Grainy Noisy Photos ?? with examples Help Required.

[Horoscope Fish]

at the risk of sounding ignorant & repeating myself please read the various posts i've made where i said i took 209 images all at different settings including various picture control settings & various adjustments in them including aperture f3.5-f22 on both lenses 35 mm f1.8g & 18-55mm f3.5 VR2.

Great. I'm glad you took 209 images at different setting and various control settings. The pictures you are posting were shot at f/22 using the Neutral Picture Control with a Sharpness setting of "2" so what are we to base our advice on if not the shots you are presenting?

I suggest you go out and shoot some new shots with the settings suggested instead of posting shots nothing can be done about because they were shot at f/22 using the Neutral Picture Control, with Active D-Lighting and so forth.
....

 

[Nikon Newb]

The thing is they are not noisy and grainy,they are flat and dull,you may see noise if you go to 100% but dont do that its irrelevant.

Perhaps that's what I'm disliking I'm seeing the image wit my eyes obviously & I then take the image on the camera with various different settings & I can get close to that,are you saying every single image out of the camera needs processing ?

 

[Nikon Newb]

If anyone wants to post any setups picture control aperture ISO shutter speed happy to try with various images & post afterwards.

Thanks

 

[mikew_RIP]

First question is have you got good light there at the moment as we have dull and overcast in my part of the uk,

 

[10 Gauge]

are you saying every single image out of the camera needs processing ?

To me, this is a definite yes, but for one I ONLY shoot in RAW so I am forced to process every single photo I take. Sure I could just convert them and post them but they would look absolutely pants.

I've seen some SOOC JPG shots with the right picture control settings that have looked pretty darn good and that is how a lot of people shoot and post, never processing their images. That's a personal preference. My preference is to play with every single photo I take in post to make it look as good my skills possibly allow and typically I see pretty good results. Sometimes I re-edit an old image just for fun using new tricks I've learned and can turn a photo I only kind of liked in to something I'd be happy to put on my wall. Same photo just better processing.

 

[Nikon Newb]

Great. I'm glad you took 209 images at different setting and various control settings. The pictures you are posting were shot at f/22 using the Neutral Picture Control with a Sharpness setting of "2" so what are we to base our advice on if not the shots you are presenting?

I suggest you go out and shoot some new shots with the settings suggested instead of posting shots nothing can be done about because they were shot at f/22 using the Neutral Picture Control, with Active D-Lighting and so forth.
....

i cant post every image as a lot are over 10mb limit i will read through the various picture control settings mentioned in this topic & screenshot them on iphone & take various different images & post back too see what the verdict is.

thank for taking the time to reply.

 

[10 Gauge]

Oh and a big thing, a really big thing. Don't get discouraged. There will be days you go out and take a load of pictures, come home, and not be overly happy with a single one of them. I've had days like this, thinking I got some great shots, but after looking at them on the big screen I was just underwhelmed. You can't expect that every time you take your camera out that you're going to get award winning shots, sometimes it just doesn't pan out like you had wanted. Just keep after it and the ones you're really proud of will accumulate over time.

Don't be afraid to play around with black & white either. Sometimes a shot looks 100x better in B&W than it does in color.

 

[Elliot87]

i cant post every image as a lot are over 10mb limit i will read through the various picture control settings mentioned in this topic & screenshot them on iphone & take various different images & post back too see what the verdict is.

thank for taking the time to reply.

If you have the option with the software you are using, export your images with the long edge set to a maximum length of 1000 pixels. This will reduce the file size. That is the largest this forum can display, anything longer than that will be resized when you import.

 

[Nikon Newb]

Oh and a big thing, a really big thing. Don't get discouraged. There will be days you go out and take a load of pictures, come home, and not be overly happy with a single one of them. I've had days like this, thinking I got some great shots, but after looking at them on the big screen I was just underwhelmed. You can't expect that every time you take your camera out that you're going to get award winning shots, sometimes it just doesn't pan out like you had wanted. Just keep after it and the ones you're really proud of will accumulate over time.

