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I received my A7Riii today - my previous camera was an A7ii. I am seeing a behavior I don't fully understand - with the default Auto ISO and a Nissin i40 flash, the pictures come out fine but at ISO 4000. This was of a subject under normal room illumination, not very bright.  I guessed that the camera is trying to make the backgrounds come out ok, and indeed when I pointed the camera at a light and took a flash shot, the ISO was 320.

 

Is this something I need to be concerned about? I suppose the ISO 4000 shot looked pretty good, but the behavior isn't what I was expecting.

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I would never use auto ISO with flash.

 

I generally shoot flash at 100 ISO, unless I don't have enough flash power to overcome the sun, then I raise it. 

 

I expose without flash for the background, then using shutter underexpose 1-2 stops.

 

I add flash to expose the subject.  You can do that part manually, or by TTL.

 

Make sure your white balance is set to 'flash' unless you are using a correction gel.

 

longer shutter gives a higher proportion of background light, shorter darkens background and gives more isolation.

 

JCC

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Pretty much my only use of flash is when I take pictures of cats for the cat shelter whose web site I run. With the A7ii I never bothered switching from Auto ISO. I think I will set up one of my custom modes with a lower ISO for this situation.

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Guest Jaf-Photo

I tried to resist writing this but I couldn't. Why does anyone buy a really expensive camera to use it in auto settings? I know photographers who create amazing photos using old cameras like a Canon 40D or some old Rebel camera. What they do, however, is to control the camera to produce exacly the results they want. It really does my head in when I read these comments about cameras not behaving as expected on auto settings. Just set it manually, that's what the controls are there for.

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`      

     

AFAIK every digital camera allows setting the 

high and low limits of the auto ISO. Find that

in the menu and disallow ISO above whatever 

limit suits you.  

   

Despite that advice, I wanna 'amen' Jaf about 

issues of customizing mega-automation when 

it's usually more productive to just disable it. 

  

--------------------------------------------------------   

   

IMNSHO all recent flash automation systems 

are convoluted disasters, faaarrrrr worse than 

than the ambient light auto-exposure, and are 

best ignored, defeated, not purchased, or run 

over by a garbage truck. Basic flash usage ... 

especially including multi-unit flash ... is easier 

than programming and reprogramming all the

bullshit involved with the advanced systems.   

   

Acoarst thaz just my own arrogant know-it-all 

opinion, which is not only arrogant but is also

The Way, The Truth, and The Light :-0 

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It depends on what I'm doing with it. I read some more and now understand that the default is "fill flash", where it meters for the background without flash. That's what was going on here. And, now that I understand it, I know when to use it.

 

When I am doing travel shooting, where light conditions vary a lot, I have found Auto ISO helpful in making a shot I would otherwise have missed. The more I am reading the manual and "Help Guide", the more I see how flexible this camera is compared to my A7ii.

 

I am not a studio shooter, but the 7R3 has lots of things I find very helpful that the 7ii did not. Yes, it's a lot more expensive, and in some ways is "more camera" than I need, but those things it has are worth it to me.

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Guest Jaf-Photo

Because sometimes the camera is smarter than the photographer regardless of how much money he/she has.

I'm confident the OP and most people have sufficient intelligence to learn to use the camera controls. What does my head in is the lack of ambition to learn. This becomes even stranger with people who spend thousands of dollars on camera gear. If they only use auto settings and post photos online, they'd be much better off using their mobile phone (and possibly donating their expensive camera gear to a promising but poor photography student).

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I'd agree that someone who doesn't at least become familiar with the major controls and learns when they are useful, is probably wasting their money. But the cameras are getting very smart on their own, and if I'm not trying for a particular effect, or am doing "street shooting", sometimes an automatic mode is the difference between getting the shot and not. Auto ISO I never gave a lot of thought to - I paid more attention to aperture and shutter speed, unless I was in an unusual lighting situation. In general I find that Auto ISO picks pretty much the same value as I would, and lets me get shots I'd otherwise miss.

 

Coming from the A7ii. the A7Riii has a LOT more controls. I'm reading as fast as I can, but will probably need some guides (such as Friedman) to sort out the ones I'm interested in.

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............. But the cameras are getting very smart on their own,

.........................

 

  

NO.   

 

Today's cameras are not in the least smarter than than 

cameras of 50 years ago. More complex is NOT smarter.  

   

Cameras do not learn. Engineers have not loaded them 

with smarts, only with features. More features is acoarst 

more demanding on the user. Thaz why disabling most 

of that schidt makes the gear LESS demanding to use. 

  

The operational fact is that when multimode automated 

gear is more demanding of the user than simply learning 

the essentials of non-auto or minimally automated gear, 

then the multimode automated gear concept has become 

self defeating. To not accept this is to keep banging one's  

head on the wall to make the headache go away. 

   

Mastering today's complex gear without bothering to 

master photography first is actually more difficult than 

mastering non-automatic photography. OTOH, if one 

masters photography first, then mastering modern gear 

is easy, cuz the gear makes so much more sense. And  

exotic automation features reveal themselves for what 

they are ... counterproductive. IOW mastering modern

gear is then seen as pointless.   

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Guest Jaf-Photo

NO.   

 

Today's cameras are not in the least smarter than than 

cameras of 50 years ago. More complex is NOT smarter.  

 

You hit the head of the nail in this post. I totally agree and it's a shame that this insight isn't shared by most camera users today.

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