Why are my photos granular?

inou · Nov 8, 2017

Hi,

I took this photo with DSLR Canon D600. It was a sunny day, why did the phto come out granular?

Imagebin - Somewhere to Store Random Things

photo1x1.com · Nov 8, 2017

Hi and welcome to the forum.
The image is in fact slightly noisy, but it is not that bad. It is due to the fact that it was shot with ISO400, but it could have easily been shot at ISO100 and would have way less noise. Also it would have been sharper if you had not used an aperture of f20. F9-f11 usually gives the sharpest all around image quality for landscape shots like this. If you go higher, an effect called diffraction gets more and more noticeable.
What do you know about exposure in general? It seems you let the camera decide which settings to choose rather than doing it yourself. It´s time for you to dive further into the great world of photography.

KmH · Nov 8, 2017

Digital images do not have grain.
It's image noise and soft focus due to the diffraction caused by using a lens aperture way smaller than it needed to be to have sufficient depth of field (DoF).

Braineack · Nov 8, 2017

photo1x1.com said:
It is due to the fact that it was shot with ISO400, but it could have easily been shot at ISO100 and would have way less noise.

If this is actually the case, I don't understand how anyone would ever shoot Canon ever.

remove your UV filter, don't stop down past f16, and achieve focus before shooting.

benhasajeep · Nov 8, 2017

Welcome to the forum.

I believe you mean Canon 600D? Or T3i. As mentioned by others it's partially lens and camera. The camera itself was first released 6 years ago. With a sensor from previous to that design wise. Then adding to it the diffraction from the lens.

Derrel · Nov 8, 2017

I thought the issue was mostly atmospheric conditions...looks like a lot of particulate matter in the summer-time air there.

john.margetts · Nov 9, 2017

The air is certainly very hazy.

inou · Nov 9, 2017

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

Wow 6 years have i had this camera now? how time flies. I have the 70D as well, but the 600D (thank you for correcting

is the one i take with me.

Why do you then say "i cannot understand how anycone can shoot Canon ever", is Canon so bad? so the next one should be a Nikon?

I am nil in photography and i want to "dig in", yes I let the camera choose for me, but I watched a video series on Lynda.com about photography and all it told me was about "balancing", which in my engineering terms is "how to make the center of gravity of the picture remain towards the geometric center". Struggling to find a sweet hands on quick guide that ramps me up the stairs quickly. I travel a lot and have lost as many opportunitites to keep records, here's a proof of a disaster by my Samsung: Imagebin - Somewhere to Store Random Things

I'm willing to learn, I just don't to learn by mistakes anymore, and having done so many, I am more pressed to spend time on A-grade hints/tips/training

smoke665 · Nov 9, 2017

Looks to me like a like a little bit of the Blue haze phenomenon common in the Smoky Mountains, when tiny hydrocarbon particles released by vegetation chemically react with ozone molecules, producing particles that selectively scatter the blue light, giving a blue haze.

Braineack · Nov 9, 2017

inou said:
Why do you then say "i cannot understand how anycone can shoot Canon ever", is Canon so bad? so the next one should be a Nikon?

look at my comment again, and the quoted text.

@photo1x1.com suggested the issue was shooting at ISO400 and not ISO100. If that was actually the case, then that is just sad.

That image was shot at 1/200sec, iso400, and f/20. it appears the flash also fired. I believe there may have been some atmospheric conditions in that image lowering the contrast/clarity, but I also think camera settings were mainly to blame.

Do you have a UV filter on the end of your 18-55?

TCampbell · Nov 9, 2017

It needs a bit of processing... the data is there but you'll need to tease it out. You could do a bit more if it was shot and saved as RAW.

Screen Shot 2017-11-09 at 10.35.25 AM.webp

It suffers a bit from a mushy histogram. I set the white point (which was basically fine as-is) set the black point, but noticed that the image still lacked contrast. I used a "clarity" adjustment to boost the mid-contrast (take the slightly lighter mid-tones and make them brighter and take the slightly darker mid-tones and make them darker) and this helps tease out more definition in the trees. I did use some sharpening (at f/20 you were getting a bit of diffraction). I also boosted the saturation a bit.

BTW, I really didn't need to deal with noise... noise really wasn't a problem.

There is some haze in the air and you can see how the background landscape goes blue. Lightroom has a de-hazing tool that can help reduce that. I nudged it up slightly but this was just a couple of quick adjustments to show what you can do with this. I could have used tools to reduce saturation in just the blue channel in just those areas by taking a bit more time.

Anyway... hopefully you get the idea.

photo1x1.com · Nov 10, 2017

inou said:
Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

Wow 6 years have i had this camera now? how time flies. I have the 70D as well, but the 600D (thank you for correcting is the one i take with me.

Why do you then say "i cannot understand how anycone can shoot Canon ever", is Canon so bad? so the next one should be a Nikon?

I am nil in photography and i want to "dig in", yes I let the camera choose for me, but I watched a video series on Lynda.com about photography and all it told me was about "balancing", which in my engineering terms is "how to make the center of gravity of the picture remain towards the geometric center". Struggling to find a sweet hands on quick guide that ramps me up the stairs quickly. I travel a lot and have lost as many opportunitites to keep records, here's a proof of a disaster by my Samsung: Imagebin - Somewhere to Store Random Things

I'm willing to learn, I just don't to learn by mistakes anymore, and having done so many, I am more pressed to spend time on A-grade hints/tips/training

Lynda is usually a great source for tutorials and courses. I learned so much there about various software. But there are many courses, maybe you just had bad luck

.
I must admit my first answer could have been a little clearer. Grain is what is caused by ISO settings. The higher the ISO, the more grain will be introduced. Your image is only slightly grainy, and that is probably due to the ISO400 chosen by your camera. The blurry look is very likely caused by using an aperture of f20 (or as Derrel - who really is almost always right

- has suggested by the atmospheric condition that don´t introduce noise, but rather blur - see here on Wikipedia). That introduces diffraction. Would you have stopped down to f11 for example, the image should have been much sharper. That brings us to the balance from your Lynda course. Lowering ISO from 400 to 100 would have made your image darker by two so called "stops". Choosing f10 instead of f20 would have made your image brighter again by the same two stops. So you would have achieved the same brightness, but the image quality would have improved a lot.
If you are looking for a qick guide, let me humbly recommend my youtube photography course. My goal is to get you up and running without talking much

. It is still in progress, but the chapters that are online should give you a good start.

Solarflare · Nov 10, 2017

I usually run my camera in A mode. That means its in aperture priority - I set the aperture, the camera sets the shutter speed.

The only other two options I use are S for shutter priority - I set the shutter speed, such as for sports, and the camera adjusts aperture and ISO accordingly(*) - and M for full manual; then I usually disable Auto ISO, too.

So in this situation I would have used f/5.6 at most. Nothing is in close focus, I dont want shallow DoF, and there is plenty of light - so I would have just stopped down to f/5.6 to get maximum sharpness out of my lens. Now you're using a cheap kitlens, so the maximum sharpness would probably be rather at f/8 or f/11.

Anyway, with f5.6, ISO 100 and 1/800 sec it would have been the exact same overall exposure, and I would have gotten the best possible data to work with.

Thats really how easy it is to set the optimal settings for your camera in practice. Set it to aperture priority to control depth of field, which is usually what you want, set it to shutter priority if you need to control time instead, and set it to full manual if you have the time for it or the light situation is especially complex.

(*) Actually Auto-ISO, not aperture or shutter priority, fixes the ISO if there isnt enough light to work with. One can also disable that and set the ISO explicitly.