 06 May 2007 Location: Yeongtong, Suwon

I just bought a Kodak M853 yesterday at TechnoMart for around W200,000 with a 2GB Memory card.

So far I'm pretty pleased with it. It is 8.2Megapixel, the last digital camera I bought in Canada last year was 2.5Megapixel and the pictures generally looked more like surrealist art than quality camera work because of all the blurriness (my cell phone takes better pictures).

Anyway, the 8.2 is great, I just have a generally settings question. I tried taking some indoor/outdoor pictures and noticed there was a huge difference when I set the ISO from Auto (default) to the lowest setting of 80. It cleared up a lot of noise in the shots.

I'm no camera expert, but does ISO vary depending on lighting conditions? Should I change it depending on what I am taking a picture of (auto) or should I leave it on 80 because it's been a helluva lot clearer in the shots that I have taken so far?

I'm going to Jeju-do in two weeks and ideally I'd like to crank out some great quality pictures while being there. Thanks.

JustJohn · Joined: 18 Oct 2007 Location: Your computer screen

ISO is how "sensitive" the camera is set. You want to put the ISO as low as possible without making the picture too dark.

At ISO 400 you'll probably start to see significant noise, and the higher you go the worse it will get.

Now unless your auto is pretty stupid, this won't be a problem in outdoors shots where you have a lot of light. But if you want clean pictures inside you may very well want to get that ISO off auto. The downside is that you'll have to have a longer shutter speed to get a properly exposed photo, and that means you're more likely to get movement blur.