iso speed 1600

lukiedukie

I took a few portrait type pictures of a friend of mine using manual settings.
I didn't want to use a flash because there was enough light in the room and I like the warm tones of non-flash photography better. Anyway I din't realize it at the time but my iso was set to 1600. When I transfered the pictures to my pc they look all grainy and I'm very disappointed. Anyway I'm new to photography and am just trying to learn the manual settings instead of shooting automatic all the time. My question is -the less light you have the more iso speed you need but if the pictures come out grainy what is the point of it and what is the proper aplication you would use an iso speed of 1600?

Stan

It will depend on the camera, but unless that is the image you are looking for, anything over 400 iso on a D Rebel (300D) is not good for enhancing

ginger_55

lukiedukie wrote:

I took a few portrait type pictures of a friend of mine using manual settings.
I didn't want to use a flash because there was enough light in the room and I like the warm tones of non-flash photography better. Anyway I din't realize it at the time but my iso was set to 1600. When I transfered the pictures to my pc they look all grainy and I'm very disappointed. Anyway I'm new to photography and am just trying to learn the manual settings instead of shooting automatic all the time. My question is -the less light you have the more iso speed you need but if the pictures come out grainy what is the point of it and what is the proper aplication you would use an iso speed of 1600?

IMO, you use it when you have to or not shoot. I was in that position last night at a ballet rehearsal, full dress, etc. I was told I could shoot if I did not get in anyone's way and did not use flash. I put my camera on 400 ISO, my Rebel, that wouldn't work. In fact nothing less than 1600 at F5.6 would work, and I am pretty steady so I got some shots at 1/10 sec with the kit lens.

Some of them are more grainy than others. One is disappointing as it held such promise, but is just too grainy. On the other hand, I did get some shots I really like. That would not have been possible if I had shot on an ISO for a nice smooth shot.

You know, when I was heavily involved in learning photography back in the early 70s, I used to see a lot of "good", respected photographers, known for their indoor shots, without a flash. The shots were blk and white, that is what a lot of us did then. They were very grainy. And had no noticeable composition, in most cases, that I could detect. I have tried to emulate them. I like the style, but it is not respected right now, that I can tell. Also with digital I have trouble maintaining detail in a very grainy shot. Don't remember if that was an issue in the seventies.

Another time to use it would be if you had no tripod, it was getting dark, and you wanted that shot more than anything in the world. Usually when the activity is more important than esthetics, like sports, or your child, or something.

This is my opinion. My shot at 1600 ISO is entered in the Challenge. It is pretty clear, some were not so clear. If I put one up and it is not clear, it will usually be criticized.

ginger

ginger_55

I was just kind of talking on the ISO as to its usefulness, and I find it very useful.

But I would not purposely use it on a portrait............can't imagine any situation where I would. If I did, I would know there would be a lot of grain. In fact, in my ballet photo shoot last night at that ISO, I noticed that the closer I was to the subject the more grain there appeared to be.

You can shoot very nice portraits indoors, I know I have seen them in magazines, lol, using window light. So that would be during the day. Even at night, you could probably get your subject to sit still. And you could, as they say here, USE A TRIPOD.

Experimentation is good, it leads to questions like this. And some astounding successes.

ginger

Stan

ginger_55 wrote:

I was just kind of talking on the ISO as to its usefulness, and I find it very useful.

But I would not purposely use it on a portrait............can't imagine any situation where I would. If I did, I would know there would be a lot of grain. In fact, in my ballet photo shoot last night at that ISO, I noticed that the closer I was to the subject the more grain there appeared to be.

You can shoot very nice portraits indoors, I know I have seen them in magazines, lol, using window light. So that would be during the day. Even at night, you could probably get your subject to sit still. And you could, as they say here, USE A TRIPOD.

Experimentation is good, it leads to questions like this. And some astounding successes.
ginger

I agree if the grain is the look you are trying to get, grain can be a real asset to the shot, creating lots of atmosphere, many war correspondant shots were grainy, giving a grit to the image. In general photography where purity of colour and light is the goal, it has a limited application. And is then used when apperture is fully open and the exposure time becomes impractical.

lukiedukie

Stan wrote:

I agree if the grain is the look you are trying to get, grain can be a real asset to the shot, creating lots of atmosphere, many war correspondant shots were grainy, giving a grit to the image. In general photography where purity of colour and light is the goal, it has a limited application. And is then used when apperture is fully open and the exposure time becomes impractical.

thanks for all your input. I will know next time to pay attention to the iso speed. THese pictures I took need to be posted on my friends website for his dental practice-do you think they will look ok in that format (probably a thumbnail size) or will the graininess be visible?

ginger_55

lukiedukie wrote:

thanks for all your input. I will know next time to pay attention to the iso speed. THese pictures I took need to be posted on my friends website for his dental practice-do you think they will look ok in that format (probably a thumbnail size) or will the graininess be visible?

