Extreme Noise

[Avarond]

Im obviously doing something wrong. I shot a sunrise the other morning, fog, clouds etc. and everything looked good. I bracketed, tried different ISO settings and that seemed to work. Next day tried a sunset, very bright clouds and darkening shadows in the foreground. Did the exact same thing, went through a wide variety of settings except I shot everything at around ISO 200 (which was what some of the best images the morning before were in). When I opened them on the computer I got extreme amounts of noise in the dark areas. I guess my question would be is the ISO setting causing this, should I have shot at a higher ISO setting instead of using a tripod and going with long shutter speeds. I thought low ISO settings reduced the amount of noise. Im rather confused about this one, and wonder when you would want to use a higher ISO when you have a tripod type of shot. Guess I need a graduated density filter or try the merging of two photos in photoshop routine maybe? I would have been happy with the foreground going black and the sunset being exposed properly but the black had noise all througout. Kind of rambling here but any help would be appreciated. Let me know if you need more info.

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Larry,

Noise in shadows is one of the possible gotchas with digital photography. The way the sensor captures information means that the signal-to-noise ratio is much better for brightly-lit subjects. You don't say how long were the shutter speeds, but certainly, if you are measuring in seconds, then that means more chance of noise.

A picture and some EXIF might help more detailed analysis.

Regards,

[Avarond]

Dont really have anywhere to post any images, but Ive been working around with all the shots, and I can get a good pic by using the method of shooting the foreground like you want it and then shooting the sun/clouds for the correct exposure and then layer masking them. Guess Ill have to do that but what im mainly worried about now is if I dont have a tripod and just want a quick shot of a sunset. How would everyone else shoot it without tripod and not get too worried with the foreground (IE could go to black even) and not get noise, what settings would you use?

[robertwgross]

I would not recommend trying to do the two-image trick unless you are using a good tripod.

Starting one year ago, I worked on pre-sunrise shots. These are normally shot 20-40 minutes before the beginning of normal sunrise. I found my best results with slow ISO on either film or digital. I did it with and without a graduated neutral density filter, and I think the best results are *with*.

Unfortunately for me, I was in some pretty remote locations when I shot the pre-sunrises, so I had to backpack in everything including the tripod. So, mine was not a very heavy tripod.

---Bob Gross---

[Derek Smith]

Avarond,

I am interested in your 'noise' at ISO 200. If you cannot post your image, could you email me the file?

As for getting greater range out of an image, don't forget that if you are shooting RAW then you have access to +-2 more stops in FVU, but to do this effectively for the dark end you must remember to always 'Shoot to the right' - that is - make sure your histogram is as far to the right as possible without blowing out any of the image.

Derek

[Vegas Poboy]

I took a night photography class last summer & a classmate of mine did all his work with his D30 & it also had alot of noise in his work.

New Years I was out shooting fireworks above the Las Vegas strip with the 10D & my Ftb shooting with Provia 100 all had the same exposure & the digital also had alot of noise, the Provia was had no noise. So far I feel that digital & night photography does not mix unless you want to do alot of work editing. I will always keep my film back camera for doing night work. Since the photos was unacceptable to me I dumped them.