Don't be afraid to play around with black & white either. Sometimes a shot looks 100x better in B&W than it does in color.

i have deleted thousands of images i have viewed on the screen thinking they look tack sharp only to get home & view them on imac only to go yuck delete.

so far I'm trying iso 100-400 Range.
& camera profile Normal with plus 7 sharpening & plus 1 Saturation i just realised i had these settings in neutral profile doh

& also suggested was Vivid profile with +7 sharpening +2 Saturation.
with my Aperture at F5.6 up to F10 max and my shutter speed at 1/100 & above


ill get various different photos taken & see how they look when i post in here.


thanks to various people replying with advice.

 

[mikew_RIP]

i have deleted thousands of images i have viewed on the screen thinking they look tack sharp only to get home & view them on imac only to go yuck delete.

so far I'm trying iso 100-400 Range.
& camera profile Normal with plus 7 sharpening & plus 1 Saturation i just realised i had these settings in neutral profile doh

& also suggested was Vivid profile with +7 sharpening +2 Saturation.
with my Aperture at F5.6 up to F10 max and my shutter speed at 1/100 & above


ill get various different photos taken & see how they look when i post in here.


thanks to various people replying with advice.

Take it steady with the changes look carefully at what you have,the answer is in those settings and ime sure you will find it.

 

[Bourbon Neat]

Firstly, I like what your going for and your compositions are mostly good. You obviously have an eye for capturing what is there.
The shots you have posted look to clean up pretty good in Lightroom.

How many hours does it take to become an average photographer? How much study is involved? How much practice?

I have taken over 10,000 digital images and would not consider myself much at this hobby. I do believe my end results have improved since joining this forum less than a year ago. There are some really talented and heavily experienced members here who are willing to give advice to anyone without fee. Most images posted here will include the exposure information if a mouse pointer is hovered over the image. View the photos that you think are what you want to achieve and check the information as a starting point for your similar captures.

The lighting and exposure triangle is so very important for the basis of a good shot. It takes book study and experimentation to get a handle on that. Depth of field which is altered using the aperture will take book study and experimentation. Post processing to get the most out of what your sensor captured will take book study an experimentation. Understanding each of the steps will bring it all together for you.

There are no shortcuts to any worthwhile goal, they all must be earned through hard work and dedication. You have a nice camera that will produce what you expect it to, it will take your efforts at book study and experimentation to get there. It will not happen over night or after 250 shots and the frustrations will lessen over time.

Note: Book study was old school and pretty much equals video clips on the internet. I for one would not rule out hard copies all together though. Adobe has zillions of tutorials to get the most of your images using their software.

 

[Nikon Newb]

Firstly, I like what your going for and your compositions are mostly good. You obviously have an eye for capturing what is there.
The shots you have posted look to clean up pretty good in Lightroom.

How many hours does it take to become an average photographer? How much study is involved? How much practice?

I have taken over 10,000 digital images and would not consider myself much at this hobby. I do believe my end results have improved since joining this forum less than a year ago. There are some really talented and heavily experienced members here who are willing to give advice to anyone without fee. Most images posted here will include the exposure information if a mouse pointer is hovered over the image. View the photos that you think are what you want to achieve and check the information as a starting point for your similar captures.

The lighting and exposure triangle is so very important for the basis of a good shot. It takes book study and experimentation to get a handle on that. Depth of field which is altered using the aperture will take book study and experimentation. Post processing to get the most out of what your sensor captured will take book study an experimentation. Understanding each of the steps will bring it all together for you.

There are no shortcuts to any worthwhile goal, they all must be earned through hard work and dedication. You have a nice camera that will produce what you expect it to, it will take your efforts at book study and experimentation to get there. It will not happen over night or after 250 shots and the frustrations will lessen over time.

Note: Book study was old school and pretty much equals video clips on the internet. I for one would not rule out hard copies all together though. Adobe has zillions of tutorials to get the most of your images using their software.

agree with that

i'm not expecting miracles overnight i've read & i'm still currently reading books from scott kelby digital photrgraphy volume 1 to 4 & Bruce Barnbaum's the art of photography & various others to try and improve my knowledge,I prefer a book to video myself.

thanks.

 

[Blacktop]

As i said previously I'm a beginner hence my forum name I'm not even at the stage of contemplating composition light & shadows & highlights etc I understand they are major ingredients for baking the cake of a great photo,but I would be happy just now with smooth in focus images.

the photo of the plaques on the wall etc was a complete rush security allowed me into that area to get the photograph for like 10/20secs so I popped the flash & took what I could rather fast.

i have a Nikon sb-700 flash but didn't have it on the camera at the time & time was at a premium then.

any advice will be taken on board happy for some trial & error and learning from mistakes & advice.

