Photo is Blurry because of low light? TRY BOOSTING ISO!

Well, on this blog I promised that I would keep my tips simple. I have to bend that rule a bit, at times. There are situations when easy tips do not work. You have a choice though. You can accept the limitation and give up or learn a bit more and try to make your camera more useful even in more demanding situations.

I was inside one cathedral. It was a bit dull light inside. I tried to take a photo and the photo came very blurry. I noticed that my camera was set to ISO 100 and hence the Camera had to have shutter speed of 4 full seconds! No one has that kind of steady hands! Blur was a definite by product in this situation. Look at the horrible photo I had.

Problem: Blurry photo. Low light. Shutter open too long for a hand held camera

To solve the problem, we have few alternatives.

1. If the object is within 15-20 feet, turn on Flash. However, in my case, it was more than 30 feet away. Also Flash would not be desirable as it would have created reflections from some bright reflective spots.
2. If I had a tripod, I would have loved to use it. I rarely carry tripod. (Remember, I don't do photography to get paid! I do photos to please myself, my family, my friends and my contacts on Social Media. Carrying a tripod does not really help me!)
3. If you don't have a tripod, you can still find a bench or a table to put camera on, or a wall to lean against or hold the camera against some steady thing so there is no shake.
4. Be familiar with ISO. ISO is camera's sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the faster shutter speed you get with everything else being constant. If that is the case, you would ask me, why would we ever work with a lower ISO. Well, the higher the ISO, there are more chances for noise in the photo. Don't ask me what is noise. Please google it LOL. In simple terms, noise is the graininess in the photo. One good thing is most modern cameras are able to produce nice images even with ISO as high as 3200 or 6400! (If you use a smartphone camera or an iPhone camera, your images are likely to be too grainy above ISO 800! However, their screen so so sharp and bright, your high ISO images will still look good. The problem is when you print them or look at them on a computer or a laptop!)
   In my situation here, I had no tripod. Light was low. Only option I had was to bump up ISO. I set it 6400 and took the photo again. Don't you think it worked well?

Here is my new photo with high ISO, at 6400!