ISO wont change, locked in "196"

Your camera is capable of ISO adjustments from 100 to 1600. Photos taken at ISO 100 require the longest exposures and will have the best quality color and least amount of graininess. This setting should be used as often as possible and is ideal for well lit subjects. Conversely, ISO 1600 is for low light situations. Photos taken with the camera set to this value will have muddied colors and much more graininess in them. This is often preferred to having no photo at all.

The down side to this camera - like most point & shoot ("P&S") types, is the fact the the light sensor that actually captures the image from the lens, is quite small. Small sensors have difficulty rendering acceptable photos when taken at high ISO settings. It is not unusual for P&S cameras to perform unacceptably at ISO 400 and up. Reviews I have seen on your camera back this up. Basically, ISO 100 and 200 are the only values that provide acceptable photos. You should experiment with the entire range of ISO under different lighting conditions to see which situations and ISOs are acceptable to you.

Your camera makes use of icons to access menus and they do not show up well on FixYa, so I will need direct you to an online manual that you can view or download. It can be found here.

Chapter 3 (begins on Page 16) talks about camera menu settings. Your should review this chapter, and pay particular attention to "ISO" on page 20. You will learn how to select ISO 100, 200, 400, 800 & 1600 on the camera.

I hope this helps & good luck!

The graininess of the photos would be due to an ISO sensitivity that is set too high. A good idea is to set it to "Auto". You can look through the menu and see if your ISO is set to 1600 or 800, that is too high for general use. An improperly adjusted white balance can make the colors look funny. You can set this to Auto as well, which will appear as AWB in the menu.
Try shooting in regular Auto mode.

Press the Menu button, select the camera icon, then scroll down to Sensitivity to change the ISO setting.

Depending on how close to the stage you are and how long your lens is, I would consider using spot-metering on the performers so as not to let the camera try to make the black background into a medium gray. The metering method is also changed in the shooting menu. Press Menu, select the camera icon, and scroll down.

Anyway you do it, you're probably going to have slow shutter speeds. If you can't use a tripod, consider a monopod. Or clamp the camera to the back of the seat in front of you. Or brace it against a wall or column.

You could scroll to sensitivity in the menu. However, to get the numbers you want, you'll need to switch to manual instead of auto.

Change to a higher ISO sensitivity setting. It is probably on 80. Change to the highest setting which is probably 400. If you can get much higher, like 1600, then try that.
If you use the flash, it may be better to not use it... try a few pix with & without the flash (after you set the ISO to the highest setting).

Next camera, get one that will go to 1600 or 3200 ISO.

Hope this helps!

Hi Charles A/f works on contrast it 500mm f6.9 even at 1600 iso it willl make no diffrerents if it to dark it will not lock on

Hi,
You can select the shutter speed in the following range
Shutter speed 15-1/2000 sec
ISO sensitivity • Auto
• ISO 80
• ISO 100
• ISO 200
• ISO 400
• ISO 800
• ISO 1600

Thanks
proton

Hi - You can download the manual by clicking the link underlined in blue below:

Lumix DMC-TZ3

See page 51:



The max ISO for this camera is 1250.

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Informatica

Did you check your settings? You may be outside of the range (red figures for speed and or f stop) in your selected mode, for example if you selected 1600 ISO for indoor shots and forgot to set it back to a lower ISO value.

Alternatively you can use AUTO mode, it's the most foolproof. 

If you selected 1600 ISO don't forget, when you change the ISO to a lowe value, also put the camera back in high resolution, it stays in 1MP mode by default.

HTH...

The higher the ISO setting the more grain in the photo. Have you somehow set the ISO to say, 1600? http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/d70s/select.php?menu=1&sub=b11&num=12 Select ISO setting this way: http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/d70s/select.php?menu=1&sub=b05&num=10 Are you shooting in low-light situations (typically indoor)? Try shooting bright scenes and Auto mode, or manually set ISO to 100 or 200 and see if noise persists.