Why are most of my photos grainy?

[fire.fly]

<p>Please be kind if I do not use the correct terminology, I'm very new. I may get 1 clear shot out of 50. They're not blurry, just grainy. I just don't understand. I'm shooting with a Nikon D40, my ISO speed is set at 1600 or H1, and my shutter is completely open. I tried moving my lights and closing the shutter. I process the photos with PhotoScape. I recently purchased Photoshop Elements 8 but have bot had time to figure out how to use it. Please help!</p><div></div>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>Shooting at the upper limits of the ISO range of a camera is the classic cause of digital noise. The problem is made worse if you are under-exposing. An under-exposed photo at 1600 ISO or H1 on your camera is almost guaranteed to show a good deal of noise.</p>

<p>You're saying that your shutter is completely open. I wonder if you mean not the shutter but the diaphragm, which controls the aperture, so I wonder, why are you getting so little light?</p>

<p> </p>

[thomasmckown]

<p>High ISO settings is definitely the cause of the grainy look. Nikon's camera's have been known to be quite noisy especially at higher ISO until their more recent higher end models. You probably don't want to shoot any higher than ISO 800. You might want to try learning about basic exposure and camera settings. There is a lot of information here at photo.net in the learning section. (http://www.photo.net/learn/) Also, there are plenty of resources online for learning about Photoshop if you take the time to search. The Luminous Landscape is a great place to learn more advanced techniques. (www.luminous-landscape.com) Another great learning place for artificial lighting is Strobist. (www.strobist.blogspot.com) They teach about lighting settings and equipment. And for camera reviews and forums, you might want to check out Digital Photography Review. (www.dpreview.com) There they discuss the technical aspects of digital cameras and which ones perform better than others.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Certainly using ISO 1600 on a D40 is going to be asking for noise, but technique can have somethig to do with it, too. Once you get into higher ISOs, <em>any</em> under exposure is going to make the noise much more obvious, especially if you ease up the darker areas in post production. So, do what you can to "expose to the right" (do a search on that phrase, here in this forum), so that your histogram pushes up out of the shadows as much as possible without blowing out the highlights.<br /><br />In your example, above, you're at 1/400th, and f/10, and ISO 1600. That's what's killing you. Remember that there's a relationship between those three. If you slow down the shutter speed to 1/200th, you can reduce the ISO to 800. If you open up the lens to f/5.6 or so, and shoot at 1/125th, you might well be down to ISO 400 or lower. You'll get much, much cleaner results, that way. Consider using a tripod to prevent loss of clarity from motion blur when your shutter speed gets close to 1/60th, and then consider getting away from low-powered hot lights and into strobes (a couple of inexpensive Alien Bees B400 units would completely change your experience!) when time and budget permit.<br /><br />Good luck!</p>

[starvy]

<p>Hi Mercedes,<br>

I think we can safely say from the above comments that it is to do with the high ISO. I notice that you have a studio setup with lights. Why not shoot at ISO 200 and see what the results are like. Are you shooting at high ISO to be able to use a closed down lens? This is not absolutely necessary in the case of portraits.</p>

[nathan_meador]

<p>I agree, using studio lights, there should be no reason to shoot at such a high ISO.</p>

[nathangardner]

<p>ISO1600, theres your problem. Shoot at 200 or 400. The lower the number the less noise.</p>

[Alan Marcus]

<p >When the shutter clicks, light from the subject is focused by the lens onto the surface of a light sensitive chip. The chip's surface is covered by millions of light receptors called photosites. Each contains a light-sensing photodiode and each is covered by a strongly colored filter. To record a color image, the receptor s must be filtered using one of three light primary colors red - green - blue. Each filter must be very strong. The red filter stops green and blue and passes red. The blue filter stops green and red and passes blue, the green filter passes green and stops red and green. In other words each stop 2/3 or the light and passes 1/3. The strength of the filters needed greatly reduce the light energy that is presented to the photosites. </p>

<p >Now during the exposure some photons of light transverse the filters. The ones that hit generate an electric charge. The brighter the image the more photon hits and the greater the charge. Once the exposure is complete, the charge is amplified and moved into a storage area. One by one the charge is read and converted to an electrical signal. The signal is very weak and must be amplified again. If the exposing light was feeble, the degree of amplification needed will be quite high. </p>

<p >When you or the automation of the camera set a high ISO, the circuitry of camera is alerted to the fact that exposing light will be feeble. The circuitry responds by turning up the volume control (amplification). Like with a radio, turning up the volume amplifies the good sound but sorry to report the static (bad stuff) is also amplified. We call this a high-signal-to-noise condition. The result of high noise is to make the image look pebbles or grainy. </p>

<p >The countermeasure is to keep the ISO set low so the camera will not need the high amplification. You cannot do this if your studio lights are feeble unless you will settle for slow shutter speeds and near maximum lens apertures. </p>

<p >This is the very reason that a professional studio will always use high power electronic flash. Your choices are to work with you lamp limitations or save your pennies and buy more powerful lamps. Carefully consider a studio flash outfit for your next purchase. </p>

[andrew_martin11]

<p>I would suggest also turning on noise reduction & shooting in a RAW format, it will help slightly. In post processing you can further remove noise by making blacks deeper, and whites brighter. You will lose detail though. Like the others say, the best bet is to lower the ISO.<br>

Nikon should provide basic RAW software.</p>