Noise in photos

[SophieE1991]

Hello, I've recently been shooting in darker conditions and have noticed that there is an increased amount of noise in the images. I was wondering if this is due to the high ISO and low aperture? And if anyone may have some advice on how to help reduce this in the future please. Thank you

 

[goooner]

Posting examples are always helpful. I would suggest using a flash, or tripod...

 

[James Baranski]

Answer is yes. Higher ISO will make noise in the photo. Post the photos. If you are still photographing in dark conditions, lower the ISO and use a tripod. this will give optimum photos at 100 ISO.

 

[KmH]

As light levels decrease exposure becomes more critical because of the way digital imaging works.

Under exposure makes image noise more visible.
Increasing exposure post process also makes image noise more visible.
So 'fixing' exposure post process often seems to add more image noise.
To evaluate an exposure we use a Histogram of the photo. DSLR cameras can display a JPEG Basic thumbnail histogram on the camera's rear LCD.

• Understanding Histograms, Part 1: Tones & Contrast
• Understanding Histograms, Part 2: Luminosity & Color

As mentioned you'll likely need to add light to the scene you are wanting to photograph.

Lens aperture, along with shutter speed and ISO, will affect exposure but has no direct effect on image noise.

What do you mean by a 'low' aperture.
A wide (fast) aperture is denoted by a number like f/2, f/2.8. f/3.5.
A small (slow) aperture is denoted by a number like f/11, f/16.
The numbers above are fractions, so f/2 (1/2) is a much bigger number than f/16 (1/16) is.

There is a digital photo exposure concept known as Expose-To-The-Right or ETTR.
Optimizing Exposure
ETTR
Digital Exposure Techniques
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf

 

[mcap1972]

You can reduce it in post production software like Lightroom.

 

[KmH]

Hopefully the OP is making images in the Raw format so there is sufficient bit depth for the global post process editing of image noise.

Reducing image noise in digital photos post process usually also reduces image sharpness and contrast.
Many image editors consider noise reduction and image sharpening as 2 sides to a coin.
Adjusting one affects the other.

Indeed, noise reduction in LR is part of the LR Sharpening panel.
So basically you adjust both the noise reduction sliders and the sharpening sliders until a happy medium is reached.

The ideal situation is to minimize image noise at the time the shutter is released.

The company that wrote the software that is the LR Sharpening panel was Pixel Genius, LLC.
Some of the guys, like Jeff Schewe, from Pixel Genius have been involved with LR since it's inception
Jeff and Bruce Fraser have written some books about using LR and Photoshop for image editing.

Image sharpening is a fairly complex subject sufficient to be the subject of an inexpensive book written by those guys.
Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)

The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop

 

[Didereaux]

uh....what camera are you using?

 

[dannylightning]

it really depends on the camera on how much ISO you can use before you start to get allot of grain the photos

generally the higher the ISO the more noise in the photo but allot of the newer cameras are able to do quite well with higher ISO. but some cameras will do much better with high my camera now I can usually go up to 6400 ISO before the noise starts to bother me, on my old camera I think around 800 ISO the noise started to bother me, some of the newere high end cameras you can crank up the iso crazy high and still not see much noise in the photo.

generally noise in your photos is due to high ISO, the darker it is the higher the ISO needs to be. if shooting a still object just get out the tripod and use a longer shutter speed and low ISO and that will fix your problem. or get your self a descent flash that can be used on or off camera