Today is National Check your ISO day...

cwphotos

So yeah this weekend I went shooting with my 70-200 and forgot my ISO had been set to 800 from a couple days before.... So needless to say there was some noise. I feel so dumb for not checking it first.

So folks do yourself a favor and check your ISO today. :rofl

Mr. 2H2O

Geez, that NEVER happens to me

I was shooting one of my boys in a well lit room the other day and wondering why the images looked so bright with not enough contrast on the LCD...DOH, I was shooting ISO400 instead of ISO100 (which gives me the best balance on my camera)...so I promptly deleted the technically embarrasing shots and reshot the series...

Glad to see my memory lapse is normal among aspiring photogs...

- Mike

livefreenski

Try shooting a Sunset at 1600

I caught it like 5 minutes later, but we had to do a bit of extra hiking back on to a location, thank goodness my dog not much of a complainer when it comes to hiking

Ty

cwphotos

I should have been tipped off when I was getting 1/2000 of a second for my shutter speed.

e4ymod

Glad to see I'm not the only one. I shot fireworks at 1600 once. Not a good idea. :bash

colourbox

I'm trying to make myself do a "preflight check" before taking the camera out. (Not that I always remember.)

_ Battery charged?
_ Card in camera?
_ Space available on card?
_ Lens clean?
_ ISO setting appropriate?
_ Autofocus setting appropriate?
_ White balance setting appropriate?
_ Set for RAW? (hate it when dial gets knocked into wrong position)

...go flight!

Mr. 2H2O

Unfortunately I don't get to do a pre-flight check for most of my shots. I usually only have 24 milliseconds to get the camera cranked up, focused, and fire away..I use a nuclear powered camera to get it up and going that quickly...

- Mike

colourbox

Just to clarify, I don't mean a preflight check before each shot. I mean checking before I leave the house with the camera, so my first few shots in full sun aren't with the settings that were for last night's flash photos.

saurora

colourbox wrote:

I'm trying to make myself do a "preflight check" before taking the camera out. (Not that I always remember.)

_ Battery charged?
_ Card in camera?
_ Space available on card?
_ Lens clean?
_ ISO setting appropriate?
_ Autofocus setting appropriate?
_ White balance setting appropriate?
_ Set for RAW? (hate it when dial gets knocked into wrong position)

...go flight!

How about battery in camera........not in the case you left behind. I just did that one last week. So add 'open' battery compartment and verify that I have one just like I do with my compactflash card!!!

Van Isle

cwphotos wrote:

So yeah this weekend I went shooting with my 70-200 and forgot my ISO had been set to 800 from a couple days before.... So needless to say there was some noise. I feel so dumb for not checking it first.

So folks do yourself a favor and check your ISO today.

yaargh! I did that yesterday trying to get some slick creek/running water shots, stop action shots and flow shots. The day (actually, the hour) was flip-flopping sunny 16, cloudy 8, and darker. Tried some more portraity stuff handheld so I bumped the ISO, forgot it when I was on the 'pod, looking for long shutter speeds without over exposing. Don't know how noisy they are yet.

Bleh.

urbanaries

saurora wrote:

How about battery in camera........not in the case you left behind. I just did that one last week. So add 'open' battery compartment and verify that I have one just like I do with my compactflash card!!!

i did that last weekend with my speedlite....i had to borrow 4 AAs (luckily it takes those!) from the client, how embarrassing! luckily they were relatives....they love me even though I'm a space cadet.

Scott_Quier

Because I only have 2 gray cells (and one of those is starting to show signs of wear), I do a post- and pre-flight check (when I can remember!).

Post:

• Set ISO to 100
• Set FEC and EC to 0
• Remove battery and charg it
• Remove CF and download it to computer
• Check lenses - do they need cleaning, etc

Pre:

• Check ISO to make sure it's still at 100, 'cause I only have one working gray cell
• Check FEC and EC, for same reason
• Insert battery and check charge. Replace battery if I forgot to charge it. I have 4 batteries, so I'm pretty sure to find one with a charge.
• Grab some CF cards. Format them all NOW, not when I need a new card.

This almost always prevents me from shooting in sunny 16 at ISO 1600 and EC +2, but not always!

