# Don't you just hate it when......



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

.....you spend all day at Croft with the camera, take 300+ pics, (which look great on the 2" lcd) only to get them on the pc and find out they're all  !!!!

they're all grainy as hell, am i doing something wrong?












exif: http://www.dave6.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/carp.txt


----------



## beardboy (Feb 12, 2006)

Was that zoomed in fully?

If so, was it on a tripod?


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

hmm not sure, looks like noise but you were only at ISO 200! Was that shot at the beginning of the day or at the end after the camera had seen a lot of use?


----------



## Sypher (Jul 16, 2008)

Strange. The exif says only ISO200, so shouldn't be that. But looking at the aperture and shutter speeds, I would guess the shot was under exposed and the noise is being caused by bringing the exposure up, either in camera or software.


----------



## S63 (Jan 5, 2007)

Can't comment on the other 299 pics, the one you have shared with us is one hell of a difficult shot to get just right, there is action going on in the foreground and way back in the distance, if you wanted to pull everything into focus you would need a small aperture, which in turn would require a longer shutter speed, hence all moving objects becoming blurred. Did you try similar shots using different settings?


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Looks like my pictures when zoomed in.


----------



## Gary-360 (Apr 26, 2008)

A little sharpening and a run through noiseware would help these, do you have the full size images? Perhaps I could do a little shopping for you?


----------



## Gary-360 (Apr 26, 2008)

Meant to ask, were you using the servo drive for the action shots?


----------



## silver bmw z3 (Apr 30, 2007)

Is it a crop or the full size pic? Is the quality setting set to low res ? 

I notice the resolution in the EXIF says 72dpi. Is that normal? My pics seem to be 300dpi. 72 dpi sounds like screen resolution. Don't know if you did something to make it lower res in that way. Scratch that, just did a search and your cam takes pics in 72 dpi as a default by the look of it so doubt that has naything to do with it.


----------



## silver bmw z3 (Apr 30, 2007)

S500 said:


> Can't comment on the other 299 pics, the one you have shared with us is one hell of a difficult shot to get just right, there is action going on in the foreground and way back in the distance, if you wanted to pull everything into focus you would need a small aperture, which in turn would require a longer shutter speed, hence all moving objects becoming blurred. Did you try similar shots using different settings?


The pic looks pixellated/noisy as hell, doesn't look like a focus issue to me - that isn't blur/lack of focus as far as I can see.


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

beardboy said:


> Was that zoomed in fully?
> 
> If so, was it on a tripod?


i was zoomed in fully (not ideal i know), and it wasn't on a tripod as such, but as good as.....


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> hmm not sure, looks like noise but you were only at ISO 200! Was that shot at the beginning of the day or at the end after the camera had seen a lot of use?


that was the second race of the day, maybe 30mins of use, but from the first pic to the last, they're the same..... :thumb:


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

Sypher said:


> Strange. The exif says only ISO200, so shouldn't be that. But looking at the aperture and shutter speeds, I would guess the shot was under exposed and the noise is being caused by bringing the exposure up, either in camera or software.


that pic is straight from the camera.... i don't have the luxury of shooting RAW


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

S500 said:


> Can't comment on the other 299 pics, the one you have shared with us is one hell of a difficult shot to get just right, there is action going on in the foreground and way back in the distance, if you wanted to pull everything into focus you would need a small aperture, which in turn would require a longer shutter speed, hence all moving objects becoming blurred. Did you try similar shots using different settings?


all the pics were taken using the 'sports' scene setting :wall:


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

Gary-360 said:


> A little sharpening and a run through noiseware would help these, do you have the full size images? Perhaps I could do a little shopping for you?


that is the full size image straight from the camera.... feel free pal, if you have any success.... i'll upload the other 299 pics for you!! :lol:



Gary-360 said:


> Meant to ask, were you using the servo drive for the action shots?


 say what?? lol


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Dave^ said:


> i was zoomed in fully (not ideal i know), and it wasn't on a tripod as such, but as good as.....


I think that is your problem. Small compacts have poor digital zoom.


----------



## S63 (Jan 5, 2007)

Agree with James comment above. Any camera is only as good as it's lens and all lenses have their limitations and with most compacts you are stuck with just the one, whereas with a slr you can take a range of lenses with you but compacts do have their place and can take stunning pictures.Last summer I went on my usual trip to Lanzarote and because of the recent baggage restrictions left the slr at home and just took a compact, typically, something I have longed to see from our villa are dolphins swimming inshore, how I wished I had my 400mm lens, still the moment is on record if a lousy image but the following image couldn't have been much improved with my slr


----------



## Mike V (Apr 7, 2007)

from reading what you did it looks like you used digital zoom instead of optical.

Think of taking a picture then zooming in. This is what you have here.

You may aswell have taken a pic not zoomed in then taken it home and zoomed in. This is what you would have got.

as someone mentioned smalled compacts generally dont have a good optical zoom.


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

thanks for the advise guys, much appreciated!!

here's the pic after running thru noiseware!!










much better!!!

is there a simple way to run each of the other 299 pics thru noiseware automatically?


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

If you look at a piece of software called Irfan viewer. You can do batch work on that. Not sure what filters there are but you can blur it slightly which will get you a similar result to above.


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

cheers. the standalone version of noiseware allows for batch processing too :thumb:


----------



## silver bmw z3 (Apr 30, 2007)

Well spotted whoever said it was probably digital zoom that caused it - that is consistent with the artifacts seen in the image. Going forward if you like this sort of photography either an SLR or a compact with good optical zoom (like some of the panasonics) might be a good investment. The former if you are happy lugging one around.


