Noisy images?

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone can help me figure this out. I'm messing about with taking photos of random stuff and after taking some photographs of the Undertaker below, I can't help but notice there's always noise/grain in the photo somewhere.

Now, I used an Olympus E-420 and the lens that came with it (14-42mm). It's an entry level camera that costs under €500, so maybe that's where the issue lays, but I'm really not sure and just looking for some advice.



Here's the Undertaker;











(I didnt resize it because it kind of eliminates the point and you won't see what I'm talking about, though I did crop it in Paint.net).


You can't see his eyes because of the hat, but if you look at the shadow thats cast by the hat, down to his nose, there's noticeable grain that doesn't really appear anywhere else in the photo. If you look along his jacket, at really dark areas, there is also grain noticeable (though that's not to be confused with dust, as the figure has been sitting idle for quite a while. ie; the shoulders and top of the hat are just dusty).



There's a photo of Hogan HERE which is much brighter, but also has a small noticeable noise running through it.



I have to ask.. Is it because the camera or lens is a cheapo combination, or is it due to the settings or is it avoidable or....?

The ISO was set at 100, aperture at F22 and I'm not entirely sure of shutter speed for the images. 15 seconds or thereabouts I'd say.


I'm a bit lost.

hbr

Deleted User wrote: »

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone can help me figure this out. I'm messing about with taking photos of random stuff and after taking some photographs of the Undertaker below, I can't help but notice there's always noise/grain in the photo somewhere.

Like all active electronic devices, the camera sensor array and it's associated electronics will produce some noise. The answer is to cool the camera down to a temperature which is as close as possible to absolute zero. As the Hadron Collider people have discovered, this is a very expensive and difficult task.

Your picture looks very good. I was going to suggest all the usual textbook stuff like use a low ISO setting, long exposure, tripod etc, but looking at your EXIF info suggests that you have done that already.

Try increasing the lighting and maybe use a slightly bigger aperture, although you will run into a trade-off between noise and sharpness/DOF.

Now, I used an Olympus E-420 and the lens that came with it (14-42mm). It's an entry level camera that costs under €500, so maybe that's where the issue lays, but I'm really not sure and just looking for some advice.

The Olympus E is a good camera which produces very high quality images. You would get slightly better low light performance from a camera with a larger sensor, but you can't expect miracles.

I have to ask.. Is it because the camera or lens is a cheapo combination, or is it due to the settings or is it avoidable or....?

It is absolutely unavoidable. The best you can hope for is to reduce it to an acceptable level or ideally to an undetectable level.

The ISO was set at 100, aperture at F22 and I'm not entirely sure of shutter speed for the images. 15 seconds or thereabouts I'd say.

The shutter speed was 13s according to the EXIF. f22 is a very small aperture for low light conditions. Try experimenting with other f values.

I'm a bit lost.

A familiar feeling for a newbie photographer like me. Keep at it, I'm sure you will find a combination of settings and lighting that will be exactly right.

Morrisseeee

The Noise is from the long exposure, the f22 is too big (or too small whichever way you look at it) try changing to f8 or f5.6. In the Menu set NoiseFilter to OFF, and NoiseReduction to ON, as per here That should sort you.

Now, I used an Olympus E-420 and the lens that came with it (14-42mm). It's an entry level camera that costs under €500, so maybe that's where the issue lays, but I'm really not sure and just looking for some advice.
The Olympus E is a good camera which produces very high quality images. You would get slightly better low light performance from a camera with a larger sensor, but you can't expect miracles.

^^ My thoughts exactly.

bullpost

I've got an Olympus E300 and it gets noisy at the higher ISO's . I use Noise Ninja to remove excessive noise and find it pretty effective.

http://www.picturecode.com/

Eirebear

As said above, the noise in this case will be coming from the longer shutter speed.

Its a common misconception from people that noise only comes from using High ISO's and low light, however the longer you leave your shutter open at any ISO, the more chance you have of creating noise also.

Its all a balancing act between Aperture, Shutterspeed and ISO.

oshead

You need to increase the Signal to Noise ratio (SNR). The noise remains constant throughout, weather you take photos in the dark or a bright lit scene. So your only real chance of reducing noise in your images is to increase the light signal. Brighter is better. That is why you see more noise in the shadows of the image.

Another way that seems to work for reducing noise when working at high ISO levels is to try and overexpose by a almost a stop. This would seem to have the effect of increasing the signal amount in relation to the noise.

