My new GR is stuck @ ISO 400

[TitusXIII]

Newbie problem.

Got my GR today and I just love it. (My first incursion into the Ricoh territory, I do own a Pentax K-5 IIs).

I played with it a bit and customized the settings to my own liking.

However, I cannot manually change the ISO from 400. I can set it to Auto-ISO but it won't take any other manual setting.

Any help from veteran GR users would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Titus

 

[TitusXIII]

I found the problem:

It's the DR setting, any setting other than "Off" will freeze-in the last ISO setting, so the only way to change it would be to turn DR off and then select a different ISO.

I tried to remove the post but was not able to do so.

Mea culpa.

Titus

 

[Tom Caldwell]

TitusXIII wrote:

I found the problem:

It's the DR setting, any setting other than "Off" will freeze-in the last ISO setting, so the only way to change it would be to turn DR off and then select a different ISO.

I tried to remove the post but was not able to do so.

Mea culpa.

Titus

 

[TitusXIII]

Thank you, Tom

I guess it was worth it not deleting it.

I did a Google search but couldn't find anything.

The way I figured it out was by restoring some of the default settings I've changed to the factory default.

I've narrowed it all down until I found the culprit, the DR settings. But this don't make much sense, since one could revert to DR "Off", change the ISO manually and then choose the DR setting they fancy.

I see it as a bug, unless someone with deeper understanding could illuminate me.

Oh, well, I must be an informed ignorant.

Regards,

Titus

 

[photoreddi]

TitusXIII wrote:

Thank you, Tom

I guess it was worth it not deleting it.

I did a Google search but couldn't find anything.

The way I figured it out was by restoring some of the default settings I've changed to the factory default.

I've narrowed it all down until I found the culprit, the DR settings. But this don't make much sense, since one could revert to DR "Off", change the ISO manually and then choose the DR setting they fancy.

I see it as a bug, unless someone with deeper understanding could illuminate me.

It's probably not a bug. Many cameras require higher than base ISOs when DR settings are enabled.

I have a GRD IV, not the GR, and the base ISO is 80. I can set the ISO to 80 when the DR is OFF. If I change the DR to Weak, the ISO is automatically raised to ISO 125. If I then increase the DR to Medium, the ISO automatically jumps up to 160. Similarly, if the Dr is increased to Strong, the ISO is raised to ISO 200. I can always raise the ISO to higher levels, but if the DR isn't OFF, I can only lower it to ISO 125, 160 or 200, depending on the current DR level.

If DR is set to AUTO, the ISO can't be changed because now the only available setting for ISO is Auto-Hi. If I then change the DR to OFF, the ISO changes to Auto 1600 (the same as Auto-Hi, really), but now I can change the ISO to any of the usual ISO settings, from 80 to 3,200.

See if the GR is behaving something like this, even if the settings aren't exactly the same as the GRD IV.

 

[TitusXIII]

OK, I am writing this as I'm playing with the DR settings:

- In Auto, it changes the ISO to 400 if I had previously manually set it at less than 400. It will accept any setting higher than 400 all the way thru 6400, it won't allow anything higher than that. With the ISO set to Auto, it will select one based on lighting conditions/aperture/shutter settings between 320 and 3200.

- In Weak it raises the ISO to 200 if I've previously had it lower than that. It only allows it to go as high as 12800. Strangely enough, with the ISO set to Auto it will go below 200, but only to 160. It won't go above 3200, I think because Auto ISO is set to 3200.

- In Medium, same as in Weak except, with ISO set to Auto, it won't go below 320.

- In Strong, it raises it to 400 if I had it at a lower value. But now it only allows it to go up to 6400. With ISO set to Auto it ranges between 320 and 3200.

I know my findings are a bit convoluted but I hope it will help.

 

[photoreddi]

TitusXIII wrote:

OK, I am writing this as I'm playing with the DR settings:

- In Auto, it changes the ISO to 400 if I had previously manually set it at less than 400. It will accept any setting higher than 400 all the way thru 6400, it won't allow anything higher than that. With the ISO set to Auto, it will select one based on lighting conditions/aperture/shutter settings between 320 and 3200.

- In Weak it raises the ISO to 200 if I've previously had it lower than that. It only allows it to go as high as 12800. Strangely enough, with the ISO set to Auto it will go below 200, but only to 160. It won't go above 3200, I think because Auto ISO is set to 3200.