----------



## Holden_C04 (Sep 27, 2007)

Dave^ said:


> .....you spend all day at Croft with the camera, take 300+ pics, (which look great on the 2" lcd) only to get them on the pc and find out they're all  !!!!
> 
> they're all grainy as hell, am i doing something wrong?


Yes, actually I have had the exact same experience with this problem.

http://www.autopia.org/forum/pro-de...etailing-2007-porsche-cayman-s-35-photos.html


----------



## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

silver bmw z3 said:


> Well spotted whoever said it was probably digital zoom that caused it - that is consistent with the artifacts seen in the image. Going forward if you like this sort of photography either an SLR or a compact with good optical zoom (like some of the panasonics) might be a good investment. The former if you are happy lugging one around.


 I only knew because my camera is the same. Zoom is absolute crap.


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

silver bmw z3 said:


> Well spotted whoever said it was probably digital zoom that caused it - that is consistent with the artifacts seen in the image. Going forward if you like this sort of photography either an SLR or a compact with good optical zoom (like some of the panasonics) might be a good investment. The former if you are happy lugging one around.


thinking of getting an slr for xmas, but i'm struggling to justify £400 (obv. entry level stuff) just to use 4 or 5 times a year..... when i'll probably just **** those pics up too!!! lol!!!

did think about another/better compact, as the one i have now (Sony DSC-P200) has been around some time now..... but i'm not sure another compact would be any better tbh......

i shall be looking into it tho  :thumb:


----------



## silver bmw z3 (Apr 30, 2007)

Doesn't HAVE to be DSLR, I reckon a decent "prosumer" compact or even some of the compacts with more manual settings and decent optical zoom would definitely improve things but I think you can't beat an SLR if you are serious about it.

Few tips:

http://www.amateursnapper.com/photography/motorsport-photography


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

silver bmw z3 said:


> Doesn't HAVE to be DSLR, I reckon a decent "prosumer" compact or even some of the compacts with more manual settings and decent optical zoom would definitely improve things but I think you can't beat an SLR if you are serious about it.
> 
> Few tips:
> 
> http://www.amateursnapper.com/photography/motorsport-photography


Some of the "prosumer" cameras will have a good enough lens, good enough sensor. BUT the focus system is nothing like as good a a DLSR so for that reason you will miss a lot of shots of fast paced stuff, due to the camera not being able to focus quickly enough for high speed racing!


----------



## silver bmw z3 (Apr 30, 2007)

rmorgan84 said:


> Some of the "prosumer" cameras will have a good enough lens, good enough sensor. BUT the focus system is nothing like as good a a DLSR so for that reason you will miss a lot of shots of fast paced stuff, due to the camera not being able to focus quickly enough for high speed racing!


Depends how sensitive to focus the shot is surely? I haven't seen many landscape photographers worrying about focus systems as they are trying to get everything in focus from near to far typically, can't he do same with this?

Not saying it is ideal, the SLR is the tool for that job but certainly better than the result he had.


----------



## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

silver bmw z3 said:


> Depends how sensitive to focus the shot is surely? I haven't seen many landscape photographers worrying about focus systems as they are trying to get everything in focus from near to far typically, can't he do same with this?
> 
> Not saying it is ideal, the SLR is the tool for that job but certainly better than the result he had.


yeah but landscape is a different kettle of fish to motorsport...

But if we roll with it for now, there are a couple of problems with that, most lancscape photographers use hyperfocal distance, some use focus stacking, but ultimately with getting everything in focus you need a small aperture.

There are two problems with this:

1) small apertutres requires a slower shutter speed, the way to counter this is to up the ISO then you're back to square one of having grainy images due to compact sensors having poor high ISO perormance because of how close the pixels are togehter.

2) On small comapct sensors and compact lenses, diffraction sets in when using small apertures so again poor image quality.


----------



## V8burble (Jul 3, 2007)

You can do what I did... pick up a DSLR mint second hand, for the price of a decent bridge :thumb:


----------



## Dave^ (Mar 22, 2007)

V8burble said:


> You can do what I did... pick up a DSLR mint second hand, for the price of a decent bridge :thumb:


Unfortunately, there's not that many of them about....... unless i'm not looking hard enough or in the right places......


----------



## parish (Jun 29, 2006)

silver bmw z3 said:


> Depends how sensitive to focus the shot is surely? I haven't seen many landscape photographers worrying about focus systems as they are trying to get everything in focus from near to far typically, can't he do same with this?
> 
> Not saying it is ideal, the SLR is the tool for that job but certainly better than the result he had.


If we're talking about motorsport then focus is extremely important - not only does the camera need to be able to focus very quickly you also ideally need servo focus (where the camera constantly re-focuses as you pan).

Also, you really need a camera where you can select point focus rather than the camera deciding what, in the whole scene, should be the point of focus. Can any compacts do this? On my 400D for example, it has 9 AF points aranged in a diamond pattern and in normal mode it assesses all nine and *it* decides what to focus on. For motorsport I set it to manual AF point and choose just the centre AF point (and set the camera in AI servo mode) so all I have to do is keep the centre AF point on the subject, i.e. the car I'm interested in, and know that it what will be focused on.

For example, in this shot the focus is on the silver car behind the red one - which was my intention - whereas in full auto mode the camera would most likely have chosen the the lead car


----------

