ISO 400 So much noise?

Hi... I need help understanding... Am I doing something wrong? I was in a overcast day, around 9:00 AM shooting at ISO 400. The pictures were extremel grainy. Camera: Canon G2

Here's a sample:
Jake Batting original file 3.5 meg.
Jake Batting resized to 500 pixel width.
Shooting Mode: Program AE
Tv: 1/640
Av: 7.1
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 18.8mm
Image Quality: Super Fine
White Balance: Cloudy

Is there ways to improve this? Or is it going to be grainy like this with this setting.

That's the sad truth about using a small sensor on a compact - high ISO means a lot of noise, although it has improved a lot on the G6. No need to shoot ISO 400, anyways, for most outdoor situations unless the lighting is very poor or you want to extend flash range.

The only way to improve that I know of is to invest in a significantly more expensive camera, such as a 20D or (we all wish) a 1Ds. But perhaps it's better to put that money into Jacob's college fund.

BTW, Jacob is a winner! I'm keeping my daughter away from him when he grows up.

Yes, I'm getting a G6. Ordered from Costo!!! But till then, I'm taking tons of pics with my G2.

I set the camera to ISO 400 because of all the running and action photographs I was taking. As well as no flash and on a cloudy hazy day. Is this the right frame of mind - I'm a beginner photographer really but trying desperately to learn more.

Yes, Jacob was voted MVP of his team. LOL Brings tears to a father's eyes!

If interested read about him in my blog. Hungry Hungry Screenwriter Blog

I noticed that "jake batting" was taken at 1/640. That's probably a bit of overkill for baseball; you probably could have done the shot at ISO 200 and 1/320. You could also open the aperture a stop or even two, at which point you'd be back down to ISO 50.

Hmmm...that brings up an idea. I wonder if "Tv" mode and auto ISO will fiddle the ISO to make the exposure possible?...nope, just tried it with my G3 and it doesn't. It should, but it doesn't. As far as I can tell, "ISO Auto" is awfully similar to "ISO 50".

I kinda get what you're saying but I kinda don't. What's the difference between the two settings?

There are three things you can manipulate to control the amount of light that's captured, and thus the exposure: the shutter speed (how long you are collecting photons), the f-stop (how many square centimeters of lens are capturing photons) and the electronic gain (how many photons are needed to get the sensor to respond at a certain level). The latter is what camera makers call the "ISO setting", entirely for historical reasons. For electronic reasons, numerically higher ISO settings cause noise in the picture, which we see as grain.

If you reduce the ISO from 400 to 200, which basically means "I'm going to need twice as many photons to get a signal level of x" then you need to find a way to get more photons on the sensor so that your picture is still properly exposed. One way is to keep the shutter open longer. If you go from 1/640 to 1/320, you'll get twice as many photons and everything will be OK.

Alternatively, you could double the square centimeters by going to a lower f-stop number. F stops are measured in diameter, so doubling the number of photons (square centimeters or square inches) means changing the diameter by the square root of 2. Don't worry if that doesn't make sense; what you really need to know is that going from f/5.6 to f/4 (one stop) will double the photons and compensate for changing the ISO from 400 to 200. The only confusing part is that smaller f-numbers mean more photons.

For baseball, you don't need a super-fast shutter speed unless you're trying to capture the ball flying off the bat (and then a speed of 1/2000 would probably be a good idea!). So you could go from 1/640 to 1/320 and still catch Jake's action. Since that doubles the number of photons, you can then shoot at ISO 200 and get better pictures. I wouldn't go much slower than 1/250, though, so you can't really take the shutter-speed trick much farther. But instead you can open up the lens from f/7.1 (which is what you used in the original shot) to f/4 or even f/3.5. F/3.5 is 2 stops (photon doublings) away from f/7.1 (remember that f-numbers work by square-root-of-two per stop, so since 7.1 is twice 3.5, you get two stops worth of photons by cutting the f-number in half. That's exactly what you need, since going from ISO 200 to ISO 50 needs only two doublings of photons.

So for the particular picture you posted, you could have shot at ISO 50, 1/320, f/3.5. Or you could have used ISO 100, which would let you either stay at 1/640 or go to 1/320 f/5 to get more depth of field and use the "sweet spot" in the lens.

Hope this helps. It's confusing at first, but the key points to remember are:

• Higher ISO means more photons. Doubling the ISO is one stop. The G series does ISO in 1-stop increments.
  
• Faster shutter speeds (higher numbers in the fraction) mean fewer photons. Doubling the shutter speed is one stop. The G series does shutter speeds in 1/3-stop increments.
  
• Opening the lens wider (lower f-stop numbers) means more photons. Multiplying the f-stop by 0.7 is one stop wider; multiplying by 0.5 is two stops. Multiplying by 1.4 is one stop narrower; multiplying by 2 is two stops. The G series does lens apertures in 1/3-stop increments; this is where life gets really interesting because who the heck knows the sixth root of two? If you're playing with f-stops in Av mode or after pushing the * key, just remember that three clicks are one stop and otherwise don't worry too much.
  

That's great information! Thanks!!!