topic Re: Native ISO of Canon Rebel T7? in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Native ISO of Canon Rebel T7?

jerryco — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 10:20:02 GMT

I'm an amature photographer/videographer and I've done a lot of research into how cameras work and their funtionalities, and I came across something called Native ISO. I usually try to keep my ISO at 100, only going higher if absolutaly necessary. If I can learn about what my camera's native ISO is that would really benefit my work. I've looked for it myself, and I can't find it, which is why I'm turning to this forum. Any help would really be appreciated

Re: Native ISO of Canon Rebel T7?

Tintype_18 — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 14:00:43 GMT

Haven't a clue what you are talking about. Where did you read that? Regarding ISO, I read the manual for specific uses and experiment/experimented with ISO to get the best photo. Worse comes to worse, put the ISO on Auto and let the camera decide. IMO, I think you are complicating the use of ISO.

Re: Native ISO of Canon Rebel T7?

Waddizzle — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 15:52:29 GMT

I believe the ISO you are looking for in most of the Canon DSLRs is ISO 800. Here is a layman’s explanation of native ISO and base ISO from Adorama TV.

https://youtu.be/vX531qzdiB0?si=Q4x9fjEj5r_sLXso

Re: Native ISO of Canon Rebel T7?

rs-eos — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 16:41:57 GMT

Do check out the video that Waddizzle posted. It explains that native ISO is the default (non-extended) range of ISO values.

However, in doing my own experiments, I would add that it may be the case where native ISO could only be those on full stop increments.

When I conducted an experiement with the Rebel T4i, images captured at ISO 200, 400 etc, provided less noise than when using ISO 160, 320, etc. And about the same noise as ISO 125 and ISO 250.

Not sure if your Rebel T7 also does the same. You'd have to conduct your own experiment.

When I moved to an EOS 6D, then later 5D IV, I repeated the experiment and found there was no longer any advantage of using full stop ISO values. I suspect that most or even all of today's cameras may no longer do what the Rebel T4i camera did. Though perhaps very inexpensive cameras would.

In terms of ISO 800... that I believe is more useful as being the base ISO for video work. As an example, the EOS C70 cinema camera has a base ISO of 800. That allows one to capture the maximum amount of dynamic range in high dynamic range scenes (around 16 stops). However, in low dynamic range scenes, I tend to lower the ISO if possible to reduce noise. So if the dynamic range of the scene is now around 14 stops or lower, doesn't matter that I'm lowering the ISO value.

I've never done any experiments to see if dynamic range is lower in photos when working below ISO 800. Though I do know that as ISO increases beyond a certain point, dynamic range will indeed drop (true for both photos and video).