Sorry, just to add in here, I don't know if it will make much difference or anything to my issue, but the reason the apreture/shutter combo is a bit odd is because I have a flash gun that I was firing off at Undertaker (twice, from each side). It wasn't connected to the camera though (don't want to start investing in expensive(?) gadgetry if i can do it for free!).

So, to the camera, there was a decent bit of light.


Cheers for the replies guys. I appreciate it.

nilhg

Deleted User wrote: »

Sorry, just to add in here, I don't know if it will make much difference or anything to my issue, but the reason the apreture/shutter combo is a bit odd is because I have a flash gun that I was firing off at Undertaker (twice, from each side). It wasn't connected to the camera though (don't want to start investing in expensive(?) gadgetry if i can do it for free!).

So, to the camera, there was a decent bit of light.


Cheers for the replies guys. I appreciate it.

In this case though the noise (and to be honest I can't see too much of it) is caused by the longish exposure, if you're really worried about it you should be able to turn on dark frame subtraction, there's loads of info here based on the E30 but applies to all the E series from the E410/510 up.

I'd be careful about using f22 too much you'll definitely be seeing some softness from diffraction effects

Morrisseeee

So, to the camera, there was a decent bit of light.

No, because you were minimising it with a very small aperture, f22. Go back to f5.6 and reduce the exposure time.

VisionaryP

Yep, the best advice has been given already. Absolutely no need for f22 for that. The 4/3rds sensors are excellent with noise at ISO 400 and below, and acceptable up to 800, so I wouldn't be quick to blame the camera. F5.6 should be fine.

But if I use a smaller aperture value, i'll need to reduce the shutter speed, which gives me less time to shoot the flash at the Undertaker. Also, if the aperture is able to capture more light, when I shoot the flash at 'taker, wont it be too bright in the final image?


(I'm still beginning and messing about here... go easy on me! )

VisionaryP

Deleted User wrote: »

But if I use a smaller aperture value, i'll need to reduce the shutter speed, which gives me less time to shoot the flash at the Undertaker.

How much time do you feel you need to fire a flash?

VisionaryP

VisionaryP wrote: »

How much time do you feel you need to fire a flash?

5-10 Seconds? I was doing it twice. Once from the left and once from the right (sometimes it was leaving a shadow).

VisionaryP

Seems like overkill. Why not make a homemade reflector and use a single flash? Very easy to do, you could even use tin foil.

Well i was just kind of doing it spur of the moment. Hadn't put much thought into it to be honest.

VisionaryP

Ok, but it's an inanimate object a few inches in size. f22, 10 second exposure and firing a single flash twice from 2 different places is putting far too much thought into it!

Stick to simple techniques 'til you're so comfortable with them that you don't even think about it anymore. Walk before you can run, grasshopper!

Morrisseeee

Stick to simple techniques 'til you're so comfortable with them

I was thinking the same thing, try using natural light, with different angles, different f stops, different backgrounds etc etc.

Morrisseeee

Morrisseeee wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing, try using natural light, with different angles, different f stops, different backgrounds etc etc.

Well I was just trying to get a photo of the front of the figure with a plain white background.

I've no problem taking the photos or anything, i got what I was going for;





It was just the noise on Undertaker's face that was I was wondering about.

The additional use of the flash gun and all that was just me trying different things out.

VisionaryP

Well then if you're using flash, you need to light the white background to avoid shadows. A single flash won't do it for you.

rowanh

KKV, you might try making a softbox and put the flash in it, then you could get even soft light on it with no shadows as the light source will be much bigger. You can do this by cutting one side off of a box and replace it with anything semi translucent like tracing paper. Also if you are messing around with off camera flash check out strobist.com if you haven't already seen it.

hbr

Deleted User wrote: »

It was just the noise on Undertaker's face that was I was wondering about.
.

You will reach a point where the image quality is just about as good as you can hope to achieve for a given level of light and quality of equipment. When you reach this point, you can use post processing to reduce the noise. Most cameras have some form of built-in noise reduction. Any decent image processing software will also have noise filtering.

The trouble with noise is that it is random in nature. The noise filtering software has no way of knowing whether speckles in the image are the result of noise or fine detail in the image. This means that noise reduction tends to destroy fine detail.

You should be careful about how you apply noise reduction. Applying high levels of noise reduction to the entire image will probably cause a lot of damage to fine detail. It is better to apply the NR only to selected regions. See attached image of the Gimp despeckle filter applied to the noisy regions of The Undertaker's face.

Captain Flaps

Try earplugs?