The technical components behind taking a good photograph is the first step to developing a consistent style and perfecting this craft. ISO is arguably one of the most important aspects of the art of photography. 

ISO is the level of your camera’s sensitivity to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera. The “image sensor” is the component within your camera can change the level of sensitivity. It’s the most important (and most expensive, ugh) part of the camera that is responsible for gathering light and transforming it into a beautiful picture.

Knowing how to set your ISO will unlock better images in every setting. Here are 4 tips to getting the best ISO setting.

The Go-To Starting ISO Setting

The more sources of light you have to work with, the clearer and better outcome. This will allow you to use a faster shutter speed, which will ultimately make each frame more sharp and clear.

The Moment Pro Camera App ISO begins at 22 and goes up to 880. Start with an ISO of 30 - 42 for optimized results, this will give you a equivalent of a starting ISO 200 that you'd set with a DSLR. Keep in mind, however, that these results are different on every phone and camera for the app, but this is a great starting point.

For Cloudy, Gloomy Skies

Although shooting under gloomy skies is one of the greatest ways to achieve even lighting, it can serve as a technological challenge. An ISO level of 42 - 66 works perfectly to highlight the subject of our images without losing too much detail or having added grain.

For Shooting Indoors

For best results, get close to something that allows outside light in like a window — the more natural, the better. If you’re unable to let in extra luminesce, you’ll have no choice but to set the ISO at a much higher level.

For Action Shots

You'll likely be shooting action at a high shutter speed and your camera might tend to struggle in properly exposing a scene even with the aperture fully open. If this is the case then the only thing you can do is bump up the ISO. This will bring a little more noise in the frame, but a noisy photo is tremendously better than a blurry one.

Check Out Our App

With only slight differences in a DSLR’s ISO setting an that of the Moment Pro Camera app, you’ll be creating stunning images from your smartphone in no time. While you can easily set it the app’s camera settings to “Auto”, the best optimized results will from from a fully mechanical approach by doing it manually.

Now get out there and show us what you got! Tag @moment and #momentcamera on Instagram when using the Moment - Pro Camera app for a chance to be featured.

Happy Shooting!