Question

[Judy Peck]

I took family photos with a Nikon D80 at F/16, ISO 640, 55 focal length, flash and I used a tripod. Can't remember shutter speed. Part of the backdrop was a red wall. All of my pictures are "grainy" especially when zoomed. Focus not wonderful. What did I do wrong?

[sk66]

All digital images look grainy when zoomed in, especially beyond 100%....Probably wasn't enough light for good autofocus performance....why f/16?

ISO 640 on the D60 isn't all that great. That's a bit of the issue too.

[autofocus]

+1 agree with SK and Max above. My question is how large was your group, how were they arranged, and did you selectively focus, or let the camera do it, and what mode did you shoot in...you may have had a too slow shutter speed using F/16 causing subject blur? In most group shot circumstances with adequate light, ~F/8 and 400 ISO should be fine

[SwissJon]

+1 to max.. Anything above 400 ISO will be grainy.. Even on film.. ISO 400 is quite grainy too if you zoom in.

Suggest you go down to something like ISO 200 and F9, you should still have the depth of field you need for a decent shot, but the grain should be much less.

[sk66]

The D80 is quite good up to ISO 800. At 800 noise just starts to show. The biggest issue with ISO noise is having anything underexposed..that makes the issues MUCH worse. On my D3 I don't even consider ISO unless it's going above 1600.
But using flash the ISO could have been lower without a problem.....
Using flash and tripod I don't think the focus issue has anything to do with SS (which should have been 1/200, the D80's sync speed).

BTW, were the images properly exposed? It really sounds to me like you were in manual mode with the flash not runnning hard enough......