grainy photos in ISO 400: Sony Cyber-shot Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (2024)

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

ISO 400 photos will have more noise than lower ISO shots. Without seeing your shots, it's hard to say, but what you've described sounds normal.

Just to second Ron's comments, images at ISO 400 are grainy, just like when shooting ISO 400 film is grainier than with ISO 50 or ISO 100.

See any digital camera review at this site, and look at the pages about image quality when shot at ISO 400. This is to be expected. Of course, this is a general statement, without the benefit of seeing your images.

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong?

One thing you could try (works with a Nikon I have) is to turn in-camera sharpening to low or off, then sharpen in Photoshop, see if you like better...
--JohnK

Here's my iso 400 action photos are yours grainier?

http://silvercharm.digitalphotochat.com/gallery/DenverStockShow2002?&page=1

Lisa

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

There is a program called "Neat Image" that is designed to remove the noise from digital cameras without affecting the image itself. It does this by sampling the noise from a clear area of the picture itself, then applies a filter based on that data to the entire picture. I've tried it on a couple of shots and it seems to work as advertised, although it's feature set is a bit complex and will take some time to learn to well. The free version saves in bitmap only, but is otherwise fully functional.

Here's the URL for those interested:

• http://www.neatimage.com

(Neat Image homepage, main location, America)

-Mark N.

Lisa Youngwrote:
Here's my iso 400 action photos are yours grainier?

http://silvercharm.digitalphotochat.com/gallery/DenverStockShow2002?&page=1

Lisa

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

Are those shot in 400 ISO? If so mine are slot grainier than yours.

Lisa Youngwrote:
Here's my iso 400 action photos are yours grainier?

http://silvercharm.digitalphotochat.com/gallery/DenverStockShow2002?&page=1

Lisa

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

here's mine shot at 400, quite grainy but it was dark at the circus.

Lisa, yours look pretty clear to me, mine are at full digital zoom, with sfishy flash adapter on my f1000, -2oev

http://www.pbase.com/jtcarnes/the_circus--jeffmoved outta the red-light districthttp://www.pbase.com/jtcarnes

Kimberly,

Grainy noise is the tradeoff for higher ISO. I'm surprises the turning down EV helps. All else being equal, getting the picture brighter in the camera help reduce the noise. The camera shows more noise in dark, shadowy areas and at ISO 400 this is very, very noticable.

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

Yes they are Carrie. Did you resize any of them to like 640x480 and see what they look like then?

Lisa

Carriewrote:
Are those shot in 400 ISO? If so mine are slot grainier than yours.

Lisa Youngwrote:
Here's my iso 400 action photos are yours grainier?

http://silvercharm.digitalphotochat.com/gallery/DenverStockShow2002?&page=1

Lisa

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

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What are DR/IQ advantages of ISO 64?: Nikon FX SLR (DF, D1-D5, D600-D850) Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

Okay, maybe I'm going about this all wrong. What I'm trying to do is test what settings I should use for action shots. My children are in baseball, basketball, etc. and I want some good pics. I just assumed I should use ISO 400 to freeze the action, but maybe I'm wrong. I guess my question should be: what are the best settings for the following situations?: 1. sports outside 2. sports inside under flourescent lights??

And for Lisa: Yes, mine are do seem to be grainier, but I'm viewing mine at 2460 x 1920 and yours are posted at 640 x 480 (if that makes a difference).

TurboTedwrote:
Kimberly,

Grainy noise is the tradeoff for higher ISO. I'm surprises the
turning down EV helps. All else being equal, getting the picture
brighter in the camera help reduce the noise. The camera shows
more noise in dark, shadowy areas and at ISO 400 this is very, very
noticable.

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

Yes, they are nice. I also see you got those little circles from your flash because of the indoor arena lights. I tried that a few times and got the same thing so put the flash away.

Lisa

jtcarneswrote:

here's mine shot at 400, quite grainy but it was dark at the circus.
Lisa, yours look pretty clear to me, mine are at full digital zoom,
with sfishy flash adapter on my f1000, -2oev
http://www.pbase.com/jtcarnes/the_circus
--
jeff
moved outta the red-light district
http://www.pbase.com/jtcarnes

So try resizing to that size and some of that graininess should go away. So far I have had 4x6s printed of the shots and they looked great from Photo Access.

If you have a sunny day, you should be able to use iso 100 and just up your shutter speed for the action. Cloudy day it could be either 200 or 400 depending on how much sunlight can get through so that you can use similar shutterspeed. And 400 is probably best for flourescent lights and you will have to fix the white balance for that if you don't have a filter for flourescent lights.

Lisa

Kimberlywrote:
Okay, maybe I'm going about this all wrong. What I'm trying to do
is test what settings I should use for action shots. My children
are in baseball, basketball, etc. and I want some good pics. I
just assumed I should use ISO 400 to freeze the action, but maybe
I'm wrong. I guess my question should be: what are the best
settings for the following situations?: 1. sports outside 2.
sports inside under flourescent lights??
And for Lisa: Yes, mine are do seem to be grainier, but I'm
viewing mine at 2460 x 1920 and yours are posted at 640 x 480 (if
that makes a difference).

TurboTedwrote:
Kimberly,

Grainy noise is the tradeoff for higher ISO. I'm surprises the
turning down EV helps. All else being equal, getting the picture
brighter in the camera help reduce the noise. The camera shows
more noise in dark, shadowy areas and at ISO 400 this is very, very
noticable.

Kimberlywrote:

The photos I've taken in ISO 400 keep coming out grainy. What am I
doing wrong? I've tried turning down the EV, and it helps a
little, but they're still grainy. What is the trick to getting
good sharp action photos?

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