Ok Ladies & Gents, I was out lastnight taking long exposure shots in the city lastnight. Returned home and found ALOT of noise on my photos. Can anyone give me tips on where i went wrong? This was only my second time out so it's still a learning process for me. I have included data on each photo also, none of the photos has been edited besides being resized for here. thanks in advance
Ernesto, thanks for the links, i will look at them. last time out i did 30sec exposures also and the noise was not close to being this bad. ii guess i will try next time with a shorter exposure time and see what happens.
Looks like you had your lens shut down to a small aperture, and did you have a filter on the lens? maybe that cut the light too much coming in to your camera. Were the weather conditions different the last time you tried this? I'm just wondering if it might make a difference if it was more/less hazy, overcast etc.
I like the third one with the rocks in the foreground, that frames it nicely and adds interest I think. You might need to keep an eye on your horizon lines too and check to make sure the camera's straight every time you set up. Looks like a fun project to keep experimentng with.
icepics wrote: Looks like you had your lens shut down to a small aperture, and did you have a filter on the lens? maybe that cut the light too much coming in to your camera. Were the weather conditions different the last time you tried this? I'm just wondering if it might make a difference if it was more/less hazy, overcast etc.
I like the third one with the rocks in the foreground, that frames it nicely and adds interest I think. You might need to keep an eye on your horizon lines too and check to make sure the camera's straight every time you set up. Looks like a fun project to keep experimentng with.
Sharon, thanks for the advice, next time i'll try it with a larger aperture. for these pics i did have the filter on. the weather conditions were about the same actually, i will keep that in mind also. this was my second time doing this and i really enjoyed it even if i didnt get the results i wanted.
Not sure what the camera is (sorry if I missed it)
I've taken these shots (from Brooklyn, isn't it?) and most things are either at infinity or pretty close, so with a wide lens, you don't need an aperture smaller than f8 or so. At f22, you are extending your exposure needlessly and are losing sharpness because of the diffraction effects at small aperture sizes.
Also, I suspect that the exposures are probably dark (ie on a histogram the values are shifted to the left and not much at the highlight end.) As a result, you are having to increase the brightness as you process them and that increases noise a lot in the dark areas. When you take your next shots, look at the histogram on the back and see if you have a peak towards the middle/right - if not, move across to manual exposure and adjust the aperture/speed to make it brighter.
The polarizing filter is not helping - I think you want the reflections in the water of the buildings so take that filter off the lens.
This one was a bit earlier in the evening than yours, but this was 6 seconds at f8 at ISO200. This makes me think you were heavily underexposing with your F22 and 30 seconds which meant that you had to increase the brightness a lot to get the exposure looking OK - hence increasing the noise.
steveheap wrote: Not sure what the camera is (sorry if I missed it)
I've taken these shots (from Brooklyn, isn't it?) and most things are either at infinity or pretty close, so with a wide lens, you don't need an aperture smaller than f8 or so. At f22, you are extending your exposure needlessly and are losing sharpness because of the diffraction effects at small aperture sizes.
Also, I suspect that the exposures are probably dark (ie on a histogram the values are shifted to the left and not much at the highlight end.) As a result, you are having to increase the brightness as you process them and that increases noise a lot in the dark areas. When you take your next shots, look at the histogram on the back and see if you have a peak towards the middle/right - if not, move across to manual exposure and adjust the aperture/speed to make it brighter.
The polarizing filter is not helping - I think you want the reflections in the water of the buildings so take that filter off the lens.
Steve
Hey Steve thanks for the info, i did take them from Brooklyn side. I will experiment with a lower F-stop the next time i'm down there.
you are right about the histogram, that evening i couldn't figure that part of it out, after getting it right the first time out. when i looked at the LCD the pics looked okay afterwards even thou the histogram was over to the right. i will also lose the filter also hopefully that will do the trick.
steveheap wrote: This one was a bit earlier in the evening than yours, but this was 6 seconds at f8 at ISO200. This makes me think you were heavily underexposing with your F22 and 30 seconds which meant that you had to increase the brightness a lot to get the exposure looking OK - hence increasing the noise.
Steve
excellent shot Steve, i will try a shorter time also the next time along with a lower f-stop.hopefully changing both of these will correct my noise problem.
I agree with the comments above. Remove the filter, it's not needed. Open up your aperture, and increase your ISO setting. In fact, if your camera has an Auto ISO feature, try turning it on (sorry, I didn't notice what your camera is). An couple of things to try for sharp images is using a remote shutter release (if you have one). If not use the timer. And if your camera has a function to lock the mirror up before making the exposure you may want to try it.
Good luck and happy experimenting!
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