Why are my photos so noisy?

hippo · Dec 30, 2012

I have a problem with noise and I'm trying to find out what causes it.

Here are the details of my example photo:
F3.5
Exp. 1/60 sec.
ISO 800

My camera is Olympus E-3. I shoot in Olympus' own RAW-format ORF, but the noise is as horrible in the ORF as in this JPG.
Is the noise just caused by the ISO although it's (only) 800? Am I just expecting too much from my camera?
Could my memory card have some effect on the noise?

thetrue · Dec 30, 2012

Probably the high(er) ISO, plus you're shooting at a very dark black.

SCraig · Dec 30, 2012

You may be expecting too much from your camera. It is a 5-year-old model (announced in October, 2007) and times have changed. I'm not familiar with it personally but 5 years ago ISO 800 was pretty high for many models.

tirediron · Dec 30, 2012

The two main causes of digital noise are high ISO and under-exposure. Any time you try and increase exposure in post, you increase noise. I'm not familiar with the high ISO capabilities of your body, but that seems a little excessive for ISO alone, so I'm guessing a combination of ISO and post-processing.

KmH · Dec 30, 2012

No. Your memory card has no effect on the image noise.

When shooting film - expose for the shadows and let the highlights take car of themselves.
When shooting digital - expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves.
The issue is that the majority of image luminosity data is in the brighter parts of the photo giving the brighter parts of a digital photo a better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than the dark parts of an image.
That low SNR is why noise is always more visible in the darker parts of a digital photo.

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf
Exposing to the right - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ETTR

The_Traveler · Dec 30, 2012

These are about 4 stops underexposed.
So when you brighten them to see them, the noise in the shadows becomes overwhelming.

Shytori · Mar 1, 2013

KmH said:
No. Your memory card has no effect on the image noise.

When shooting film - expose for the shadows and let the highlights take car of themselves.
When shooting digital - expose for the highlights and let the shadows take care of themselves.
The issue is that the majority of image luminosity data is in the brighter car accessories of the photo giving the brighter parts of a digital photo a better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than the dark parts of an image.
That low SNR is why noise is always more visible in the darker parts of a digital photo.

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf
Exposing to the right - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ETTR

You have mentioned very good information about noise in photo. I had similar problems earlier

Nahin · Mar 3, 2013

May you shoot with the dark place. No problem with your memory. Very old version of ISO. No idea about it.

CaptainNapalm · Mar 3, 2013

I don't see more noise than what's expected by looking at your photos and settings. Yeah maybe your expectations are too high.

Patriot · Mar 3, 2013

Don't worry guys one time posters like him/her will never come back after getting a answer.

-Hunt

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ab8cd · Mar 10, 2013

Patriot said:
Don't worry guys one time posters like him/her will never come back after getting a answer.

-Hunt

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Don't let that stop you from posting info though... For the lurkers like me!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Joves · Mar 10, 2013

With higher ISO you have to nail the shot. If I was shooting in an area that dark I would have gone as high as the native ISO will go, those are the ones before you use Hi. You may still get noise but it will not be as bad when you are under exposing so much. You have a greater chance of nailing the shot that way as well.