Beginner An Attempt at Raw

Forkbeard

Forkbeard

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Jim
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I've been playing with raw and have shot a couple of high iso night shots (iso3200), which I've left fairly noisy to retain some detail. Is it too noisy and is there anything else that needs fixing/tweaking? Overall I'm pretty happy with it; for one thing the camera jpg stripped out all the neon lighting (thinking it was CA?) which I've saved in raw along with a lot of blown out colour on the spot-lit signs. Opinions appreciated. I've uploaded the resulting jpg at full size:

 
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That's a great RAW shot. Lovely exposure.

My question would be, why did you shoot at ISO 3200? At 1/8s I would assume it's tripod mounted. With that in mind, my settings would have been ISO 100 for minimal noise, f/16 (to get a lovely starburst on the street lamp) and an 8 second exposure (if I've worked that out in my head correctly).

If it is hand held at 1/8s, then we'll played. That's as good as you can expect.
 
Thanks for the reply, it was hand held and one of a few that came out sharp enough to work on. I like the challenge of shooting hand held in low light (and not carrying much) and am always figuring out how to eek out that bit more speed!

I've been pretty disappointed in some of the noise/noise reduction in a lot of shots and have been pondering upgrading bodies but I don't know what to. Raw has helped though.
 
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That's a good shot of Steep Hill - what have you done with all the people?

Back in the day, we would have expected a lot of grain in a night time shot. Now we get noise. Work with the noise rather than fight against it. Learn how the noise builds in the image and use that knowledge to build the ambience/atmosphere/etc.
 
john.margetts said:
That's a good shot of Steep Hill - what have you done with all the people?

Back in the day, we would have expected a lot of grain in a night time shot. Now we get noise. Work with the noise rather than fight against it. Learn how the noise builds in the image and use that knowledge to build the ambience/atmosphere/etc.
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Thanks for the feedback and tips. Ah, the people...I was in Lincoln for three nights/four days and this was the only second (almost literally) there were no people!

I'm still playing with the noise reduction, I've done another with more noise removed and one with more saved - I guess the best way to decided which is best is to have a few prints done and see what I like. I've become sidetracked by digital somewhat; the main reason I started taking pictures was I thought it would be nice to get some big prints of places I visit done for home, and I've not done many at all so far - they're just sat on the PC which is not my favourite way to view pictures.
 
You might like to cap the print size - to let's say A4 rather than A3, but it might be instructive to try an A3 anyway. At less than A4 the noise as seen here is hardly going to be an issue.

Was the 1/8th facilitated by VR in the lens?
 
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droj said:
You might like to cap the print size - to let's say A4 rather than A3, but it might be instructive to try an A3 anyway. At less than A4 the noise as seen here is hardly going to be an issue.
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Thanks, yeah that's what I was thinking - get a few done at A4 and A3 and see what I can get away with. If I can get away with A3 at iso3200 I'll never complain about my camera again.
 
Looks ok to me, you could maybe remove a bit more noise in Camera Raw or Lightroom but I think it's acceptable for a night shot. I know that view :)
 
Nice shot especially hand held ! Looked at your flickr and I prefer this shot without the C/A

IMG_1209 by James Howard, on Flickr
 
Dael_Pix said:
Nice shot especially hand held ! Looked at your flickr and I prefer this shot without the C/A
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Thanks. The C/A is meant to be there, it's actually a UV or purple light that the in camera jpg removed due to it being the same colour as chromatic abberation. I agree though, it looks better without it. I especially don't like the cast on the shop on the other side.
 
When trying to lose noise in a night sky, sometimes upping contrast a little will help it disappear, although you need to be careful because it can affect all parts of the image.
 
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