Pictures are grainy and unnatural

[mentorship]

I have just bought my first digital camera - a Toshiba pdr3300. I have already taken quite a few indoor pictures in various environments using various camera settings. Most of my pictures apear to be very grainy and extremely unnatural. Is there some trick to fixing this..

[informativetoo]

Are you experiencing this on the monitor or in print?


I have experienced noise (grain) in photos when using long exposures (night shots) and sometimes at a higher ISO.
I try to keep the ISO at either 50 or 100.

It seems I recall finding noise in a few photos when I exposed my camera to cold/damp weather, too quickly.

Aside from the nightshots, I rarely experience "noise".

[voxmagna]

Try presetting your white balance to Tungsten if not using flash, and use a tripod (or support the camera against a wall), to allow slower shutter speeds and lower ISO. If your camera is set to AUTO ISO, then preset this to 100. VOX

[BillDrew]

Originally Posted by mentorship

... Most of my pictures apear to be very grainy and extremely unnatural. ...

Since some of your shots do not show "grain" (noise), you should figure out what is different about the ones that work and those that did not. Get an EXIF reader so you can find out what shutter speed, ISO, ... was used. There are several generic EXIF readers, but you should ask in the forum for your specific camera - it seems that every camera has some data saved in its own unique format.

[sherpa]

Originally Posted by mentorship

I have just bought my first digital camera - a Toshiba pdr3300. I have already taken quite a few indoor pictures in various environments using various camera settings. Most of my pictures apear to be very grainy and extremely unnatural. Is there some trick to fixing this..

Checkout these pictures from Steve's camera review page: http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_...0_samples.html

Most of those pictures look grainy, so, it might just be the camera and not your fault.

[gibsonpd3620]

post some sample pictures for us to view.

[JimC]

As others have mentioned, it's probably just the ISO used.

Most cameras automatically adjust ISO speed indoors.

This increases the senstivity of the CCD sensor, but the downside is more noise (similiar to film grain using higher ASA Film).

Some suggestions:

* Set your Camera to ISO 100

* Make sure your subjects are within the flash range of your camera. This is most important, to insure adequate illumination to prevent noise.

* Shoot at wide angle. If you look at the flash range of your camera, it's range is far less using zoom. The lens on your camera is rated at F2.9/F4.8. This is typical for a compact digital camera. Basically, the lens is around 3 times as bright at wide angle, versus full zoom.

As a result, the camera is probably increasing ISO speed to insure faster shutter speeds are used to prevent blur when you use zoom.

This causes noise, which is the grainy appearance you can see in photos. Noise is much more obvious in underesposed areas of a photo, too.

Again, as others have suggested, post some examples, and we can get a better idea of what is wrong (although, I'm relatively confident that we already know the answer).

Your Toshiba actually has lower noise than many of the newer 3MP models in the same lighting conditions, for the same ISO speeds, compared to some of the newer model 3MP cameras (which use even smaller sensors).

Follow the above suggestions, and I think you'll get far better results. Good Lighting is the most important element to getting better photos. Honor your camera's rated flash range, shoot at lower ISO speeds, and you'll have a totally different perspective on it's performance.

[mentorship]

Thank you all for the help. Lowering the ISO has worked wonders!!! I do not know how to post pictures (do I have to upload them to the net before I post them?) otherwise I could show you the before and after. This camera (perhaps like most lower priced digitals) seems to be very sensitive to light. Thanks again!!!

[JimC]

Originally Posted by mentorship

Thank you all for the help. Lowering the ISO has worked wonders!!! I do not know how to post pictures (do I have to upload them to the net before I post them?) otherwise I could show you the before and after. This camera (perhaps like most lower priced digitals) seems to be very sensitive to light. Thanks again!!!

They're all sensitive to lower light, and have more noise at higher ISO speeds. As I mentioned before, the 3MP sensor in your camera probably handles it much better than many newer models using denser CCD's, with more pixels packed into the same size (or in some cases even smaller) sensors.

We suspected that ISO speed was the problem (others mentioned it before I did).

This is a common problem with digital cameras indoors, since they are increasing ISO speed to allow fast enough shutter speeds to prevent blur (that's why my other suggestions are important, too -- trying to shoot at wide angle more, and staying within the range of your flash if you choose a lower ISO speed).

Yes, your images would have to be in a publically viewable space on a server somewhere for us to see them.

I use both Pbase.com and Photoaccess.com (free unlimited storage).

Pbase.com offers a lot of flexibility (style sheets, direct linking, personal forum for your albums, guestbook, etc.), and the prices are cheap ($23.00/year for 100mb, with unlimited bandwidth). They also don't charge extra space for all of the viewing sizes (users can view your photos as small, medium, large, or original). They also let me upload an entire album in a .zip file

I use them, as well as Photoaccess.com

Photoaccess makes their money by users ordering prints.

So, they offer free, unlimited album space. Another nice feature, is their Photostreamer software. This let's me create an album locally on my PC, setup security features (who can view, copy, order prints, etc.), then it automatically uploads my photos and creates the desired album and parameters.

Also, unlike some services (like imagestation, etc.), your guests don't have to Join to see your albums on photoaccess.com

So, I keep the albums on both. One of the benefits to an album on Photoaccess.com is when you take photos at family gatherings, parties, etc. Users can both view the photos, and order prints (without you needing to try and print extra copies for them). Works great, and it's free for you.

The downside of Photoaccess.com, is that users cannot download the original size photos (although Photoaccess.com uses the original images when they order prints). So, I use Pbase.com, too (so users with printers can download the originals, and print their own if desired).

Here's an example of an album on Pbase.com:

http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield/konica_kd510z

Here's the same album on Photoacccess.com:

http://www.photoaccess.com/share/gue...DF528687&cb=PA

Another great feature with Photoaccess.com is their available "Digital Size Prints" (NO CROPPING).... Great feature, at reasonable print prices, too.

To allow direct linking (allowing you to embed a photo in a forum post), Pbase.com would be a better choice (and also let users see the full resolution images).

But, you can always embed a link to an album on Photoaccess.com, and users can simply go to the album and look at your photos there. Although they won't be able to see the full resolution photo, they can select from more than one viewing size).

There are many other album sites now, too (and many are free).