I think they will be OK in that size. I did not realize my problem til I tried to PS the photos in a size larger than a thumb nail.

I forget that ISO all the time. I shot at 1600 late morning, 200 photos one time.

My husband now reminds me, if he is with me. I should have a check off list while I am getting this manual stuff down. I used the automatic til July or Aug or something. It was the fault of this group, anyway. Now it seems there is so much to remember, and the ISO is the worst, it is easy to forget.

Good Luck, I think the shots will be fine.

ginger

pathfinder

Stan wrote:

It will depend on the camera, but unless that is the image you are looking for, anything over 400 iso on a D Rebel (300D) is not good for enhancing

The 300D and the 10D have the same sensor - APS sized chip - And the images should be comparable. Grain is a function of ISO used and underexposure.

Here is an image I shot in Oct 2003 with a 10D at ISO 800 in large jpg - not RAW F1.4 1/20th


Grain is not too objectionable here and the image is fairly sharp considering the aperature and shutter speed and that the sea horse was moving.

The next image was shot at ISO 1600 in Nov 2004 with a 20D
Shot in RAW F3.2 1/125th converted in Adobe Raw convertor



Both of these images have been slightly cropped, so a full frame image would have slightly less grain than this. Ginger, is your image of the dancer a full frame or a significant crop. The grain seems much more than these images on my monitor?

Point and Shoot cameras have light sensing chips significantly smaller than the APS sized sensors in the 300D, 10D, D70, D100 etc. The light sensing pixel wells in the P&S cameras are much smaller than in the DSLRs, and they exhibit substantially more noise above ISO 200 as a result. A result of sensor size - and physics, I am afraid.

ginger_55

pathfinder wrote:

The 300D and the 10D have the same sensor - APS sized chip - And the images should be comparable. Grain is a function of ISO used and underexposure.

Here is an image I shot in Oct 2003 with a 10D at ISO 800 in large jpg - not RAW F1.4 1/20th


Grain is not too objectionable here and the image is fairly sharp considering the aperature and shutter speed and that the sea horse was moving.

The next image was shot at ISO 1600 in Nov 2004 with a 20D
Shot in RAW F3.2 1/125th converted in Adobe Raw convertor



Both of these images have been slightly cropped, so a full frame image would have slightly less grain than this. Ginger, is your image of the dancer a full frame or a significant crop. The grain seems much more than these images on my monitor?

Point and Shoot cameras have light sensing chips significantly smaller than the APS sized sensors in the 300D, 10D, D70, D100 etc. The light sensing pixel wells in the P&S cameras are much smaller than in the DSLRs, and they exhibit substantially more noise above ISO 200 as a result. A result of sensor size - and physics, I am afraid.

It is a bit of a crop. Did you see my entry in the Challenge, nowhere near the grain of the dancer, same ISO, neither underexposed, both F5.6.

Oh heck, I will show you. First a medium of the challenge entry. I had to crop a bit of obstruction off of the left side, I left the curtain on the right side. Next will be the dancer, probably the same amt of crop or less.







Because this is a smaller photo of the dancer, you do not see the same amt of grain. I have seen both in the original on smugmug and examined them extensively. The dancer is definitely grainier. They were both on the same memory card and over half way through the shoot. I think it is the distance, but I don't have the experience to know. All the shots like the top one are decent without an impossible amt of grain, or nowhere near the amt of grain of the dancer.

ginger (I sure would like a 20D myself. I think it would do better. I read a review of it the other day.) Mine is a Rebel. Both photos were RAW. Neither looked underexposed in any way. One thing the dancer was hurrying to get off the stage with the little girl, and I grabbed the shot on the run, so to speak. Don't know if that would make a difference.

http://gingerSnap.smugmug.com/gallery/305091/1/12159284


That is the link to the smugmug gallery they are in. You know when I blow the little girl way up, under original, I still think it is beautiful, like a turn of the century painting, 19th/20th, not this century, smile.

