What’s Your Preference?

j259680 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-23-2009, 03:28 AM

Hi,
I am trying to figure out what causes noise in my landscape pictures. I just took pictures of the beach/ocean and the sky has a lot of noise plus the plants that are far away on a cliff are really blurry. I was wondering if the amount of noise has something to do with the camera sensor I am using.. Or it's normal for landscape photography and one just have to digitally enhance it to remove the noise. Thanks.

This is my setup -
Body: Rebel XS/1000D
Lens: Canon EF 17-40mm, 1:4 L
Filter: Circular Pol Rodenstock HR Digital

settings:
1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 100 @17mm

sk66 · #2 (**permalink**) 03-23-2009, 03:48 AM

post an image to go with the question/exif....In the critique section would be best.

kencaleno · #3 (**permalink**) 03-23-2009, 04:02 AM

Polarizers are pretty good at attracting noise if you don't know what you're doing...
-Solution afterwards photoshop:

-Noise (Luma -Grainy noise)

- Ctrl+J
-Smart blur/gaussian blur-Then eraser tool to expose background features
-flatten and save

BabetteKD · #4 (**permalink**) 03-23-2009, 04:04 AM

Layer mask is better than using the eraser. If you mess up, you can only go back so far. Layer mask is fully recoverable.

kencaleno · #5 (**permalink**) 03-23-2009, 04:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kencaleno

Polarizers are pretty good at attracting noise if you don't know what you're doing...
-Solution afterwards photoshop:

-Noise (Luma -Grainy noise)

- Ctrl+J
-Smart blur/gaussian blur-Then eraser tool to expose background features
-flatten and save

And at 17mm and f11,if you focus(hyperfocal distance) at 1500mm (5 feet) all will be acceptably sharp from 750mm (2 feet 6 inches) to as far as you can see (no blurry mountains)

were you using a tripod? If not,shame on you. Regards, Ken

Doug Pardee · #6 (**permalink**) 03-23-2009, 04:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by j259680

I am trying to figure out what causes noise in my landscape pictures. I just took pictures of the beach/ocean and the sky has a lot of noise

Digital sensors are fairly insensitive to blue light. The data from the blue sensor elements has to be amplified quite a bit. Noise basically comes from amplification, so anything bright blue will usually have more noise than other colors.

You'll probably find, though, that when printed the noise is invisible. It's really easy to get worked-up over noise that isn't visible in a print. If you look at any digital photo at 100% you'll see noise. It's not possible to reduce noise without reducing detail, so you want to do as little noise reduction as necessary to get good prints. Also, a digital photo without noise looks like it is less sharp than one with a little bit of noise.

Quote:

plus the plants that are far away on a cliff are really blurry.

That's something different. To figure out what's up, we'll need to see a photo that shows what you're experiencing.

One thing that might help… remove the circular polarizer. A polarizing filter typically cuts 1-1/2 to 2 stops of light, requiring higher ISO (more noise), wider aperture (shallower depth of field), and/or slower shutter speeds (wind-blur and camera-shake). A polarizing filter also tends to give uneven coloring in skies when used with a wide-angle lens like your 17-40. You can get nice blue skies by getting the exposure right without using a polarizer.