ISO Settings Help

photapioca · 04-19-2009, 03:36 PM

Hello
I was recently asked to take some photos for a friend's birthday party.
As a newbie, I forgot to reset my ISO setting back to 100-400 range.
I took loads of shots with Raw+ with an ISO range of 100-3200 without reviewing the info. Most of the shots came out 800, 1600.
I was wandering is it possible to change the ISO setting of the pictures to a lower setting like 100-400 after the shots have been taken?
If yes, how can this be accomplished?

amoringello · 04-19-2009, 03:51 PM

You can adust the exposure to some extent, but unfortunately the ISO setting has other side effects such as noise that you cannot simply change with RAW... i.e. ISO affects the signal from the sensor before it is stored in the RAW format, unlike white balance for example, which could be thought of almost as somewhat of a post-processing effect.

Sean Nelson · 04-19-2009, 05:16 PM

Originally posted by photapioca

I was wandering is it possible to change the ISO setting of the pictures to a lower setting like 100-400 after the shots have been taken?

No. It's kind of like asking if it's possible to change a painting from an oil painting to a watercolor after it's been painted. Once the picture is taken, it's done and you have to live with it.

I've configured the settings in my camera to turn on the "ISO" indicator in the viewfinder and on the LCD screen if the ISO is set above 200. I don't always notice it, but on a few occasions I've seen it and realized I had to reset my ISO back down again.

jimH · 04-19-2009, 05:33 PM

Originally posted by photapioca

Hello
I was recently asked to take some photos for a friend's birthday party.
As a newbie, I forgot to reset my ISO setting back to 100-400 range.
I took loads of shots with Raw+ with an ISO range of 100-3200 without reviewing the info. Most of the shots came out 800, 1600.
I was wandering is it possible to change the ISO setting of the pictures to a lower setting like 100-400 after the shots have been taken?
If yes, how can this be accomplished?

It's possible to reduce the high ISO "Noise" somewhat in post processing with such programs as "Corel Paintshop Pro Photo XI or X2" or with "Photoshop" or "Photoshop Elements" or other other photo editing software. However whenever you reduce "Noise" you will also reduce some detail in the photo.

Now depending upon the size of the original image vs the size of the finished print, the reduction of some detail may not be noticed. However, if that is the case, then the additional "noise" from the high ISO may not be noticeable either.

It's possible that most of your photos will be in a low enough ISO range where the "Noise" won't be too noticeable, so check out the EXIF data for the shots and you my be surprised at how many shots ended up at the lower ISO.

Good luck and a happy resolution to your problem.

Jim

Marc Sabatella · 04-19-2009, 11:11 PM

As other have said, no, you can't change ISO after the fact, any more than you can change shutter speed or aperture, or turn on SR.

But also, you should be aware if the camera was choosing a high ISO when set on Auto ISO, it probably needed to. Most likely, light was low, and shutter speeds would have been too slow had the camera not chosen a high ISO. If you had set the auto ISO range to 100-400, most likely you'd have simply ended up with blurry shots at ISO 400.

bymy141 · 04-22-2009, 01:01 AM

Originally posted by Marc Sabatella

As other have said, no, you can't change ISO after the fact, any more than you can change shutter speed or aperture, or turn on SR.

But also, you should be aware if the camera was choosing a high ISO when set on Auto ISO, it probably needed to. Most likely, light was low, and shutter speeds would have been too slow had the camera not chosen a high ISO. If you had set the auto ISO range to 100-400, most likely you'd have simply ended up with blurry shots at ISO 400.

Marc is absolutely right.

Perhaps a little more explanation will help you better understand your camera and raw files.

Basically there are 3 variables you can manipulate to change your camera's exposure:
1. Shutter speed (slower = more blur), can be on purpose for showing motion.
For instance when you pan your camera while following a moving object.
Otherwise people want the shutterspeed to be such that pictures are not blurred by camera movement.
2. Aperture, the more closed (= higher number = smaller opening) the more of your picture will be in focus.
The wider the aperture is open, the less "depth of field" you will have.
Try chaning you aperture while using a close by object and do a DOF preview before storing the picture with various values, it is easy to see the difference.
I use digital preview myself (it is an user setting in the K10D, and not the default)
3. ISO value. The higher the ISO value, the more the sensor signal is amplified before it is digitized.
The issue here is that not only the sensor's signal generated by captured light is amplified, but also the sensor's signal noise.
It is like the background noise you hear when turning up the volume of an audio amplifier when listing to soft sounds.
There are different kinds of noise, that especially can be seen in the darker areas of your photo (dark = less light = worse s/n ratio)

In general one stop (change of aperture number) = doubling / halving shutter speed = doubling halving ISO value, if you want to maintain the same exposure.
So, if your exposure is right at f=5.6, speed=1/125, ISO=200, the exposure will be right at f=4, s=1/250, I=400. Or: f=5.6, s=1/64, I=200. Etc.
Your camera program must have decided that it should not have slowed down shutter speed any more to avoid blur and to open the aperture anymore to avoid to many objects out of focus (shallow DOF), hence it could only increase ISO.