It really could be how fast she was moving. I asked her to wait and she just went faster, so I grabbed a shot, didn't know what I had til I looked. There were people all over the stage, if I were using a tripod the whole thing would have been impossible.

lynnma

Pathfinder this is beautiful... it's a magic sea horse right?? I love it...I thought it only lived in my dreams

DoctorIt

There are a couple easy tricks you can do in PS to make the grain at least look better. The way the Drebel outputs the grain at ISO1600 usually isn't too appealing, at least to me. You can go two ways, you can soften the photo a bit using a guassian blur on a seperate layer, OR if you like grain, actually normalize it by adding more grain - noise, make the distribution guassian again, and monochrome. Sometimes makes a nice effect, especially in b/w.

pathfinder

lynnma wrote:

Pathfinder this is beautiful... it's a magic sea horse right?? I love it...I thought it only lived in my dreams

Yup, it is a sea horse - there are about a dozen of them in the Aquarium in Chattanooga. Very dim lighting - dim, even for eyesight, let alone photography.
I was happy to capture any image of them - they are truly one of those creatures that are hard to believe are real when you see them. There are also sargaso type sea horses there too - again it is very dark and they are hard to shoot as they are in continuous motion.

pathfinder

DoctorIt wrote:

There are a couple easy tricks you can do in PS to make the grain at least look better. The way the Drebel outputs the grain at ISO1600 usually isn't too appealing, at least to me. You can go two ways, you can soften the photo a bit using a guassian blur on a seperate layer, OR if you like grain, actually normalize it by adding more grain - noise, make the distribution guassian again, and monochrome. Sometimes makes a nice effect, especially in b/w.

You can switch to LAB color space and GB the a and b channels strongly on an adjustment layer, to decrease the grain. Only works so and so for me....

Michiel de Brieder

Hi there Lukie
Many good points have crossed this thread already but there's more to using digital grain... Portraits can look very nice with a little grain added expecially in black and white. The first thing I learned about grain is that you have to learn to appreciate the trade-off... get pics, but grainy, or get no-pics. The choice is easy for me.. I've just started shooting some concerts, if you're interested you can find some of the examples here:
http://www.pbase.com/giel/d30_events
I can't wait to shoot my first concert with the 20D I'll start off at ISO 3200 and if it doesn't work I'll underexpose it a full stop to push it to 6400 in post
For now noise is a thing we must learn to live with!
Cheers

wxwax

Noise Ninja does a nice job. It essentially does what a Gaussian blur layer would do in PS, I reckon, don't know for sure. So that means you lose a little sharpness along with losing the noise.

wxwax

Michiel de Brieder wrote:

Many good points have crossed this thread already but there's more to using digital grain... Portraits can look very nice with a little grain added expecially in black and white. The first thing I learned about grain is that you have to learn to appreciate the trade-off... get pics, but grainy, or get no-pics. The choice is easy for me.. I've just started shooting some concerts, if you're interested you can find some of the examples here:
http://www.pbase.com/giel/d30_events
I can't wait to shoot my first concert with the 20D I'll start off at ISO 3200 and if it doesn't work I'll underexpose it a full stop to push it to 6400 in post
For now noise is a thing we must learn to live with!
Cheers

One thing to note is that digital camera grain is different from, and less attractive than, film grain when the shot is in color. Digital grains shows up as all sorts of colors, and can be rather ugly, IMHO.

ginger_55

wxwax wrote:

Noise Ninja does a nice job. It essentially does what a Gaussian blur layer would do in PS, I reckon, don't know for sure. So that means you lose a little sharpness along with losing the noise.

Yes, I was thinking of looking for a free trial on Noise Ninja, since the other one seems to have run out. I so rarely use it, but sure could have used it on this angel portrait I have been working on. Kelby has a many steps layered method that actually really did take out a lot of the noise, yes blur was used there, too, but light, dark and different layers. I put the page number down, page 214, and only 12 steps. Then Snappy came along and added some (many) touches. Amazing what was done. IMO It is on the People thread.
From beginning to end. 1600 ISO, no flash, those were the terms.

Thankfully, the look on this "portrait" can be a little soft, IMO. Who knows what angels look like.

ginger

Michiel de Brieder

Yes, I agree
BUT, there are some handy-dandy tools
My main point is actually a good B/W conversion... to be honest I think the noise in a B/W converted photo from the 20D @ ISO 3200 I have an ISO 3200 shot here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=4150
it's the church shot, sure I could have taken a tripod, but I'm actually quite satisfied with this result
As I've been doing some concert shooting with a D30, which is by no means perfect @ ISO 1600 I know what you mean.. Heavy post processing makes them usable luckily (I did a 30x45cm print from this shot:

ISO 1600, noise reduction = only an adjustment layer of selective colour black to pump the blacks, and a slight curves adjustent That guy was HAPPY as I gave him the photo! I even got a free cd of his band )
okay, hope I didn't bore you with my rambling

wxwax

No, no, not at all, ramble away, please, you have great things to share with us. Very nice photo! I agree completely about B&W, it does look good there, digital or not.

photocat

Here is an image I shot in Oct 2003 with a 10D at ISO 800 in large jpg - not RAW F1.4 1/20th


Wow Pathfinder.. I was looking at that thing and wondering if it was beaded and handmade. Only in scrolling down I saw that it is a seahorse...
Lovely lovely... looks like a water ballet dancer so to speak.
How lovely... (OK, it is after bedtime, my word choice is limited)