Newbie Help

[DigiJay]

Hello everyone,
I have recently entered the world of DSLRs and I absolutely love it. It's strictly a hobby for me, but photography is something I spend many hours enjoying.

My camera is a Nikon D200 with a Nikkor 18-200VR Lens.
Yesterday I went out to take a few shots and I found that the majority of my pictures had a bunch of noise. The shots were outside, with overcast skies. I tried it with JPEG Fine and with Raw formats.

I still have a lot to learn about this camera, but if someone could offer suggestions as to what I could do to get some "decent" shots until I learn everything, I would appreciate it.

Thanks! and Happy New Years!

 

[Val]

Sounds like high ISO? If it was set on AUTO then D200 will automatically go for high isos in overcast conditions. If it was manual, then only you know what it was )

 

[DigiJay]

I'm going to check what it was set at.. i had it on auto

 

[DigiJay]

although I don't know much about ISO... I think you are right. It looks like most of the photos were taken at 1600, which I think is the max for this camera?

 

[Val]

Yep, definitely ISO then. You can lower the range if you want to in the menu. Max is 3200 i think, but you can only set it manually (dont quote me on that)

However for my taste noise at 1600 is perfectly acceptable. Heck, its acceptable for some exhibition shots, id say youre a nit-picking :mrgreen:

 

[DigiJay]

hahah.. I had it at 200mm trying to get some close up shots of bird.. and then also some pics of an icy waterfall.
Who knows.. maybe I am too picky lol.

 

[Val]

Nah probably not for close-ups though but waterfall should be fine! Do you want to upload the pics? Im intrigued

 

[SCHNOOBS]

The longer your focal point is to the sensor, the more chances that you are going to run into noise, therefore it is best to have a low iso, and fortunatly the D200 can go as low as 100. I personally never exceed 400 iso because if I blow something up, I want it to be as less grain/noise as possible. if shooting for a long exposure, say at night, turn the 'Long Exp. NR" on in the menus and you might want to set it for high, depending on the contrast.

it is a great camera! just play with it, it has a lot of funtions, it should keep you busy for a while.

for a more flexible measure... you can set the iso at 100 but it will also flex up to, say 400, depending from the metering system. comes in handy with low light w/ no tri-pod....it's in the custom stterings menu.

 

[DigiJay]

I'm addicted to this forum already... every little bit of info like that is great.
I'm going to post a couple of the shots from yesterday.. overall I wasn't impressed with my shots at all yesterday.

 

[DigiJay]

 

[Val]

Yep, thats exactly how it should look i like no2!

 

[Val]

Here is an images i just snaped with my D80 on 18-200 at 1600. These are two 100% crops from it, prepared for 8"x10" print. I spend 5 minutes on this including uploading, so definitely not the best print preparation one can do

IMHO they look very reasonable. Different cakes for different people. I prefer on focusing on the photography itself, rather then noise, sharpness and the rest.

 

[DigiJay]

We must have different tastes... while I like the photography.. I also feel that a very sharp picture is best. Maybe it's an amateurish approach that I will need to get over.

 

[Val]

Nah, we all love sharp and crispy images! Its just that i think a ISO 1600 shot is better then no shot at all :mrgreen: or shall i say a blurred ISO 400