Since in RAW the "raw" sensor's data is stored, the ISO value (the one that defines the amount of noise captured from the sensor) cannot be changed anymore.
You will have captured the entire digitized signal including the digitized noise.
The only way to attack is to use noise reduction. However, noise reduction in general will smear pixels causing loss of picture detail.

Hope this helps you understand...

- Bert

AndrewG NY · 04-30-2009, 10:19 AM

One other suggestion; if you're shooting K20D you can elect to show ISO in the viewfinder at all times; this is usually more important to me than how many frames are remaining on the card.

To do this, change the "Display Sensitivity" custom setting.

This isn't available on all Pentax D-SLRs but since you said you have ISO 100 (not available on 6MP models) and 3200 (not available on K10D) I was guessing you're shooting K20D.

Marc Sabatella · 04-30-2009, 11:45 AM

Or it could have been K-m, I guess.

One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is *no way* (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this.

Venturi · 04-30-2009, 11:46 AM

If you find you want/need to do noise reduction on the photos you might want to look at NoiseNinja and Noiseware Professional. So far I find Noiseware a bit better "out of the box" and more intuitive but I know some people swear by NoiseNinja too. Both have free trial periods.

heliphoto · 04-30-2009, 12:32 PM

Originally posted by Marc Sabatella

Or it could have been K-m, I guess.

One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is *no way* (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this.

Marc, what are using the OK button for? (my guess is you're either using it to AF or cancel AF)... The K200D, the OK button can toggle the display between ISO and shots remaining, but you give up the AF functionality of course

. Someday you should get your hands on a K20D - you'd love it

.

**Canada_Rockies** · 04-30-2009, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by Marc Sabatella

Or it could have been K-m, I guess.

One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is *no way* (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this.

Marc, you can just press the [Info] button on the K10D in capture mode to display nearly everything that is set on the camera that has to do with taking the picture. I must assume, since all the cameras have an info button, that similar things are displayed. There are no less than 31 displays on the screen.

**jbinpg** · 04-30-2009, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by Marc Sabatella

Or it could have been K-m, I guess.

One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is *no way* (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this.

Hmmmm. Since the K200 came out after the K20, I thought it would have inherited the K20s abilities in this regard. On the K20, if you have it set to display the # of shots remaining on the top panel, pressing the OK button will toggle this value to that of the ISO setting.

Jack

heliphoto · 04-30-2009, 02:29 PM

Canada_Rockies, good point about the info button - I hardly use it myself, except to check the time when I'm out in the yard w/o phone or watch. Amazing how it even shows the focal length your zoom is set at (the other thing I use it for)...

Marc Sabatella · 04-30-2009, 10:19 PM

Originally posted by heliphoto

Marc, what are using the OK button for? (my guess is you're either using it to AF or cancel AF)... The K200D, the OK button can toggle the display between ISO and shots remaining, but you give up the AF functionality of course

.

I use OK for cancel AF and couldn't give that up.

Quote:

Someday you should get your hands on a K20D - you'd love it

.

I'm hoping at some point they'll make another camera with that type of control system and viewfinder but in a body that is K200D-sized or smaller. But I'm also hoping they don't do that any time soon, because I don't really *need* to be buying a new camera.

Anyhow, no biggie - I'm perfectly happy with my K200D.

Marc Sabatella · 04-30-2009, 10:42 PM

Originally posted by Canada_Rockies

Marc, you can just press the [Info] button on the K10D in capture mode to display nearly everything that is set on the camera that has to do with taking the picture.

Yep, lot of info there - but no "shots remaining", at least not on the K200D.

04-19-2009, 03:36 PM	#1
photapioca Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Katy, Tx Posts: 34	ISO Settings Help Hello I was recently asked to take some photos for a friend's birthday party. As a newbie, I forgot to reset my ISO setting back to 100-400 range. I took loads of shots with Raw+ with an ISO range of 100-3200 without reviewing the info. Most of the shots came out 800, 1600. I was wandering is it possible to change the ISO setting of the pictures to a lower setting like 100-400 after the shots have been taken? If yes, how can this be accomplished?

