6.22 ISO Auto Min. SS

Menu Position MENU --> 4 --> ISO Auto Minimum Shutter Speed

What it Does Specifies the slowest shutter speed the camera is allowed to go to before increasing the ISO (when ISO is set to "Auto").

Recommended Setting: "STD" unless you're shooting kids indoors, in which case I’d recommend 1/125^th of a second

 

You can think of this feature as a way to tweak the Program mode to your needs without having to move the exposure mode dial to Shutter Priority mode. Here you can specify the lowest shutter speed that the camera is allowed to use in Program or Aperture Priority mode before it resorts to raising the Auto ISO value. This can be a useful feature for people shooting sports and still want the benefit of a "set it and forget it" kind of automation.

When set to “Std”, the heuristic for setting the shutter speed in program mode is:

Slowest shutter speed = 1/(the lens' focal length)

So, if your lens is set to 70mm, the slowest shutter speed you can safely hand-hold the camera at was 1/70^th of a second. And if your lens is set to 24mm, then the slowest shutter speed you can safely hand-hold the camera at was 1/24^th of a second. Program Mode actually knows about this heuristic, and if it knows you're using a long lens it will up the shutter speed accordingly. BUT, from the factory, the A6300 will not let you shoot slower than 1/60^th of a second in most circumstances (unless you've hit the upper limit of your Auto ISO setting.)

This is fine unless you're shooting people in low light, who tend to move and therefore might be a little blurry.

With this feature I can tell the camera "Don't go below 1/125^th of a second (or any other shutter speed) when in Auto ISO mode". If not for this feature, I’d have to switch to Shutter Priority mode every time I went indoors.

 

TIP: The shutter speed will indeed go slower than what you specify if the light is so low that the camera hits your maximum Auto ISO speed. (Of course you can specify that too…)

 

But wait – Sony has added new options to this feature. In addition to being able to choose a specific shutter speed as the lowest it, it gives you fuzzy choices: Slow, Slower, Fast, Faster, or Standard. I can't fathom any expert wanting to use such vague terms – how is the camera going to behave?

I did a quick test: I pointed my camera to a darkish indoor scene and set my Auto ISO high limit to ISO 12,800. Here are the shutter speeds the camera chose for each of the settings:

STD	1/60th of a second (this is what the camera would do in program mode on its own)
Fast	1/125th
Faster	1/250th
Slow	1/30th
Slower	1/15th

 

So I can best describe these settings as "one or two stops faster / slower than what normal program mode would do". Of course depending on your light level and the ISO Auto – High value you have set, you may see different behavior