This is exactly what you should be contemplating. Without these things, you will not get the results you seek. You might as well just not even get out of your car, just point the camera out the window and click the shutter. OR better yet, stick to your iPhone.
I dont mean to sound harsh, but people here have given you some good advice. If you are not willing to follow at least a few, or even start Googling tutorial videos, then there is not much else we can do for you.

 

[Blacktop]

I understand that and yes we cannot look at 209 photos but we can look at one and see if anything you are doing now has made it better or worse, also do you understand the exposure triangle?

Light is the key to photography without it you will have dull lifeless photos, you can introduce light by natural light and shooting in the golden hours, or artificially by various LED light, speedlights etc.

View attachment 174673

This. A thousand times this!

 

[aroy]

I think that you are trying various adjustments to find which will work for you. I have D3300 and both the lenses you have. Here is what you can try

. "A" - aperture priority
. ISO - 100
. Aperture - F4 to F8. Avoid using higher F stops
. Metering - Matrix
. AF - AFS, that will give a confirmation "Beep" when it is in focus
. Select the Centre for AF, that is most sensitive
. File - RAW

You can ignore the other settings as they can be applied in Capture NX-D when you process RAW files.

Just be aware of a few things
. Regions marginally out of focus will be soft and not tack sharp, any motion blur and camera shake will also result in soft images.
. At F1.8, the DOF is very narrow, so use it only for portraits, for architecture F8 is optimal.
. RAW files are 12 bit, JPG 8 bits, so latitude for recovery of shadows and exposure compensation is much more in RAW. Use jpeg only when you need the space and delivery speed.
. The 18-55 is a reasonably sharp lens at F8.
. 18-55 at 55mm can get you real close and gives a magnification of 0.3+. Use that setting for close ups.
. Inbuilt flash has a guide number of 12, which means at F8 you have only 1.5m of usable range.
. External flash usually have a usable range of 10m or more (depends on the focal length, the longer it is the more range in advanced flash as the beam narrows).
. For indoor shots use external flash with head pointed up. Use matrix metering and if needed Exposure Compensation of +1.
. Spot metering gets the exposure right only around the spot. Any region brighter will be over exposed and darker under exposed.
. The usable ISO for D3200 and D3300 is 400, if you want medium shadows clean.

I hope this can help you.

 

[Nikon Newb]

apologies for my slow response I've had login problems etc but anyway here is aphoto i took today around 6:45am UK time
image is of RMS Titanic Visitor Centre with Harland & Wolff shipyard Belfast in the back ground where Titanic was built.

question is have i improved any what could i have done better etc ?
PS I'm still using exactly the same equipment as original post.

 

[Danno]

apologies for my slow response I've had login problems etc but anyway here is aphoto i took today around 6:45am UK time
image is of RMS Titanic Visitor Centre with Harland & Wolff shipyard Belfast in the back ground where Titanic was built.

question is have i improved any what could i have done better etc ?
PS I'm still using exactly the same equipment as original post.

View attachment 200381

I think, given all I read this morning in this thread, the question should be, do you think this shot is better? Was the result closer to what you have been hoping for. If yes Great! I could tell you I like it, but that does not really matter. What matters today is do you feel you made progress.

What could you do to get better... Practice... Study... Watch Videos on light, the exposure triangle and listen and learn from these guys here. Every shot is different, because the light and motion is different. You cannot figure out how to handle by constantly asking what could I have done better. That moment may never come again. Knowing how to address the light is the answer and the composition. I know, because once and a great while I get it right, and other times not so much, but by making the mistakes and knowing how to adjust for them I do think I am improving.

I have been doing this since October 2014. It is a a slow process that takes time and some level of commitment if you want the photos to be good. You have been given some really good advice in these 10 pages or so. There are a ton of YouTube videos on this stuff. Watch some stuff on the exposure triangle. I would give you names but I literally have issues with memory and this morning I cannot pull any back. Go to the D3200 Subforum guys with the same camera. I learned a lot there when I got mine.

Welcome to the forum... and good luck and good learning...