Early morning - too soft & noisy

[4umfreak]

I've been trying similar shots (sunrise) a few times recently and I can't get them right. As I'm shooting without a tripod so I need to keep the shutter speed fast enough. I tried dropping to 800 or 1600 ISO but they're too grainy that I wouldn't use them for anything.

This one was shot at ISO 400 and I still feel like it has too much noise. Again it was shot off-tripod so that may account for the image being soft - I'm making assumptions.

Is there something I'm missing to get a shot without so much noise? Or am I expecting too much?



Here's a full-size jpeg:
http://365.objectclarity.com/sharing/_MG_4246.jpg

Filename: _MG_4246.CR2
Timestamp: Fri Sep 23 06:52:28 2011
Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Owner: unknown
ISO speed: 400
Shutter: 1/6.0 sec
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal length: 17.0 mm
Embedded ICC profile: no
Number of raw images: 1
Thumb size: 1536 x 1024
Full size: 3516 x 2328
Image size: 3474 x 2314
Output size: 3474 x 2314
Raw colors: 3
Filter pattern: RGGBRGGBRGGBRGGB
Daylight multipliers: 2.467797 0.917149 1.164814
Camera multipliers: 1933.000000 1200.000000 2320.000000 1207.000000

[shruggy63]

Wow, that's an extensive exif! I don't think you'll get any guidance from the mods :-)
I quite like the picture. The obvious question is why didn't you wait till the sun had risen enough to give you more light? But I really like the contrast between the neo-classical building & the streetlight & its shadow. The trees on the left could be cropped out a bit though?
Good luck in buying a tripod, they don't cost that much otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford one!

[4umfreak]

LOL, I use dcraw & exiftool to dump out the exif - I just pasted everything it gave me.

I was on my way to work and didn't have time to hang around waiting for better / different light.
I agree, it requires cropping to remove at least the car and white lights on the left side - I hadn't considered taking out the trees too.

I have a cheap tripod already, which is why I wasn't using it. The plastic head won't sit level no matter what I do to it. The only way to level it is by adjusting the leg length. I may have to drive over it sometime... and then replace it with something better.

Any thoughts on the noise in the image? Should I be able to get this shot with less?

[SandeeWig]

I don't know how the noise is at ISO 400 on the XT, but I know on my XSi, it can still get pretty noisy at 400. In fact, I won't take an image at a higher ISO than that if I plan to do anything other than share it online w/ family. That said, your image is soft because of the large aperture (f4) and slow shutter (1/6). Next time, I would close down your ap to about f8-f16, and see if you could find something to sit your camera on to double as a tripod so your shutter speed could be optimally slow for correct exposure.

[sk66]

That does seem a bit noisy for ISO400.....what processing was done?

And yes, SS still to slow, and yes kill your tripod and replace it with a better one.

[shruggy63]

In that light I doubt you'd get below ISO400 even with a tripod would you? Holy crap a massive spider just ran behind my monitor! DPS critique I like but it's very conservative. If you're trying to do stuff outside the 'envelope' you may not get entirely positive feedback. But I'd encourage you to break the rules & do your own thang!

[4umfreak]

No post-processing at all, except conversion from CR2 to jpg with UFRaw and saved @ 95% compression, then resized to 700px wide.

I'll retry the shot this weekend with some form of tripod.

Thanks for the input guys!

[sk66]

You almost always have to do some noise reduction when shooting in RAW. Your camera does it for you if you shoot in Jpeg.
The compression and resizing can add to the noise/softness as well (especially done in that order).

[4umfreak]

Originally Posted by sk66

You almost always have to do some noise reduction when shooting in RAW. Your camera does it for you if you shoot in Jpeg.
The compression and resizing can add to the noise/softness as well (especially done in that order).

Ok, that's good to know. I've noticed that too much noise reduction can soften edges but when used sparingly can clean things up quite a bit.

Thanks,