Rookie mistake...

OrionsByte · Jul 11, 2010

Well my wife and I went on a drive yesterday to take some photos, and thogh I didn't end up with anything I was crazy about, there were a few I figured I could play with and see if I could come up with something interesting.

At least that's what I thought until I actually downloaded them to my computer today. That's when I realized that I had been playing with the ISO settings the other day and never changed it back from 1600 (which is the max setting on my Nikon D70). The pictures are so ridiculously noisy that they're completely unusable.

I don't know why I have so much trouble remembering to double-check all my settings before going out to shoot, and for that matter I don't know why I insist on messing with settings on the camera when I'm not out shooting. I guess I'll chalk it up as a learning experience and see if I can actually learn something from in this time... LOL.

LCARSx32 · Jul 11, 2010

That sucks

I do the same thing. Why is ISO so easy to forget?

natural.disaster · Jul 11, 2010

Really sucks when they look good on the view screen....then you get home and they are horrible!

RL. · Jul 11, 2010

wow iso is usually the first thing I check when I go out shooting...

cfusionpm · Jul 11, 2010

Do you have Lightroom 3? Or other comperable noise reduction stuff? LR3 has some fantastic NR algorithms and gives pretty good results.

OrionsByte · Jul 11, 2010

cfusionpm said:
Do you have Lightroom 3? Or other comperable noise reduction stuff? LR3 has some fantastic NR algorithms and gives pretty good results.

Well, all I'm using at the moment is Paint Shop Pro X2. I know, I know, it's not the greatest PP software, but I need the vector-based capabilities for work and it's what I could afford.

I ran a couple NR passes of various strengths, but it just made the images really soft. Like I said, there really wasn't much worth saving anyways, so it's not that big a deal this time around.

This is the only one I've tried to salvage. I didn't attempt any NR, just decided to convert it to B&W, add a really slight vignette, and go for that "old time photo" feel. Can't say I necessarily pulled it off, and again it's not that the shot is really worth salvaging, but here it is:

tdz16 · Jul 11, 2010

I forgot to change my ISO back down to 200 on the D40 ONCE. It has since been the first thing that I check EVERY TIME I pick up my camera.

~Tom

OrionsByte · Jul 11, 2010

tdz16 said:
I forgot to change my ISO back down to 200 on the D40 ONCE. It has since been the first thing that I check EVERY TIME I pick up my camera.

~Tom

For my next trick, I'm going to set my exposure compensation to -5 before I go to bed and see if I can figure out why all my shots are so freakin' dark tomorrow. :lol:

Ryan L · Jul 11, 2010

Pay attention to all your settings, if you are shooting at 1/4000 of a second in modeerate light, chances are your ISO is toooooo high. Same goes for aperture and shutter speeds. They all work together, if your shutter speed is 1/100 on a bright day, I would bet your lens is stopped down. I recommend the book Undertsanding Exposure, and googling the exposure triangle. It should help put it all together.

KmH · Jul 11, 2010

RyanL makes a good point.

Familiarity with how the exposure triad works should have indicated something was amiss by the shutter speed and aperture, which would have been effected by the high ISO setting, though that takes some experience and maybe some thinking about the triad and how the 3 elements interrelate.

That's why all that info is usually displayed in the camera viewfinder, unless a automatic shooting mode is selected.

Nikon lets the users change a menu setting to display the ISO value in the viewfinder instead of how many images can be recorded to the memory card.

I would recommend sitting down and making a pre-shoot check list. Print it and keep it with your camera.

Another tactic is to set your camera to a set of standard settings when you put it away, so the next time you use it you already know where you are starting from.

Bitter Jeweler · Jul 11, 2010

OrionsByte said:
tdz16 said:

I forgot to change my ISO back down to 200 on the D40 ONCE. It has since been the first thing that I check EVERY TIME I pick up my camera.

~Tom

Click to expand...

For my next trick, I'm going to set my exposure compensation to -5 before I go to bed and see if I can figure out why all my shots are so freakin' dark tomorrow.

Heh, I used to forget the ISO a LOT. Lesson learned. Stuff still happens though, that mess with you. On my last photo safari, I had changed lenses and didn't notice that I rolled the mode wheel to Program/Auto from Aperture Priority. I spent a bit of time freaking out as to why focusing was off. Focus on the distance, wide open, and stuff in the very near foreground was in focus. I thought something was broken. Later I accidentally roll the wheel to change exposure compensation, and I took a bunch of pics then I checked one and it was nearly black. So were the last 10-12. Eeep! Checking the aperture/shutter speed I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I finally noticed the tiny hash mark indicating exposure comp on the light meter scale. Sheesh!

Try to remember to check your images regularly, and double check settings too.

pbelarge · Jul 11, 2010

Reeses Pieces were discovered by making a mistake.

Maybe one of these times of making a mistake will hit it big for us...:mrgreen:

OrionsByte · Jul 11, 2010

Ryan L said:
Pay attention to all your settings, if you are shooting at 1/4000 of a second in modeerate light, chances are your ISO is toooooo high. Same goes for aperture and shutter speeds. They all work together, if your shutter speed is 1/100 on a bright day, I would bet your lens is stopped down. I recommend the book Undertsanding Exposure, and googling the exposure triangle. It should help put it all together.

KmH said:
RyanL makes a good point.

Familiarity with how the exposure triad works should have indicated something was amiss by the shutter speed and aperture, which would have been effected by the high ISO setting, though that takes some experience and maybe some thinking about the triad and how the 3 elements interrelate.

Well yeah you're both right, and the simple fact is that I wasn't paying attention. It took more time to drive to that location than I thought it would, so I only had about 20 minutes to shoot, so I wasn't being nearly as careful or mindful as I would have otherwise. Still though, lesson learned.

KmH said:
That's why all that info is usually displayed in the camera viewfinder, unless a automatic shooting mode is selected.

This is something I'm still getting used to. Really it comes down to learning to take my time and pay attention, but that's all part of the learning process.

KmH said:
Nikon lets the users change a menu setting to display the ISO value in the viewfinder instead of how many images can be recorded to the memory card.

I'll have to look for that - that would be very helpful.

KmH said:
I would recommend sitting down and making a pre-shoot check list. Print it and keep it with your camera.

Another tactic is to set your camera to a set of standard settings when you put it away, so the next time you use it you already know where you are starting from.

Already planning on doing both of these things.

Thanks for the tips!

Fatback · Jul 11, 2010

natural.disaster said:
Really sucks when they look good on the view screen....then you get home and they are horrible!

I have Noiseware Professional, which is one of the best software for Noise I have used. If you wont you could send me a couple of your favorites, and I could run them through it for you. Although your photos will loose a bit of detail. Some of them might be salvageable.