confused and disappointed, or should I be?

SnapTheFrog

Hello everyone!

I just returned from a long trip to Japan with tons of pictures. This trip has been a dream of mine for several years, though the jet lag was a nightmare

I finally uploaded all my pics only to find a speckled grain in them. Here's an example. You may have to zoom in a little.

I was using a Canon S2 IS, shooting in program mode using Fine (not super fine). Film speed is 400.
Size: 2048x1536 Bytes: 989567 Aperture: f/3.5 Focal Length: 11.6mm (guess: 55mm in 35mm) Exposure Time: 0.0166s (1/60)
Any ideas what caused this? I'm really disappointed because when I took some of the shots I figured later I could zoom and crop and print something for my wall, but with this grain I can't.
Also, is there a Photoshop filter or technic to correct this?

Thanks to everyone and I'll be sure to post a line so I can bore you with my travel shots.
It's good to be home.

rainforest1155

Don't be disappointed. The key to the problem you see is the ISO 400 - and for ISO 400 the picture still looks good (I had a look at the original)! The higher the ISO, the higher the sensitivity of the chip that captures the picture which results in this colored grain you describe.
You notice the noise more on screen and not so much on a normal print. So don't try fixing something that ain't broken. Yes, there are ways to reduce the noise, but most of the time at the cost of details. If you don't watch out, those noise reducing programs will let your picture look like plastic. Often I find myself putting too much noise reduction on that I throw the result away and go for the original without any noise reduction.
In Photoshop you should have something in Filter/Noise called reduce noise - try it. If you don't find such a thing you could also have a look at the free version of noiseware.

Hope this helps,
Sebastian

DavidTO

There's two kinds of noise there. Luminance and color. You can get rid of the color noise easily by changing the mode to LAB and selecting both the A and B channels and applying a gaussian blur to them. Luminance is harder and a longer answer than I have time for, someone else can pick up there.

SnapTheFrog

rainforest1155 wrote:

Don't be disappointed. The key to the problem you see is the ISO 400 - and for ISO 400 the picture still looks good (I had a look at the original)! The higher the ISO, the higher the sensitivity of the chip that captures the picture which results in this colored grain you describe.
Sebastian

So shooting in ISO 200 would greatly reduce the noise? Thank you for the info. I'll be sure to change my settings.

I'm also glad to hear that it's more apparent on the screen than on the print.
(big sigh of relef)

Again, thank you.

SnapTheFrog

DavidTO wrote:

There's two kinds of noise there. Luminance and color. You can get rid of the color noise easily by changing the mode to LAB and selecting both the A and B channels and applying a gaussian blur to them. Luminance is harder and a longer answer than I have time for, someone else can pick up there.

I'll try the LAB tip. Judging from Seabastians post it may not be as much of a n issue as I first thought. I'll let you know how the photoshop works out for me.

Thanks for the tip.

rainforest1155

SnapTheFrog wrote:

So shooting in ISO 200 would greatly reduce the noise? Thank you for the info. I'll be sure to change my settings.

Yes, shooting at lower ISO should result in less noise, but there's also a downside as it'll also increase the time the shutter needs to be open in order to get the same amount of light into the lens which could result in blurry pictures depending on how solid you hold the camera and how fast your subjects move.

For example in your sample picture the hand of the older man with glasses would've been even more blurred with a lower ISO. So it's always a trade off between sharp and grainy pictures vs. blurry / soft pictures. Best would be if you ran a test series with your camera in different light conditions with various ISOs. Then at home have a look at the results and the shutterspeeds.

Sebastian

SnapTheFrog

rainforest1155 wrote:

Yes, shooting at lower ISO should result in less noise, but there's also a downside as it'll also increase the time the shutter needs to be open in order to get the same amount of light into the lens which could result in blurry pictures depending on how solid you hold the camera and how fast your subjects move.

For example in your sample picture the hand of the older man with glasses would've been even more blurred with a lower ISO. So it's always a trade off between sharp and grainy pictures vs. blurry / soft pictures. Best would be if you ran a test series with your camera in different light conditions with various ISOs. Then at home have a look at the results and the shutterspeeds.

Sebastian

The camera has an 'Auto' setting for ISO speed, but that's one feature I don't have much faith in working the way I'd like.
I don't mind shooting at a lower speed and the camera has anti-shake which works very good. I'll just have to be mindful of the light and change the setting as needed.