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04-19-2009, 03:51 PM	#2
amoringello Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Virginia, USA Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,562	You can adust the exposure to some extent, but unfortunately the ISO setting has other side effects such as noise that you cannot simply change with RAW... i.e. ISO affects the signal from the sensor before it is stored in the RAW format, unlike white balance for example, which could be thought of almost as somewhat of a post-processing effect.

04-19-2009, 05:16 PM	#3
Sean Nelson Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Vancouver BC Canada Posts: 353	Originally posted by photapioca I was wandering is it possible to change the ISO setting of the pictures to a lower setting like 100-400 after the shots have been taken? No. It's kind of like asking if it's possible to change a painting from an oil painting to a watercolor after it's been painted. Once the picture is taken, it's done and you have to live with it. I've configured the settings in my camera to turn on the "ISO" indicator in the viewfinder and on the LCD screen if the ISO is set above 200. I don't always notice it, but on a few occasions I've seen it and realized I had to reset my ISO back down again.

04-19-2009, 05:33 PM	#4
jimH Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: South Central Nebraska - USA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 1,771	Originally posted by photapioca Hello I was recently asked to take some photos for a friend's birthday party. As a newbie, I forgot to reset my ISO setting back to 100-400 range. I took loads of shots with Raw+ with an ISO range of 100-3200 without reviewing the info. Most of the shots came out 800, 1600. I was wandering is it possible to change the ISO setting of the pictures to a lower setting like 100-400 after the shots have been taken? If yes, how can this be accomplished? It's possible to reduce the high ISO "Noise" somewhat in post processing with such programs as "Corel Paintshop Pro Photo XI or X2" or with "Photoshop" or "Photoshop Elements" or other other photo editing software. However whenever you reduce "Noise" you will also reduce some detail in the photo. Now depending upon the size of the original image vs the size of the finished print, the reduction of some detail may not be noticed. However, if that is the case, then the additional "noise" from the high ISO may not be noticeable either. It's possible that most of your photos will be in a low enough ISO range where the "Noise" won't be too noticeable, so check out the EXIF data for the shots and you my be surprised at how many shots ended up at the lower ISO. Good luck and a happy resolution to your problem. Jim

04-19-2009, 11:11 PM	#5
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	As other have said, no, you can't change ISO after the fact, any more than you can change shutter speed or aperture, or turn on SR. But also, you should be aware if the camera was choosing a high ISO when set on Auto ISO, it probably needed to. Most likely, light was low, and shutter speeds would have been too slow had the camera not chosen a high ISO. If you had set the auto ISO range to 100-400, most likely you'd have simply ended up with blurry shots at ISO 400.

04-22-2009, 01:01 AM	#6
bymy141 Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,563	Originally posted by Marc Sabatella As other have said, no, you can't change ISO after the fact, any more than you can change shutter speed or aperture, or turn on SR. But also, you should be aware if the camera was choosing a high ISO when set on Auto ISO, it probably needed to. Most likely, light was low, and shutter speeds would have been too slow had the camera not chosen a high ISO. If you had set the auto ISO range to 100-400, most likely you'd have simply ended up with blurry shots at ISO 400. Marc is absolutely right. Perhaps a little more explanation will help you better understand your camera and raw files. Basically there are 3 variables you can manipulate to change your camera's exposure: 1. Shutter speed (slower = more blur), can be on purpose for showing motion. For instance when you pan your camera while following a moving object. Otherwise people want the shutterspeed to be such that pictures are not blurred by camera movement. 2. Aperture, the more closed (= higher number = smaller opening) the more of your picture will be in focus. The wider the aperture is open, the less "depth of field" you will have. Try chaning you aperture while using a close by object and do a DOF preview before storing the picture with various values, it is easy to see the difference. I use digital preview myself (it is an user setting in the K10D, and not the default) 3. ISO value. The higher the ISO value, the more the sensor signal is amplified before it is digitized. The issue here is that not only the sensor's signal generated by captured light is amplified, but also the sensor's signal noise. It is like the background noise you hear when turning up the volume of an audio amplifier when listing to soft sounds. There are different kinds of noise, that especially can be seen in the darker areas of your photo (dark = less light = worse s/n ratio) In general one stop (change of aperture number) = doubling / halving shutter speed = doubling halving ISO value, if you want to maintain the same exposure. So, if your exposure is right at f=5.6, speed=1/125, ISO=200, the exposure will be right at f=4, s=1/250, I=400. Or: f=5.6, s=1/64, I=200. Etc. Your camera program must have decided that it should not have slowed down shutter speed any more to avoid blur and to open the aperture anymore to avoid to many objects out of focus (shallow DOF), hence it could only increase ISO. Since in RAW the "raw" sensor's data is stored, the ISO value (the one that defines the amount of noise captured from the sensor) cannot be changed anymore. You will have captured the entire digitized signal including the digitized noise. The only way to attack is to use noise reduction. However, noise reduction in general will smear pixels causing loss of picture detail. Hope this helps you understand... - Bert

