A few pics - Need night time advice

[DisneyDayTripper]

Here are a few pics I've taken just playing around getting to know our first DSLR, but I am having a lot of trouble taking pics at night. I'll show you one of the pics that I took that I thought would look amazing, but then I uploaded it and it didn't look as good as I thought.

http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs148.snc1/5495_534364407977_69600248_31788774_2164064_n.jpg


Why is the sky so grainy? What can I do to get rid of the graininess? I tried playing with settings, but couldn't figure anything out. Thanks for the help!

Here's a few others I've thought looked pretty cool...

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs128.snc1/5495_534136704297_69600248_31775296_4519227_n.jpg

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31606215&id=69600248

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs128.snc1/5495_533792833417_69600248_31756978_1368435_n.jpg

http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs148.snc1/5495_534364607577_69600248_31788780_7401656_n.jpg

http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs148.snc1/5495_534364632527_69600248_31788781_5428380_n.jpg

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs128.snc1/5495_534364737317_69600248_31788784_1793474_n.jpg

[racreel]

Why is the sky so grainy? What can I do to get rid of the graininess? I tried playing with settings, but couldn't figure anything out. Thanks for the help!


A high ISO could be the cause of the noise in the sky.

[handicap18]

Add the EXIFdata for each photo..... ie: shutter speed, f/stop and ISO.

Typically with night shots if your using a tripod you'll want your lowest ISO. This will help avoid getting noise in the dark area's. I like to use f/10 or f/11 for my night shots. That seems to be a sharp enough aperture and its small enough to help keep the light that is there from becoming to annoying. As for shutter speed, it will depend on your subject. Could be anywhere from 1/2 second to several minutes.

[zackiedawg]

Most bets are on high ISO settings that caused the graininess. There are two types of night shots you can take - one is more for still scenes or ones in which some motion blur is acceptable or desired, the other is for movement or action that you are trying to freeze without blur.

Type 1 is the most clean, vivid looking night shot, that most people favor and are likely talking about when they say 'night shot'. These are smooth, saturated, and lovely. And in order to do these, you need to set the camera to the LOWEST ISO setting, use a longer shutter speed usually measuring in the seconds, and you need to use a tripod or lay the camera on a level surface. Anything that moves will blur - but generally taking landscape type shots like your first one, you'd come out great unless it was a very windy night. Also, this technique would work with the fireworks, as often seeing the smooth streaks of light eminating out from the burst is a desirable effect. Car taillights will blur into long streaks, people will become streaky ghosts, etc.

Type 2 is for when you are taking candid type street shots, or trying to freeze a moving object. This might be a band playing at night on a stage, a person walking or moving where you do not want them to blur, or where there is lots of movement within the shot that you need to be sharp and distinguishable. For these shots, you must make compromises - in order to get that detail without blur, you need fast shutter speeds. In order to get fast shutter speeds, you need the sensor to find more light. A lens with a nice wide aperture will certainly help, which is why F1.4 and F1.7 lenses still sell well. But even those wide apertures can't find enough light at night...so you have to turn up the sensitivity of the sensor. Much like turning up the gain on a mike, or squelch on a two way radio, you introduce static or noise. In this case, graininess or noisyness in the shot. ISO is your 'gain' - turning up the ISO turns up the sensitivity. Most DSLRs are fine through ISO400...then at ISO800 start to get a bit more noise creeping in. At ISO1600, most DSLRs will have a fair amount of noise, but still plenty usable. Anything higher will likely have a lot of noise unless you're shooting high end full-frame sensors.

My guess is that you had high ISO on all those shots - at least 400, and maybe up to 800 or so. That's going to introduce some noise, and it also sometimes affects the saturation or color in the shot.

There are tons of aftermarket noise reduction tools you can buy that will effectively remove that noise from your shot - Neat Image, Nosie Ninja, Noiseware, Topaz DeNoise, Helicon Filter, Nik DFine, etc. Most are plug ins for post-processing software like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, but some are available as standalone programs as well.

Hope that helps!

[NostalgicDad]

Just to add another point regarding your question about graininess in the sky........long exposures can also introduce some noise into an image. Some sensors are better than others handling this and some DSLRs have built-in long exposure NR. I never find it necessary to use that feature with the D300 for my night shots, however, and always keep it turned off.