Why do I set the ISO to 100 and the FEC and EC to zero. 'Cause I it's usually dark when I need to adjust the ISO, FEC, and EC to something else and if I know the starting point it's just easier - I know which way to turn the dials.

schmoo

Had this happen just on Sunday. I was shooting some scenes in a dark building and because of it I neglected to see that I had adjusted the ISO instead of shutter speed. It took me a while to figure out that my ISO was 1200 but the 80000000000 shutter speed outdoors in the bright snow clued me in.

claudermilk

colourbox wrote:

I'm trying to make myself do a "preflight check" before taking the camera out. (Not that I always remember.)

_ Battery charged?
_ Card in camera?
_ Space available on card?
_ Lens clean?
_ ISO setting appropriate?
_ Autofocus setting appropriate?
_ White balance setting appropriate?
_ Set for RAW? (hate it when dial gets knocked into wrong position)

...go flight!

Don't forget:
_ Metering set correctly
_ Mode correct (Av, Tv, M, dummy mode?)
_ Drive setting
and of course the most important ones
_ Camera On (all the way to the funny angle for us Canon shooter)
_ Lens cap OFF!

Yup, after a couple of mid-afternoon shoots with the camera set for a dark theater I now do a complete pre-flight at the beginning of the day.

BTW, Mr. H2O, mine starts up in 20 milliseconds. :ivar:davidto

Mr. 2H2O

claudermilk wrote:

BTW, Mr. H2O, mine starts up in 20 milliseconds. :ivar:davidto

Yea, but is it NUCLEAR POWERED!:giggle

moose135

I would never do something so silly as forgetting to reset my ISO. Of course, I can't tell you the number of times I hit the shutter, only to have the self-timer start beeping, because I had been shooting on the tripod the night before and forgot to switch out of timer mode

claudermilk

Mr. 2H2O wrote:

Yea, but is it NUCLEAR POWERED!:giggle

Nah, it uses Mr. Fusion.

colourbox

saurora wrote:

How about battery in camera........not in the case you left behind. I just did that one last week. So add 'open' battery compartment and verify that I have one just like I do with my compactflash card!!!

Actually, I do both the battery and card check by trying to remember to flip the On switch before leaving. If the display lights up normal, then both the battery and card are present and I can just turn it off and go. If either is missing, it's going to be pretty obvious on the display. In addition, it tells me if I'm using a charged battery, and how close my card is to being full. Then I can take care of them before heading out.

esc2476

I was thinking about this thread this weekend....

I went to London this weekend and was shooting some landscapes. I went into the British Museum (which allows photography and switched to my brand new 24-70 2.8 and was disappointed as to how slow the shutter was. I then realized (after being in the museum for an hour) that my ISO was still at 200.

Needless to say, I set it at 800 and reshot some of the pictures I had already taken. Luckily my girlfriend was only too happy to spend time in the gift shop.

Yeah, so I have about 2 brain cells as well.

Nikolai

Heya Dean,

cwphotos wrote:

So yeah this weekend I went shooting with my 70-200 and forgot my ISO had been set to 800 from a couple days before.... So needless to say there was some noise. I feel so dumb for not checking it first.

So folks do yourself a favor and check your ISO today.

You sound like one of them nikon guys:-)
ISO800? So what?
Here's ISO1600 shot from my last weekend "L.A Race for The Cure" coverage:



No special treatment, except some ACR 4.0
See much noise?

Don't get me wrong, forgetting to switch ISO to lower value seems to be a fairly common mistake, I guess. But is it as disastrous as it may sound? I honestly don't think so (not in Sea World, at least:-).
Nevertheless, the safety shift feature on MarkIII makes this baby even more desirable:-)

Cheers!

howard

ISO 3200 anyone
:cry OK me too I'd been messing around at home seeing just how dark 20mm f1.8 and ISO3200 could go and of course forgot to re-set the ISO.

Here's the result

http://www.pbase.com/howards/image/74941344



My respect for the 20D has increased. Normally I use AV or manual but I saw these guys and just flicked the dial to P for speed, serves me right I guess.

beline

saurora wrote:

How about battery in camera........not in the case you left behind. I just did that one last week. So add 'open' battery compartment and verify that I have one just like I do with my compactflash card!!!

OH MY GOD! I DID THIS! ONlY WORSE!
I was flying to Las Vegas to shoot Miss America this year. I was 2 hours out, on my way to the airport, already late, before I realized I left my charger back at my apartment. :splat Not the battery, but the charger... Its a KM Maxxum 5D, who caries that anymore? No one... :uhoh My housemate had to overnight the charger to Las Vegas...

Wow, I'll never do that again.

My preflight is rock solid now... You learn fast when you get burnt like that...... :bash