camera noise

[u suck.com]

besides reducing ISO, what other ways are there to reduce camera noise? i get a lot of 'noise' especially on dark areas in photos...

[another view]

An underexposed shot will do this, but the dark area of an image will probably be dark enough that it's below what the sensor can record. Hard to explain - negative film has more exposure latitude, digital has less - a lot like slide film. Those dark shadow areas are outside this latitude (compared to the main part of the shot which is inside of this latitude) and that's where the noise happens first.

Outside of lowering the ISO setting, you could use noise reduction software or try to crop those areas out as much as you can (in camera is best, not later in Photoshop). I've never used noise reduction software, but one brand is Noise Ninja - there's a few of them out there.

It also depends on the camera. Compact digital point & shoot cameras have tiny sensors, and high ISO speeds get very noisy. On mine, I start noticing it even at 200. DSLR's have much larger sensors which are less noisy - ISO800 on my DSLR is better than my point & shoot at 200.

[u suck.com]

hm..does slower shutter speeds increase 'noise'?

[another view]

Maybe. Digital cameras keep getting better all the time, and it's not as much of a problem as it once was. Even then, it was a problem with earlier cameras with an exposure longer than a second or so.

What camera are you shooting, and can you post an example with the settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperture)?

[Arctirus]

Someone just mentioned a product called noise ninja to me this morning. I plan to check it out: http://www.picturecode.com

[Sebastian]

hm..does slower shutter speeds increase 'noise'?

Absolutely.

[u suck.com]

Maybe. Digital cameras keep getting better all the time, and it's not as much of a problem as it once was. Even then, it was a problem with earlier cameras with an exposure longer than a second or so.

What camera are you shooting, and can you post an example with the settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperture)?

just took this pic to show the 'noise' ..it's taken at F4.0 and 1/80 sec. shutter speed....with ISO 100

*if u look closely, u can see lots of 'noise' at the cloud area..

[Mig]

Those are jpeg artifacts - the result of too much jpeg compression. I would check the settings on your camera - change it to the highest quality jpeg setting your camera has and try again. Good luck!

Danielle

[u suck.com]

i dont think there's such settings on my cam...

[Mig]

It does - the FZ3 (I'm assuming this is the one you're talking about - if not, well don't read the rest ) has TIFF (best image quality), Jpeg Fine and Jpeg Standard, at least according to this. You also have the ability to change the pixel dimensions. Your manual should have instructions on how to set both.

Also remember that digital zoom is the equivalent of cropping in an image editor, so if you're using that in combination with the jpeg standard you're going to see an apparent increase in the size of the artifacts.

Danielle

[u suck.com]

haha..u're right..there IS tht setting...hav to try TIFF...

[another view]

TIFF will give you a really big file size, but it's of course the best way to rule out the possibility of JPEG artifacts... You should be OK with the highest quality setting on JPEG though. Other points of using the lowest ISO setting and not using digital zoom are important too.

1/80 really isn't a long shutter speed, not long enough to cause noise. Long shutter speeds can cause noise, but you'd have to get much slower than that for it to be a concern.