I have a sony dsc-v1 that I've been using for years. I have been on many photo shoots with it and its always performed well.

Today I went out to take pics and everything went well, until I uploaded the photos. Everything looks grainy, and I can't figure out what setting I messed up.

Heres 2 pics from today, shot at f8, 1/20th sec





Heres a pic from 2 weeks ago, forgot the settings



Any help will be appreciated!

(edit) Wow, the pics dont look too bad when image shack resizes them, but at full rez they look terrible.

 

 

Why F8? While you did use a slow shutter, I suspect the camera automatically boosted the ISO since the scene probably wasn't too bright.


Nice. I caught it before I couldn't edit.

I looked at your EXIF data from one of the pics. The ISO was at 400.

On an SLR, 400 is fairly usable. But small cameras have tiny chips which already have high baseline noise. If you had used 100, you wouldn't have been able to use F8 in such low light. Not with a handholdable shutter.

 

F8 because thats all it goes to. Should I have gone higher or lower. What settings would you suggest for the pictures? Thanks alot for the help. I went out and shot a test pic at ISO400 and at ISO100 and it was clear. It sucks that they would put ISO400 in there even though it produces grainy photos. Guess its time to upgrade....

 

You can filter out some of that noise with Neat Image or Noise Ninja. I've used NI's freeware, but I think NN has a free version, as well. I've been pretty happy with the results in most cases.

 

According to internet specs, the DSC-V1 has a 2.8-4 lens

So at the wide range, it can open up to 2.8 and at the tight end of the zoom, it will have a max aperture of 4

The smaller the F number, the bigger the hole that lets in light. F8 is pretty small. Each full f stop number gets in HALF the amount of light of the previous stop. They usually go something like this:

1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 16, 32

So you can see, a lens at f8 would let in 1/8th of the light the same lens at f2.8 would let in. That's a huge difference.

F-stop has to do with your depth of field. But that's pretty much a non issue with small cameras and more then I can get into right now.

I can't tell you what settings you should use for what situation because it depends on so many things.

ISO 400 is not useless. Its good when things are so dark you would rather have grain then not be able to take a pic at all. Or, you want to use a really quick shutter to freeze motion (sports photography). Even in brightly lit stadiums and such, sports photographers shoot 1600+ ISO in order to use high shutter speeds. And they're already using the fastest telephoto lenses around.

 

grain is a result of high ISO, which is there for low light situations. Without it, any movement in low light, and low ISO, would result in motion blur. You camera is just doing what it thinks is best in the given conditions.

As long as your camera, and subjects are very still, you can shoot in low light at a lower ISO.

 

thanks for the advice guys

 

Man, beautiful Euro R kit, that's the same set up I'm going for my CGP TSX. =) Sexy.

 

Here's that full res shot after Noise Ninja:

 

Looks a little better, I dled noise ninja and using that and shrinking the pic, it makes them look passable. But, this situation inspired me to get a new camera. I just picked up a canon 400d on black friday with a couple of lenses. Too bad its too cold to wash the car and go for another shoot.