Image quality and the night

[dux]

I seem to be having a few issues taking good quality images during the evening and night. Mainly they come out very grainy and I'm not sure how to counter act this. It's really frustrating as I took some nice shots but they were so grainy in places I had to ditch them. Any advice?

[e-freak]

Lower ISO Values - will result in longer shutter times (which you can try to reduce by opening the blend more which will result in shorter focal area). Use flash(es), spots, tripod (if you can work with long time exposure)... Use noise reduction tools - "best" results if you shot in RAW (which you should do anyways) and the manufacturer has an own tool. Last but not least: Get a cam with a bigger chip (allows for more light and will therefore need shorter shutter times) and check the light-values of your lens-sets (forget 1:4 tele lenses for night shots). Oh and you can always just move to a town area with light-pollution >95%.

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[dux]

Thanks man I try using a low ISO but I don't have a tripod and regardless of how still I try to keep my hands/arms it always comes out blury. Is a tripod mandatory for a low ISO and light level to avoid blur?

[Punky]

Thanks man I try using a low ISO but I don't have a tripod and regardless of how still I try to keep my hands/arms it always comes out blury. Is a tripod mandatory for a low ISO and light level to avoid blur?

The more you move with a low ISO, the more blur you will get, so if you want perfectly sharp pictures taken by night time a tripod is recommended, you can also use other objects of course, but that depends on what you are photographing, I don't have a tripod either, but use a chair instead sometimes

[e-freak]

well in any case with a long shutter time you will need a tripod or some kind of stabilizer. I've done a lot of shots in dark areas and think I've a pretty stable hand but you can't avoid blur beneath 1/10th of a second (and if you're untrained it might be that you blur until 1/30th of a second)... And your item/person of interest must not move during the shutter time either, so if you're doing "social fotografing" you better look into some good flashes, if you're doing land-/cityscapes and stuff a tripod will be your best bet. You can always just get a cheap gorilla-arm, they are small and flexible and you can shot from every position what so ever.

and they do work with DSLRs as well (as long as you don't put a 600mm lens on your cam).

[dux]

Ooo, that looks very handy for where I live. A tripod and that would go well together. Thanks chaps

[Fergo]

Here's a lot of pictures I've taken to test some night shots too. I have a pretty old and simple camera (Canon A75), but it still might help:

ISO 50 - 15s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 50 - 4s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 50 - 1/10s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 200 - 15s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 200 - 4s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 200 - 1/10s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 400 - 15s exposure - Apperture F/8.0, F/4.0 e F/2.8 respectively

ISO 400 - 4s exposure - Apperture F/8.0 e F/4.0 respectively

ISO 400 - 1/10s exposure - Apperture F/8.0, F/4.0 e F/2.8 respectively

Hope it helps

Fergo

[e-freak]

ah too bad you didn't do a full ISO1600 or 2500 shot. You can really see what noise reduction does/does not at those settings (I was amazed about some of jp's fotos at ISO2500 having less noise than my ISO800 shots due to different camera and noise reduction).