Camera delay and grainy photos

Punky1030 · Nov 30, 2014

There are two separate issues I have been having. I am using a Nikon D3200 with a nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens.

One issue is a delay in between taking photos. Today, I would take a photo and then have to wait a few seconds before my shutter button would work again. I've had this problem before, but it was especially bad today. Could this be my memory card? What else could it be? I missed a lot of shots waiting on my camera. Frustrating!!

The other problem I'm having is very grainy photos. A couple days ago, I shot around sunset and I had my camera on auto ISO. My photos were okay zoomed out, but upon closer look they were totally grainy and lacked detail. I thought it was due to my camera choosing too high of an ISO, but my photos today (shot around noon) were grainy too. Not nearly as bad, but I haven't had this issue before now.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

SCraig · Nov 30, 2014

Sounds like you are shooting at high ISO with long exposure noise reduction enabled. High ISO will cause the noise (not grain with digital cameras) and the long exposure NR would cause the shutter delay since it takes the same exposure with the shutter closed to use for noise reduction.

Punky1030 · Nov 30, 2014

SCraig said:
Sounds like you are shooting at high ISO with long exposure noise reduction enabled. High ISO will cause the noise (not grain with digital cameras) and the long exposure NR would cause the shutter delay since it takes the same exposure with the shutter closed to use for noise reduction.

I was shooting today at ISO 200 and I still had some noise. And I was shooting at about 1/2000 to 1/4000 speed. Any other ideas?

KmH · Nov 30, 2014

My advice is to sit down with your D3200 at hand, and and read the D3200 Reference manual from cover to cover - several times.

There are a number of camera settings that could be causing the delay.
Check to see if high ISO noise reduction is turned on.
Do you see 'Job nr' flashing in the viewfinder? (See page 131 of your D3200 Reference Manual)
Digital cameras don't have 'grain'. They have image noise. Digital Camera Image Noise: Concept and Types

Some of the auto settings on consumer grade DSLRs don't do a very good job.
Auto ISO and Auto white balance being 2 that you might want to control.

What class of memory card are you using?
What shooting mode are you using?
What light metering mode are you using?
What auto focus mode are you using?
What auto focus priority mode are you using?
What auto focus area mode are you using?
What Image Quality settings are you using?

Overread · Nov 30, 2014

A few thoughts:

1) Post a few examples so we can see them. It could be something you're doing or it could be your expecting too much from the camera or it could be 1001 other things - we can't tell without seeing some results.

Note to post up the settings you used (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) as well as any other shooting details and comments.

2) Long exposure noise reduction will cause you to slow the camera down as it has to take two shots and then deduct noise from one from the first. The thing is this will only remove noise from hot-spots which are generated by the sensor when its run for a long time - typically over 60seconds or more. So it won't remove any normal noise, only that extreme hot-spot noise. It's most commonly used in astrophotography and anything with very long exposures - the rest of the time there is no benefit from it.

3) Memory cards will have a part to play, check your manual and it will detail the faster write speed that it can do for a card. You then just need to make sure your cards write speed is equal or faster. Note that most memory cards advertise their speed in reading speed not writing speed (since its faster to read data from a card than to write data to the card). So do double check you're reading the right card speed.