04-30-2009, 10:19 AM	#7
AndrewG NY Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Chappaqua, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 688	One other suggestion; if you're shooting K20D you can elect to show ISO in the viewfinder at all times; this is usually more important to me than how many frames are remaining on the card. To do this, change the "Display Sensitivity" custom setting. This isn't available on all Pentax D-SLRs but since you said you have ISO 100 (not available on 6MP models) and 3200 (not available on K10D) I was guessing you're shooting K20D.

04-30-2009, 11:45 AM	#8
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	Or it could have been K-m, I guess. One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is no way (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this.

04-30-2009, 11:46 AM	#9
Venturi Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Tulsa, OK Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,636	If you find you want/need to do noise reduction on the photos you might want to look at NoiseNinja and Noiseware Professional. So far I find Noiseware a bit better "out of the box" and more intuitive but I know some people swear by NoiseNinja too. Both have free trial periods.

04-30-2009, 12:32 PM	#10
heliphoto Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Region 5 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,539	Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Or it could have been K-m, I guess. One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is no way (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this. Marc, what are using the OK button for? (my guess is you're either using it to AF or cancel AF)... The K200D, the OK button can toggle the display between ISO and shots remaining, but you give up the AF functionality of course . Someday you should get your hands on a K20D - you'd love it .

04-30-2009, 12:55 PM	#11
Canada_Rockies Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Sparwood, BC, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 12,385	Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Or it could have been K-m, I guess. One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is no way (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this. Marc, you can just press the [Info] button on the K10D in capture mode to display nearly everything that is set on the camera that has to do with taking the picture. I must assume, since all the cameras have an info button, that similar things are displayed. There are no less than 31 displays on the screen.

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04-30-2009, 02:14 PM	#12
jbinpg Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Prince George, BC Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,546	Originally posted by Marc Sabatella Or it could have been K-m, I guess. One minor gripe I have with my K200D: although it gives me the option of displaying either shots remaining or ISO, AFAIK there is no way (short of changing the option again) to find out the number of shots remaining if you have it set to display ISO. Whereas if you have it set to display shots remaining, you can always find out the ISO by going to the Fn menu, which is what you'd have to do anyhow in order to do anything about it. Plus it's usually somewhat apparent approximately where ISO is by what kind of shutter speeds you re getting. So I begrudgingly have mine set on shots remaining. Not sure if the K-m address this. Hmmmm. Since the K200 came out after the K20, I thought it would have inherited the K20s abilities in this regard. On the K20, if you have it set to display the # of shots remaining on the top panel, pressing the OK button will toggle this value to that of the ISO setting. Jack

04-30-2009, 02:29 PM	#13
heliphoto Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Region 5 Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,539	Canada_Rockies, good point about the info button - I hardly use it myself, except to check the time when I'm out in the yard w/o phone or watch. Amazing how it even shows the focal length your zoom is set at (the other thing I use it for)...

04-30-2009, 10:19 PM	#14
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	Originally posted by heliphoto Marc, what are using the OK button for? (my guess is you're either using it to AF or cancel AF)... The K200D, the OK button can toggle the display between ISO and shots remaining, but you give up the AF functionality of course . I use OK for cancel AF and couldn't give that up. Quote: Someday you should get your hands on a K20D - you'd love it . I'm hoping at some point they'll make another camera with that type of control system and viewfinder but in a body that is K200D-sized or smaller. But I'm also hoping they don't do that any time soon, because I don't really need to be buying a new camera. Anyhow, no biggie - I'm perfectly happy with my K200D.

04-30-2009, 10:42 PM	#15
Marc Sabatella Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Denver, CO Photos: Gallery Posts: 10,685	Originally posted by Canada_Rockies Marc, you can just press the [Info] button on the K10D in capture mode to display nearly everything that is set on the camera that has to do with taking the picture. Yep, lot of info there - but no "shots remaining", at least not on the K200D.