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Why does ISO blink?

bullandram

By bullandram,
in Sony Alpha Full Frame Cameras

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Chrissie Proficient

Chrissie

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Posted (edited)

Thanks for not introducing yourself as a first-time poster.

The ISO blinks, because the camera can not pick the necessary ISO value to end up with a well exposed, i.e. not too bright or not too dark, picture. At this time of the year I would assume that you are at risk of under-exposing your shot.

The most likely causes for this are at least one, or a combination of the following:

  • shooting in manual mode "M"
  • setting a very small aperture
  • setting a very short shutter speed
  • configuring an ISO Auto "max" and "min" value which further restricts the range the ISO automatic can pick from
  • exhausting the specified ISO range for your camera (unlikely)

To test this, I would set the camera to manual "M" mode, then successively relax the restraints on aperture and/or shutter speed, until the blinking goes away.

Captain Obvious: for this test to work, you need to remove the protective cap from the front element of your lens.

See this on info about how to set ISO Auto Min and Max values.

Edited by Chrissie
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bullandram Newbie

bullandram

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Thank you for your input. I will definitely make adjustments and see what’s happening. I’m new to forums and have no idea on etiquette. Ha! Just a newbie in photography. I’m sure I will ask multiple questions that will seem like no brainers for the experienced, but I’m shameless and will ask anyways.

Heres a weird question...Have you seen or heard of a pink line showing up on photos with the Sony A7 iii? I might could post an example tomorrow of it. It’s happened on two of my photos in one day of shooting. 

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tinplater Proficient

tinplater

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11 hours ago, bullandram said:

Thank you for your input. I will definitely make adjustments and see what’s happening. I’m new to forums and have no idea on etiquette. Ha! Just a newbie in photography. I’m sure I will ask multiple questions that will seem like no brainers for the experienced, but I’m shameless and will ask anyways.

Heres a weird question...Have you seen or heard of a pink line showing up on photos with the Sony A7 iii? I might could post an example tomorrow of it. It’s happened on two of my photos in one day of shooting. 

Welcome..don't be afraid to ask questions.  However it is generally a good idea to research your questions first as many new to photography folks ask the same questions over and over.  I would strongly suggest you go to youtube and check out the numerous tutorials on the Sony a7III.  Invest some time and practice with the camera...really good news you don't have to worry about wasting "film" as you experiment with all the numerous options available to make great pictures.

As for your pink line, weird banding effects can show up under unique lighting conditions; posting an image or two would help get you some guidance with that problem.

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    • popeye10
      ISO Bracketing

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      Thank you XKAES  and Pieter for responding to my query. Since my post, I figured out what I was doing wrong, and now I am getting more predictable results. To answer a few questions, I am using a Sony A7R5, and am aware that it is ISO invariant, however at least for what I've tried, there are limits to how much you can "push" exposure in post. I am doing some night/astrophotography and when I set iso to 400, and increase exposure in post, I get more noise in dark foreground areas than if I use a higher iso in camera when I increase exposure 4 stops or more. I wanted to do iso bracketing so that I could further compare the results and choose the settings that gave me the best results. I had hoped that I could set the minimum iso to 320 and take 3 or more images at 2 stop increments, but I now doubt that's possible. Since the camera is choosing iso based on the light it detects, it may or may not start at 320. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. 
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      Out of pure curiosity: why would you want to shoot a bracket using ISO as your means to control exposure? Sony cameras are virtually ISO invariant (save for the second gain step), so raising ISO in camera or in post-production yields nearly identical results. Most people shoot bracketed exposures to gain detail in over- and underexposed areas, but when you use ISO as your exposure variable, you might as well just create the bracket in post by raising/dropping exposure. You don't gain any dynamic range that way.

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