d80 50mm really grainy outdoors

[Kopanski]

Hey guys, first post here, looking for some help, I was just out at a "car meet" and I was taking some shots of some cars, all looking great, but i'm sure this happened to everyone, the shot looks good on the camera, but once you plug it into a computer, the photo is crap! So I just bought a brand new lens, 50mm f/1.8, and with shutter set anywhere between 1/30 to 1/100, everything else set how the camera came with, it's grainy! Now with the same settings, my partner used his D90 on a different lense, and the shots come out super clean! Am I missing something? I'm going to attach a photo.

I understand with some editing I can make it look better, but I'm saying when I compared two raw files, they looked bad =\ Thanks in advance!

 

[nola.ron]

3 big problems here...

1) You're at 3200 HI ISO. This is incredibly high ISO. The negative effect of ISO is image noise or "grain". Different bodies can handle different levels of ISO before it becomes unacceptable. My D3000 would start showing lots of noise at 400 ISO. My D7000 can push close to 2000 ISO and still be decent though. The D80 isn't handling it this high.

2) Your shutter speed was way too low if this was hand held (I'm assuming it was by the motion blur), which is why it isn't very crisp and in focus. Motion blur is the problem here from too slow of a shutter and/or poor holding techniques.

3) You shot this widen open at F1.8. Close that aperture down a little bit on this particular lens to 2.4 or 2.8 at least and you'll get a much more crisp image as long as your shutter is fast enough.

 

[Kopanski]

I think the ISO was the problem, while on Manual, the ISO was set to HI 1, on Automatic it was set to this as well, but I changed that to be fully auto. Since the ISO settings are harder to get to, what do you recommend I should leave it on?

To respond to the other two points, It was on a tripod, I have like 5 or 6 different shots from this angle I think I might have uploaded one of the test ones just to see if the angle is right, since it's shot from so low.

The aperture I did play around with, i brought it up to 5.0, 2.5, and it was still grainy, but I really think the ISO was the problem, since that's something I didn't compare to the D90 with. Thanks!

 

[nola.ron]

Yea, aperture and shutter speed are never the source of grain/noise. I was just pointing out that noise aside, the cars are not in focus. The focus must have been missed then, or there was tripod shake or something combined with shooting wide open.

I personally never shoot with auto ISO. Many here will tell you to do the same. You want to keep the ISO as low as possible, is the general idea. If you can shoot a proper exposure at 100 ISO then do it every time. ISO has good things though like bringing out detail in shadows, low light exposure that would otherwise be impossible without flash, etc.

Read up on the exposure triangle and watch videos on it. Once you grasp that you can kiss the auto anything goodbye and start making better decisions than the camera can. Keep shooting!

 

[nola.ron]

Also, im not too familiar with the d80 but there may be a function button you can assign to ISO. Thst's what I did on my d300) and it made changing ISO a breezd. I could just hold function and turm the wheel to adjust.

 

[Sarmad]

Yea, aperture and shutter speed are never the source of grain/noise.

As far as I think, as noise is caused by pixel overheat, slow shutter speeds might also cause noise a little bit in darker parts of the image. :scratch:.

 

[nola.ron]

Yea, aperture and shutter speed are never the source of grain/noise.

As far as I think, as noise is caused by pixel overheat, slow shutter speeds might also cause noise a little bit in darker parts of the image. :scratch:.

Ok, let me rephrase - in most cases. I have yet to see this in any of my work including long exposures. It depends on the sensor and conditions (temps). Maybe a crappy P&S will see this and maybe even a DSLR in extreme speeds, but ISO is by far the biggest source and most dramatic cause of noise like which is shown in the OP photo.

 

[Overread]

When people talk of slow shutter speeds causing noise its generally well into minutes long and as such typically comes up with astrophotography. Indeed they'll use stacking software and tracking tripods to avoid long exposures or they'll use a cooled camera setup so that the camera remains at a low temperature (think liquid nitrogen and a lot of DIY!)

 

[djacobox372]

Lower your ISO and decrease your shutter speed to compensate, problem solved.

The d80 performs well up to about 800iso, things get ugly beyond that. 1600iso is workable if you have a very well exposed/bright photo.

 

[KmH]

Yea, aperture and shutter speed are never the source of grain/noise.

That is not entirely true.

Under exposure can be caused by aperture and/or shutter speed. Under exposure makes image noise more visible.

Use the rear LCD to look at the image histogram to judge exposure. Looking at the photo on the rear LCD is only useful for zooming in to check focus and framing.
Understanding Digital Camera Histograms: Tones and Contrast
Understanding Digital Camera Histograms: Luminosity and Color

The way digital images work, we have to expose for the highlights to minimize image noise (Expose-To-The-Right).
Optimizing Exposure
ETTR

 

[Patrice]

The exif shows iso 3200, 1/40, f/1.8 and -2/3 exp comp.

The shot is in the dark, you do need some light to get a decent photo. You could have reduced your iso to 1600 and shutter only slightly increased to 1/30 had you not used negative exposure comp.

As others have pointed out the d80 is not a high iso machine so you need to keep it at 800 or lower. Proper exposure goes a long ways towards reducing iso noise. Pushing exposure in post will increase high iso noise effects.

Learn and practice slow shutter camera techniques. With proper handling you could get sharp images down to about 1/20 or 1/15 sec handheld, but it does take a fair amount of diligence and practice to get there. With a bit of creative thinking you could have braced the camera against the roof or hood of another car, up against a fence post or telephone pole, the corner of a building, ... you get the idea.