Photo Walks Today

There are a few techniques photographers use to reduce camera noise.

1.  ISO – on all digital cameras there is an ISO setting which tells the camera how sensitive to light it must be. The lower numbers, like ISO 100 or 200 indicate that you are taking the photo in a bright, well lit area. Examples: A sunny day at the ball game, a bright overcast day during the fall or summer or standing on a theatre stage.  When you are faced with lower light situations – the night ball game, or fast moving action like winter soccer games you can change the ISO to a higher number. Like 400, 800, 1200 and depending on the camera maybe higher. This gives you the ability to capture the action, but the trade-off is a very noisy image.
2. Exposure time – Another time your camera will produce noisy image happens when you push your exposure times. An example might be an after sunset shot, where the exposure time may be 15 to 30 seconds. I’ve found my camera produces noisier shots the longer the shutter is left open. It might be better to trade a little depth of field and open the lens up to a larger F/stop and shorten the exposure time.
3. Noise reduction setting when you extend the ISO and exposure times many digital cameras have a noise reduction setting inside the menu command. Be sure to toggle it on before the shot. Turn it off for other shots. I’ve heard many cameras produce very noisy looking photos if the setting is left on under normal conditions.
4. Don’t push your camera optics you should avoid shooting with your zoom extended to the maximum. Especially if you didn’t pay for the top of the line lens. My 75-300mm zoom telephoto lens starts degrading and producing ‘noisey’ looking photos at around 200mm. I can get the shot, but lose the sharp detail. Try using your sneaker zoom to move closer if detail matters.
5. Watch the light angles – shooting into the light is much more likely to produce a poor image, but with a digital you are even more likely to get a grainy looking ‘pushed’ look. Can you aide the exposure by using your flash in this case?
6. Buy the best camera you can afford – larger sensors, better glass optics and engineering helps produce the sharpest photo possible. If you plan on selling your photos, or want high quality enlargements you’ll be much happier spending the time and money on a higher end digital SLR. There are many Prosumer digital cameras out there. Don’t mistake their design for quality. The lower priced digital SLR camera generally have smaller sensors. While the sensors are bigger than their point and shoot brothers, they may still not be big enough to produce a noise free image.

All is not lost if you have a camera that produces noisy or grainy images. In the next post I’ll talk about how to reduce noise in post processing. (When you are editing it in your computer software).

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