- In Medium, same as in Weak except, with ISO set to Auto, it won't go below 320.

- In Strong, it raises it to 400 if I had it at a lower value. But now it only allows it to go up to 6400. With ISO set to Auto it ranges between 320 and 3200.

I know my findings are a bit convoluted but I hope it will help.

That seems similar to the GRD IV, the main difference being that the GR has a higher base ISO of 100 (I think) vs the GRD IV's base ISO 80. I didn't notice the change in the maximum ISO with the different DR values as you did because I was using the expanded ISO set (100, 125, 160, 200, 250, etc.) where the highest ISO values extended below the bottom of the screen. When I scrolled though the ISO values to get to the bottom of the issue [so to speak ], to see what the highest available ISO was for each DR value, I saw the same maximum ISO values varying as you did, from ISO 3200 (Off) to ISO 2000/1600 (Weak), ISO 1600 (Medium) and finally ISO 1250 (Strong). The two values for Weak DR was a surprise and this may be a bug, sometimes being ISO 2000, sometimes ISO 1600, apparently being somehow influenced by the previous DR value.

 

[TitusXIII]

There's a table on page 48 of the manual with the affected settings.

This table is incorrect, Ricoh has enclosed an errata in the box with the corrected settings.

 

[photoreddi]

TitusXIII wrote:

There's a table on page 48 of the manual with the affected settings.

This table is incorrect, Ricoh has enclosed an errata in the box with the corrected settings.

I have nothing to go by since I don't have a GR. The errata sheet for the GRD IV mentions only changes to AE Control (it's faster), Scene Modes [Interval Composite] (adds shooting options and increases playback information), the addition of or change to the Copyright options in the Setup menu, and adding SnapFocusDist. to the [ADJ Lever Setting/Fn Button Pair Setting in the Key Custom Options menu.

There's no comparable table in the manual, but the allowed ISO ranges for each of the DR settings is listed on page 72. Thanks for mentioning the table, it make me take out the GRD IV's manual. The manual however says that the ISO range for Medium DR is 160 to 1600, not mentioning that sometimes it will only go up as high as ISO 1250, which is Strong DR's highest available ISO.

Just like their menus, Ricoh's manuals are as good as I've seen. Panasonic's manuals are by far the worst and Olympus's menus bring no joy, although I haven't seen any of their m4/3 menus.

 

[TitusXIII]

Actually I ain't that worried about using the DR feature since I can correct it in post from the RAW file.

 

[photoreddi]

TitusXIII wrote:

Actually I ain't that worried about using the DR feature since I can correct it in post from the RAW file.

Then we've both learned something, fortunately and unfortunately.

 

[TitusXIII]

We sure did.

Thank you for your feedback.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

photoreddi wrote:

TitusXIII wrote:

Actually I ain't that worried about using the DR feature since I can correct it in post from the RAW file.

Then we've both learned something, fortunately and unfortunately.

.... and I also. It must be noted that the Ricoh firmware is so deep and powerfulthat it is hardly surprising that we are often working out the detail "on the run". Their manuals are good but because of the detail in what can be done tend to be terse and often the finer deatil is not covered.

It is a dabbler's paradise. One look at the Samsung manuals by comparison and they can be thrown away.

 

[BayAreaWZ]

I found the problem:

It's the DR setting, any setting other than "Off" will freeze-in the last ISO setting, so the only way to change it would be to turn DR off and then select a different ISO.

I tried to remove the post but was not able to do so.

Mea culpa.

Titus

 

[TitusXIII]

No sweat, glad to be of help.

 

[swekosmos]

Also - don't forget that in continuous shooting mode the ISO defaults to 400.

(Unless that has been addressed in FW update)

 

[Verda]

Thank you so much! I had the same issue and just thought something went wrong with firmware upgrade! It works all good now! Plus, I am no huge fan of DR so I'm doing ok!

You saved me from changing all my settings to default!

 

[MarkWW]

I found the problem:

It's the DR setting, any setting other than "Off" will freeze-in the last ISO setting, so the only way to change it would be to turn DR off and then select a different ISO.

I tried to remove the post but was not able to do so.

Mea culpa.

Titus