The sony alpha, and ISO

[shorty6049]

Hey again everyone, I have a sony alpha and i really like it, but at high ISOs it gets really noisy.... is there anyone out there that uses this camera and has this issue? i know thats one of the flaws in the ccd, not just somethign wrong with my camera, but i feel like i cant even use anything above like iso 200 becasue they are almost unusable. is there a way to salvage photos with noise? I know theres noise reduction programs, and i found one that works decent, but doesnt really give high quality results that i would want if I were to print the photo. can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Big Mike]

Every digital camera shows digital noise at higher ISO. A newer camera like that, shouldn't be showing much noise at ISO 200...but if you look for it, it will be there.

Can you post an example? Maybe you are 'pixel peeping' and worrying about nothing.

 

[shorty6049]

i'll try , but i think it probably wouldnt show up ... i'll do a crop, hang on while i get that

 

[shorty6049]

ok, here is an image taken at ISO-100, at f/18, original and 100% crop

crop-

 

[shorty6049]

another question i have is, should this be sharper than it is? i always feel like my images are sort of soft and lack something... is there any way i can make this look a little better, color-wise, sharpening, contrast, whatever?

 

[shorty6049]

heres one at iso-1600-, f1.7

 

[Big Mike]

To me, it doesn't look like noise is a problem. In the first one, at ISO 100, I can barely see any noise. There are other issues but it's not noisy. The light is very contrasty which isn't helping. It could use some sharpening as well.

The one shot at ISO 1600 looks good before the crop. Even at 100%, it's not too bad for 1600.

 

[shorty6049]

ok, so what are the issues with the first one? i'm trying to get better at this but i feel like all my photos are kind of bland or something...

 

[Big Mike]

Well...I'd say that it looks a bit over exposed. The trunk is very bright and the shadows are kind of muddy looking. Although, if the exposure was lessened, you would start to loose detail in the highlights...that's just a problem with such contrasty light (direct sun).

It may also be suffering from a bit of motion blur...what was the shutter speed? Was a tripod used? Even if it was, the branches probably don't sit very still at that height.

It almost looks like it has a bit of chromatic aberration but I don't necessarily see any purple fringing. This is a property of the lens. You would be asking a lot of a lens to make all those branches sharp at that magnification.

It would probably look better with some sharpening and a boost in contrast.

It's not a bad shot, it's a tough shooting situation.

 

[DSLR noob]

clean your sensor, the firs one has 2 huge dust specs on it near the top.

 

[shorty6049]

i did a little work on the tree, tell me what you think-

 

[DSLR noob]

With that shot I would have "underexposed" it a bit to keep the tree from being blown out, the sky would've also darkened to a healthier blue on its own. Next time try a faster shutter speed or a smaller aperture.

also the "noise" I think you are referring to in the first pic may be what is called "chromatic abberation" also called "purple fringing". It is not the camera's fault but the quality of the lens. If that is the lens that came with the camera it might pose the problem. No the lens isn't defective, just not high quality glass. CA occurs when you photograph an object of high contrast (like a tree and the sky) and th elight change reflects on the lens elements to form a small smeary purple line on the line of contrast.

 

[shorty6049]

and the crop

 

[shorty6049]

holy cow, i didnt see those specks, I cant really clean my sensor though other than the automatic cleaning that happens when i shut it off... i dont have any equipment for it

 

[DSLR noob]

to clean your sensor, find a way to get some compressed air or a bulb blower (a teardrop shaped thing you squeeze to make air come out) or what I use (a bicycle pump) to clean the sensor after setting the camera to cleaning mode (opens the curtain and moves the mirror up (don't touch the sensor!). Then take a pic with the proper white balance of a white sheet of paper and look to see if you removed the partcles. Also I edited my post to explain the "noise".