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Changing ISO after the shot

Matt32
I've been working with the RED camera quite a bit lately. A very interesting thing about it's workflow is the ability to change the ISO in the software after you've shot. Essentially the image is shot as a pure Raw file, and all of the adjustments are in meta data, ISO included.

Why hasn't such a thing been adopted for digital stills I wonder?
What is the reasoning to having the ISO baked into an image when it could just be part of meta data?
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  • Drew Altdo
    [quote="Matt32" wrote:
    I've been working with the RED camera quite a bit lately. A very interesting thing about it's workflow is the ability to change the ISO in the software after you've shot....
    Why hasn't such a thing been adopted for digital stills I wonder?
    What is the reasoning to having the ISO baked into an image when it could just be part of meta data?


    Matt,
    This is actually how every digital component works, in a sense. The "Base ISO" is a value that all digital chips are built off of. The RED camera and it's adjustment after the fact, as best I can discern, is simply a way to adjust to a preset Dynamic Range setting. This is essentially the same as shooting at ISO 50 and then bumping the Exposure 2 stops in Capture One, now the ISO equivalent is 200.
    Some other digital components work on this same structure, where the digital component is incapable of capturing at anything other than the Base ISO. Any adjustment you make to the ISO is simply a software translation to represent the ISO you chose at the time. Each method has it's strengths and weakness' but ultimately having a chip that can "charge" to a different ISO in real time is preferable to making these adjustments after the fact. Both for practical reasons and quality.
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  • Matt32
    thanks Drew, that makes perfect sense.
    I was thinking there was a different algorithm in place between the ISO and the Exposure Values. But yes, it's essentially the same thing. In the case of the Red, the broad range of exposure is set with the ISO (as it is with a digital camera), medium exposure tuning is done on the EV, then there is a micro adjustment as well called FLUT. In the case of C1 software, that micro adjustment is in the form of fractional EV values such as .01 .

    thanks,
    Matt
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