question on low light photography

[olas]

I have the canon powershot a70 (3.2M). It has served me as a loyal companion producing excellent results in lanscape/still life. Recently, I took some nude photos by candle light. I noticed that on the iso 400 setting, the noise in the image was unacceptable when printing to 8x10 (canon i960 printer).

My question is this. I am contemplating the purchase of the eos 10D and am curious whether I can take these low light shots at ISO400 and still keep a low enough noise ratio to produce 8x10 prints. My other concern about this camera is that the lowest ISO possible is 100 (compared to 50 of the a70). Does the higher base line ISO for this camera produce inherently grainier photos in low light situations?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[RichardtheSane]

I will compare the 10D ISO 100 to my G5 ISO 50, and the 10D blows the G5 out of the water!

Seriously, the lack of grain is fantastic. Below is a 100% crop of an image I took at ISO400. See any grain?

http://www.richardlindley.co.uk/images/100crop.jpg

OK, so at ISO 400 on the 10D there is a little grain, but there is less grain on my 10D at ISO 1600 than there is on my G5 at ISO 400.

[ssim]

Recently, I took some nude photos by candle light

I realize that you are new to the board but if you are going to throw this out without examples..... :roll:

Seriously I have taken many shots on my 10D up to 1600 ISO and the noise has been manageable. It also depends on the situation and lighting. I regularly bump up my ISO to 400 and the images are fine. In the odd occasion I will apply Neat Image to reduce the noise where necessary.

[olas]

ok...here is mine... i usually get no 'grain' in higher light situations... but in this case, in low light... when printed in color, it is not necessarily the "graininess" that bothers me... it is the noise within the grainy parts... it just looks pretty pixelated... but only in low light.


http://members.cox.net/mrapa1/candlesmile.jpg

[RichardtheSane]

Low light and grain go hand in hand really. But I can assure you on the 10D you would be able to make a decent enough print from it.

In fact I have made a 10x8 from the image below which was taken at iso 1600 and cropped down to over half the original size.

Nice shot there btw. Try converting to B&W and it would look very moody :)

http://www.richardlindley.co.uk/images/allabouteve3.jpg

[olas]

i did convert it to b&w, but the photo loses alot of its feel... still really good, but not as warm. do you have any post processing suggestions to blend the individual grain colors a bit better so that i am not getting that tye dye effect? maybe matte paper?

edit: i have photoshop 7.0

[randyk]

ditto what everyone else said about low noise on the 10D. But be sure to get fast lenses too, so you can minimize use of higher ISO.

I don't hesitate to use ISO 400 for any shot (may be needed in shade with f4 lens) and will gladly go 800 if its needed.

[chris.bailey]

Dont forget that on some images the grain can be a part of the picture and I think the image you posted is an example. I think taking the grain away would lessen it as a composition.

[olas]

i agree about the grain being part of the image, but what i cannot accept is the "tye dye" looking effect amogst the grain... its like color separation or something of the sort... there ar alot of purples and magentas coming out. it really makes it look unattractive when blown up larger than 4x6.

what to do? or should i start over with a better cam? :D

[Jesper]

olas,

The 10D (and the 300D) have MUCH LESS noise than the A70 or any other compact digital camera. The 10D and 300D have less noise at ISO 1600 than your A70 at ISO 400, and ISO 100 on the 10D / 300D is cleaner than ISO 50 on the A70.

The reason is that the sensor of the 10D / 300D is much larger than that of any compact digital camera. The larger the pixels on the sensor, the better the signal-to-noise ratio will be and the less the noise.

The sensor of the 10D and 300D (they have the same sensor) has a surface area of 22.7 x 15.1 mm, with about 6.5 million pixels. The A70 has a sensor with a surface area of 5.27 x 3.96 mm, with about 3.34 million pixels. If you do the calculation, you'll find that the pixels of the 10D and 300D are more than 8.4 times as large as the pixels of the A70.

One of the main reasons I bought a 10D and sold my G3 is because I wanted a camera that was good in low light....

[Ballen Photo]

Olas, I dont have any low light shots of people yet, but here's a link to a low light shot I took with a 10D at iso 3200. Hope this helps.
.........Bruce
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=162325#162325

[sparktography]

i did convert it to b&w, but the photo loses alot of its feel... still really good, but not as warm. do you have any post processing suggestions to blend the individual grain colors a bit better so that i am not getting that tye dye effect? maybe matte paper?

edit: i have photoshop 7.0

Try sepiatoning? Perhaps do a duotone with a warm orange, or a red?

[randyk]

Yes, I hate the funky color separation too. You might try running one of those noise reduction packages like Neat image, maybe this would help. And yes, you should upgrade because you will get less noisy pictures overall. But be forewarned, you will still see some of this in certain pictures at ISO 800 and will be even worse at 1600. But pretty certain it will be a far improvement over your digicam.