Night shots with D3000

[stsiii]

I am still trying to shoot night shots with my D3000. I have the original lens (18-55) and I use a tripod and have lowered the settings to 800. But they are still grainy. Do I need to use a remote or timed delay? Get a new lens?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Speckles]

The D3000 doesn't handle ISO settings beyond 200 without noise. I got some noiseware and that helps take it out, but you do lose a bit of the crispness. This is why I want to upgrade my body.

 

[KmH]

No digital camera handles ISO 200 without noise, but some have less noise at ISO 200 than others.

How visible noise is in an image is very dependent on exposure accuracy.

Another issue with doing night photography with digital is that most of the image data in a digital photograph is in the brightest parts of the image.

Fully 1/2 of all the image data is in the brightest stop the image sensor can capture. The next darker stop has 1/2 of the image data in the 1/2 that remains, and so on with each stop the image sensor can capture.

If we assume an image sensotr can capture 6 stops of light and the range is, say, 4096 levels of signal, the brightest stop will have 2048 levels and the darkest stop will only have 64 levels. Noise will be most visible in the darker stops.

If you have a scene that has no movement in it, you can lower your ISO and increase the exposure time to get the same exposure density, ISO 800 to ISO 200 is only 2 stops, but your D3000 has ISO 100 so you have 3 stops from ISO 800.

 

[bigtwinky]

You are doing conflicting things...

- using a tripod for night photography allows you to shoot slower shutter speeds. Using the built in 3 sec timer works as fine as a remote
- using high ISO allows for faster shutter speeds when the light is lower, with the effect of more noise in the image.

For shooting buildings or cityscapes, aim for f/8 - f/16, on a tripod, and at the camera's native ISO (200 for Nikon and 100 for Canon).