A630: Constant Grainy Pictures

[Silver Sandwhich]

I have the 8 megapixel Canon Powershot A630. If I ever take a picture without the flash, it comes out really grainy like a web cam and looks horrible. It also happens with the flash like when I put the camera on my tripod and use the timer to take a picture of myself.

This also happened with some pictures I took while outside in complete sunlight.

[Jon]

Post some examples? What mode are you using the camera in?

[Silver Sandwhich]

Auto with Auto Flash and Red Eye Reduction.

[jipli]

Noise usually appears because of high ISO settings, the lower the ISO the finer the picture will be and all the way along to the highest ISO which produces a lot of grain...

[Silver Sandwhich]

Ah, I did have it on high ISO. I just saw it made the viewfinder brighter. But I've actually put that back to auto and still get grainy pictures.

I also have it set on superfine and M3 size.

[rpolitsr]

L Superfine will be better. You can do post processing on noise issues easily.
Low ISO helps, but only pictures in good light will be reasonably free of noise.

[Silver Sandwhich]

Even on Auto ISO, L, and with the flash in a lit room, they still come out super grainy. It's like a really large web cam shot. I tired super fine and normal, both came out like crap.

My A40 (or something) never did this.

[Jon]

Auto often uses the higher ISO settings to keep the shutter speed up. What was the EXIF on these? And did you do any post-processing on them? If they were underexposed, noise is more of a problem.

[Silver Sandwhich]

I don't know what EXIF is, so I guess just default. I resize my pics to 800 x 600 (Wish the camera had this setting!) when I'm actually going to share them, but it really doesn't help.

Macromedia Fireworks is my image editing program of choice, but I can't find a way to un-noise the pics.

I guess auto just sucks balls.

[Jon]

EXIF is the shooting information - if you open the file in Zoom Broser and choose "Properties" it'll tell you the aperture, shutter speed, metering mode, ISO, lens focal length, camera, and all sorts of other useful info.

[Silver Sandwhich]

100-0667
Auto ISO
1/60
F2.8
AWB
3.56MB
3264X2448

[Jon]

100-0667
Auto ISO
1/60
F2.8
AWB
3.56MB
3264X2448
Which picture?

[ddphoto]

Here are some pics taken with an A630 by my daughter, in some cases there's grain but is almost always due to low light or movement.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1370/985797761_acfdcef245_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1348/986647164_088edf52da_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/985794953_122c99895b_o.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1353/985795557_9430e4ff14_o.jpg

She's using the camera on Manual mode and adjusting ISO as needed, usually sticks in 100.

[Silver Sandwhich]

Which picture?

Sorry, the one in post 7.

It angers me that grain comes standard with this thing. I thought I was buying a really good camera...

[RadAL]

on the post with pictures, aside from the first picture (which was taken almost at night and probably handheld without flash...), the other pictures don't look grainy? Don't expect handheld awesome dark pictures (unless you have a super steady hand and take off review time or have a tripod).... without some stability to the camera.

Also, how good do you think you are with cameras? newbie, amateur, semi proffessional, etc?

[Silver Sandwhich]

Casual user. Not artistic, just taking pictures of my cool stuff to show to people online and print out at Longs.

[Cr4zYH3aD]

auta mode always seems to up the iso dramatically in P&S. cehck you ISO if it is 800, 1600 ect...

[ddphoto]

Stop using Auto mode and learn how to use Av, Tv or even M.

The camera works fine, you're just going thru a pinfull learning curve, the same happened to me with a S3. My daughter is 12 and after 2 hours of instruction she's taking excellent pics on M mode.

Learn apperture, speed and iso, that's the key to great pics. The composition part will come as you learn.

[RadAL]

don't dis automode too much... it just depends how much light is out there or how steady your hands are in low light. But indeed he is going through a learning curve.

[dougrb]

Being steady isn't going to help a high ISO mode. You can put it on a tripod, and it will still be noisy. At night, outdoors, auto should not be used period, unless indoors and using flash, otherwise grain is just part of the deal. No camera (except for some of those Fuji from what I'm told) is going to produce good night shots while using a higher ISO mode, so don't blame it on what you bought.

As said previously, your camera is fine, you just need to learn how to use it outside of Auto. Auto can be great for very quick/whimsical and random shots, but if you want better quality for shots that impress...learn M mode.

Just my 2 cents.

doug

[Silver Sandwhich]

I'm already taking much better pics with M.

[mishnogram]

Or try putting it in P mode and then you can set the ISO to whatever you'd like. I had the A610 for a couple of months and absolutely loved it. The only reason I sold it was to buy my S2 which I still currently own.

Here is a gallery taken with the A610 and using flash. All shots were taken under REAL low light conditions (my basement, 500 sq ft with 2 60w light bulbs lighting the place). All shot in P mode.

http://lee-family.smugmug.com/gallery/1177486#55032643