My first attempt at eye candy
- Thread starter jrpdriver
- Start date
rickztahone
New member
As others have mentioned, it is a higher ISO that is adding the grain or rather, "noise" to your photos. As also mentioned, some camera sensors are more adapted to better noise management, but you may have guessed it, they are a lot more expensive 
.
There are a few things you can do, you can lower your iso and extend your shutter speed. You can also open up your apeture.
However, I am not on my home computer so I can not see your EXIF data, or rather, the details of what your camera was set to when you took the photos. Depending on your settings, you may not have that much wiggle room to extend your shutter speed or open up your apeture. Apeture is a function of the lens, the wider a lens opens, the more light it lets in, but it also affects the DOF (Depth of Field) of a photograph.
In all honesty though, I think this was a successful effort on your part. I am assuming you shot these in jpeg, had you shot in RAW, I am sure I can run them through PhotoShop and get rid of almost all the noise. It isn't difficult to do. Shooting in jpeg dramatically cuts the retained data of a file and in turn makes it more difficult to manipulate the file as you would with a RAW file. As already mentioned by someone else, RAW files tend to be much bigger. I shoot with a 24mp camera w/ a full frame sensor and my RAW files are huge. When I do a shoot and shoot off 500+ photos, that can really bog down a computer. I doubt you'd be shooting this much, but I am just giving you an example of the difference between jpeg and RAW.
If you need any more help, or if anyone in this section of the forum needs help with taking better photos, I can definitely help you all out. I have been giving advice on the Photography section here for a few weeks now, and there are a lot of people to benefit from better camera skills.
P.S., I think the best piece of equipment you can get, besides actual gear parts (Body/lens) is a tripod. In aquarium photography, you are dealing with bad lighting. I know you may think, "I have 10 Radion fixtures, I have enough light!". Truth is, that is still a difficult thing to capture because it can still be considered low light. A tripod helps alleviate some of the downfalls of aquarium photography.
I hope this helps a little.
. There are a few things you can do, you can lower your iso and extend your shutter speed. You can also open up your apeture.
However, I am not on my home computer so I can not see your EXIF data, or rather, the details of what your camera was set to when you took the photos. Depending on your settings, you may not have that much wiggle room to extend your shutter speed or open up your apeture. Apeture is a function of the lens, the wider a lens opens, the more light it lets in, but it also affects the DOF (Depth of Field) of a photograph.
In all honesty though, I think this was a successful effort on your part. I am assuming you shot these in jpeg, had you shot in RAW, I am sure I can run them through PhotoShop and get rid of almost all the noise. It isn't difficult to do. Shooting in jpeg dramatically cuts the retained data of a file and in turn makes it more difficult to manipulate the file as you would with a RAW file. As already mentioned by someone else, RAW files tend to be much bigger. I shoot with a 24mp camera w/ a full frame sensor and my RAW files are huge. When I do a shoot and shoot off 500+ photos, that can really bog down a computer. I doubt you'd be shooting this much, but I am just giving you an example of the difference between jpeg and RAW.
If you need any more help, or if anyone in this section of the forum needs help with taking better photos, I can definitely help you all out. I have been giving advice on the Photography section here for a few weeks now, and there are a lot of people to benefit from better camera skills
. P.S., I think the best piece of equipment you can get, besides actual gear parts (Body/lens) is a tripod. In aquarium photography, you are dealing with bad lighting. I know you may think, "I have 10 Radion fixtures, I have enough light!". Truth is, that is still a difficult thing to capture because it can still be considered low light. A tripod helps alleviate some of the downfalls of aquarium photography.
I hope this helps a little.
jrpdriver
Active member
As others have mentioned, it is a higher ISO that is adding the grain or rather, "noise" to your photos. As also mentioned, some camera sensors are more adapted to better noise management, but you may have guessed it, they are a lot more expensive
There are a few things you can do, you can lower your iso and extend your shutter speed. You can also open up your apeture.
However, I am not on my home computer so I can not see your EXIF data, or rather, the details of what your camera was set to when you took the photos. Depending on your settings, you may not have that much wiggle room to extend your shutter speed or open up your apeture. Apeture is a function of the lens, the wider a lens opens, the more light it lets in, but it also affects the DOF (Depth of Field) of a photograph.
In all honesty though, I think this was a successful effort on your part. I am assuming you shot these in jpeg, had you shot in RAW, I am sure I can run them through PhotoShop and get rid of almost all the noise. It isn't difficult to do. Shooting in jpeg dramatically cuts the retained data of a file and in turn makes it more difficult to manipulate the file as you would with a RAW file. As already mentioned by someone else, RAW files tend to be much bigger. I shoot with a 24mp camera w/ a full frame sensor and my RAW files are huge. When I do a shoot and shoot off 500+ photos, that can really bog down a computer. I doubt you'd be shooting this much, but I am just giving you an example of the difference between jpeg and RAW.
If you need any more help, or if anyone in this section of the forum needs help with taking better photos, I can definitely help you all out. I have been giving advice on the Photography section here for a few weeks now, and there are a lot of people to benefit from better camera skills
P.S., I think the best piece of equipment you can get, besides actual gear parts (Body/lens) is a tripod. In aquarium photography, you are dealing with bad lighting. I know you may think, "I have 10 Radion fixtures, I have enough light!". Truth is, that is still a difficult thing to capture because it can still be considered low light. A tripod helps alleviate some of the downfalls of aquarium photography.
I hope this helps a little.
Thanks for the info, and I just checked, the setting was on JPEG, not RAW, so I'll try some more later with the change in setting and I'll try increasing the Apeture
rickztahone
New member
Be warned, if you do not have a RAW converter, you will have a hard time dealing with RAW files. There are free RAW converters online however. Just FYI.
Raw files are fine and dandy IF you are planning to spend some time and energy in Lightroom or similar editing your photos. If you're too lazy for that (like me) and just want to get the best image you can straight out of the camera, I don't think RAW does you any good.
However, I'm no expert, so I might be completely wrong.
However, I'm no expert, so I might be completely wrong.
rickztahone
New member
No, you are correct. RAW files are the only format a professional will shoot in, but, as you say, you have to spend some time editing photos.
When you select jpeg on your camera, you are basically telling your camera, "hey, I want you to add all of your algorithms to my files because I do not want to do this later on". So the camera applies these presets to your file, independant of what you are actually taking a picture of. RAW files on the other hand, you are telling the camera, "I run the show here, I will edit with my own editing style".
I'd suggest to keep shooting jpeg, but if you get more serious about photography, make the transition to RAW. Lightroom, as mentioned here is a great starter program. It can be had as cheap as $50 for old versions.
LessThanJaker1
Member
Shoot in raw. Don't be intimated its super easy to work with.
