grainy and lack of detail

itznfb · Jun 25, 2008

[nikon d50, kit lense, dim lighting]

i was taking pictures of my girlfriend in a black dress so she could see how it looked from different angles and such. the dress is not smooth on the front, it has some ruffles.. she was standing against an off white wall. i was using aperture mode with f9 setting.

the issue i have with taking these types of pictures is
1. the dress shows up basically as a black blob. you see not detail in the dress at all.

2. the picture is very grainy.

would this be more of a lighting issue? or something i can correct with the camera settings/mode.

let me know if i can provide any more information

thanks in advance

ANDS! · Jun 25, 2008

Can't say anything without actually ooking at the picture. What you describe as grain, blobbiness may not actually be so.

Post picture for reference (especially if shes hot).

dslrchat · Jun 25, 2008

It woud be best if you post image to look at, post your camera settings.
What was your ISO? a high ISO can cause noise.

itznfb · Jun 25, 2008

ok, i'll post a picture and more settings when i get home.

Big Mike · Jun 25, 2008

Without seeing the image...I can guess at the problems.

Firstly, the camera is probably set to determine the exposure based on the whole scene. So when you put your GF and the black dress up against an off-white wall...the camera only sees a lot of white and a bit of black. It takes an average of that and gives you an exposure that is a balance...which leaves the black dress looking like a blob.
You don't care about how the wall looks, so you need to concentrate on the exposure of the dress. In this case, you could add positive exposure compensation to make it brighter, allowing you to see detail in the dress. Another option would be to use only the dress for metering. Get close to fill the frame with the dress, then lock the exposure (probably hold the button half way)...then back up and shoot.

Also, the grain/noise is probably due to a high ISO setting and under exposure. If your exposure is better, the noise won't show up as much...but you can also try to avoid using ISO 800 or higher.

You probably don't need to use an aperture of F9. I would just go with the widest that your lens can shoot at, which is probably F4 to F5.6, depending on the zoom setting.