What is ISO? We're all used to seeing it on the back of our cameras, but what does it actually mean? What about the history of ISO? And why am I calling it ISO and not ISO? All of this to come, but in case you need the channel I'm half, I'm a video guy and I make videos about videography and audio. So subscribe if you find this helpful and interesting. Let's get on with it. As ever, I timestamped everything in this video so you can just skip to the bit you want. And this channel now has a Patreon where any funds from Patreon I put back into the channel I buy gear and then I give the gear to my backers. If that's of interest, if you like giveaways and you want to support the channel, do check it out. It's just the cost of a cup of coffee. Link below. Interestingly, did you know that ISO stands for International Organization of Standardization? So it should be iOS, right? Or EOS? Well, the International Organization of Standardization used the acronym ISO. And the decision to use ISO and not EOS was influenced by the Greek word ISOs, which means equal. And of course, with acronyms, you pronounce the abbreviated letters. So it really is ISO and not ISO. The best comparison I can think of is one of the world's best known acronyms, which is NASA. I mean, can you imagine calling NASA NASA? That would be weird. The tricky thing is, so many people call it ISO that, you know, if you use the correct ISO, you get the old funny look as if you've kind of got it wrong. And this really reminds me of my days when I used to work in the wine industry. I worked in wine for about a decade. And there's a very well-known champagne, Moe, or at least that's how it's pronounced. And of course, it's not pronounced. It's not actually meant to be pronounced Moe. The brand is called Moet and Shondon. It's Mr. Shondon, a Frenchman. And Mr. Moet, who was Dutch, and of course, he pronounced the T in Dutch. So it really is Moet champagne. But of course, if you call it Moet, everyone kind of gives you a funny look as if you call it wrong. As for the history of ISO, ISO was tasked with creating a digital equivalent of film sensitivities, ASA and DIN. So they took measurements of both and just went with the average. And that's it. And what this means in the context of your camera, just, you know, the higher you set your ISO, the more power is being fed to your sensor, thus increasing its sensitivity. Next onto ISO in use. And I'm a video guy, so my advice is to not be afraid of it. Use it as you need it once you've exhausted all other options of correctly exposing your scene. You know, we're talking, you're lighting, opening your aperture, anything, I've even dropped my shutter speed just slightly and you'd be amazed, you know, that adds, you know, a bit of extra light. And it's barely even noticeable, the difference in motion. So use it as you need to. Let me show you it now in action. And I think you'll really thank me if you, you know, do this rather than kind of underexpose and then have to correct it in post. That's really not good. Let me show you. So here you can see a disgustingly underexposed shot on doing a voiceover because you can't see my face. And then when I bring the exposure up in post, you can see just horrible amounts of noise. So there we go. I've just increased the ISO on my camera and I've left all the settings exactly the same. I'm on a 50th of a second ISO, a bump that ISO up to, I don't know, 12,800. And F2.5. So it doesn't look great, obviously, but, you know, compared to the last one, dear God. Yeah, background's blown out, obviously. This is really not ideal, but you get the point. Use your ISO. With photography, there are a couple of schools of thought and I would say, I'm not still a guy. So I would just use ISO as I use it in videography. I would just bump it up, you know, until it looks right, until my exposure is correct. However, I know there are some out there that kind of, you know, they think that maybe under exposing is best and then you can bring up your exposure in post because now we have raw workflow, which just gives you so much data that is, you know, you can do this kind of thing. But I'm really curious. What is, you know, what are your thoughts? Do you under expose? Do you use the ISO in camera? Let me know. Anyway, now it's time to take everything in this video, grind it up and make a nice espresso of tips for you to take away. ISO stands for International Organization of Standardization, which is weird because really it should be EOS. It really is pronounced ISO. But will you call it ISO or ISO? Because so many people say it like that. ISO was created to be a digital equivalent of the film sensitivity ratings. Practically it's really just an indication of the amount of power that's being fed to your sensor. In video, my advice is to use ISO as a last exposure option, but don't be scared of it. Modern cameras are really just up to the task. In photography, in general, be sparing, but obviously there are different schools of thought and I really want to hear your thoughts on this. Anyway, that's it for now. I just hope you found this interesting and helpful. My question to the day view is this, will you call it ISO or will you sink into the crowd and call it ISO? Also, if you're a photographer, I really do want to know. I just mentioned it. Definitely let me know your school of thought when it comes to using ISO. I really do want to know and I'll see you in the comments below. I've now filmed hundreds of videos about audio and videography. In fact, I've just passed 300 uploads, which is a nice milestone of which the algorithm has recommended this video for you and the one underneath is my most recent upload. Until next time, let's help each other out and shoot better video.