Noise on my Photos

[Magoo]

I have recently bought a EOS 350D, and everytime I shoot in RAW I get alot of noise. Now maybe I am getting settings wrong, I was shooting today in bright natural light (winter light) but all of my shots have noise. However, the other day i was shooting in low light and I have noise on there. For both occassions I have had the ISO set between 100 in low light and 400 in the natural light today.

What am I doing wrong with my RAW shots?

[Saralonde]

I'm not sure you're necessarily doing anything wrong. RAW images do not look the same as jpeg right out of the camera. Jpeg will have some changes made, such as sharpening, in the camera. The camera assumes you will do all your post processing with RAW.

[drphotography]

Your problem is that you have your ISO backwards. The lower the number the slower the equivalent film speed (100 is slow flim and requires a lot of light to expose while 400 is faster and requires less light to expose). In film, a faster ISO (higher number) will give you more grain. The same happens in digital but instead of grain you get noise (it really looks the same, just different terms).

If your post is correct, that you tried shooting in low light with ISO 100, that is why you got no noise. Try shooting in low light with ISO 400 and you will see that you can go with a much higher shutter speed and you will get the same level of noise as you did in your daylight photo you reference. Same thing works the other way around, if you shoot in daylight with ISO 100 you should get no noise (and much better colors as well, another side effect of using a lower ISO).

The rule of thumb is to use the lowest ISO that you can get away with. You get less noise, better color range, and all around happier photos. When things start to get too dark (requiring a shutter speed of less than 1/50sec or slower (reads as 50 on meters, 30 would be slower) then you can bump up the ISO to the next step. That should grant you a few stops of speed.

Hope that helps.

[thunkup]

Hi all, I disagree, not with the rule of thumb bit but I have this same issue.

I have been using n SLR for years now and YES the lower the ISO generally means the less noise/grain.

BUT, I have a NIKON D70, lately no matter what settings I use my shots have so much noise that some are not useable. I have shot ISO 200 (the lowest my camera does) in bright sunlight = NOISE, then 20 mins later inside same settings (londer exposure of course, no flash) again = NOISE.

The other day, inside, shutterspeed of 40/50, ISO of 400, no flash = tragic NOISE.

Have I stuffed my camera somehow, does the sensor need a clean?.

I need answers and no one seems to have any (not you guys).

It just seems to be lately my camera has gone in this direction.

ANy help would be mush appreciated, I am inches away from trading in my NIKON for a CANON ( is this a smart move as well)

[thunkup]

Hi all, me again, after reading something on another post I decided to do a little testing, my issue/mistake is dramatic under exposure.

Now this is probably pretty obvious to all reading this post but I was shooting it as the light meter suggested.

I have attached 2 images, the first is TRAGIC and almost looks as if I have created this for the post, but it is what really came out of my camera
ISO 400, 1/90, f4.5, 18-70@70

Second one is
ISO 400, 1 sec, f4.5, 18-70@70

massive difference, again probably very obvious to all, but like I said, the first shot was the suggested setting in the manual setting light meter, the second I thought I had massively over exposed, but hadn't.

So I have sorted out the noise issue, but what am I doing wrong with the light reading?

Or do I just need to get better aquainted with my camera?

Hope this helps someone out there as you guys have helped me heaps before

[wulf]

What are you using to check the settings used on the pictures? I have a suspicion that some cameras allow either "no less than this ISO rating" or "only this ISO rating".

Looking at the pictures, I wonder if you might be on the former and the EXIF data would show that the actual ISO was much higher? You say that the only thing you changed was the shutter speed but 1/90s to 1s is several EV (exposure value) steps away and I would expect that to make a more dramatic difference to the overall brightness of the image (granted that the white still comes out yellow in the first one!).

Check the manual!

Wulf

[ELAY]

Following on what Wulf wrote, the D40 has an auto-ISO feature that will bump ISO up where a desired shot cannot be made withing selected parameters. Does your D70 have something like this?

My best guess is that something like this is happening with your photos -- when your chosen settings threaten to result in underexposure, your camera is maxing out the ISO to compensate and try to get a decent exposure.

I have no idea what's up with the light meter thoug. I couldn't tell from your post whether you were having trouble on auto, manual or both (though there are suggestions that it is just manual). If your auto exposures are turning out OK, and your manuals not, then I would tend to doubt the problem is your light meter.

EL