How Camera ISO Works: Native, Dual & The Secrets of Noise

ISO is more complicated than you think. When you started out, you were probably taught that increasing your ISO would increase the sensitivity of your sensor, making the shot brighter but adding more noise. The problem is... that isn't exactly true. In this episode of Film Science, we learn about Native ISO, Dual Native ISO, Variant and Invariant cameras as well as the ISO settings to use for clean video. Some of it is more counterintuitive than you might think!

Thanks to Scott W for inspiring this video based on his question! Hope we answered it :D

---

Gear we used in this video:
Red Komodo - https://www.red.com/komodo
Canon EOS - R5 https://amzn.to/3YEESlX
Black Magic Pocket Cinema - https://amzn.to/3qDpLg0

Please note, we may earn a commission from purchases made via links on this page as an Amazon Associate.

---

Check out more Syrp Lab:
https://syrplab.com/global/education/
  / syrplab  
  / syrplab  
  / syrplab  

---

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:45 ISO Basics : Native, Dual, Invariance
01:37 Putting it to the Test
02:17 The Three Families of ISO
04:58 Why Noise Exists
05:48 Which ISO should you use?
06:59 Thanks Scott W!