Wildlife Photography across the Water: Noise/Grain

Sunday 21 February 2010

Noise/Grain

Noise, or grain as we used to call it in the good? ol film days is a very subjective subject, What is a noisey image for one person is perfectly acceptable for somebody else, I wont shoot my Nikon D300 over ISO 400 as for me the images show too much noise, In fact its not really for me its what i know agencies will except, In the days of slide/film agencies didn't like taking images over ISO 200 but these days they will take any ISO as long as they are low grain, What does that mean? well to me its ISO 400 on a D300 and ISO 1600 on a D3, Now if i was shooting purely for personal reasons those figures would go out of the window as i could use a noise reduction software like noise ninja or imagenomic, Agencies wont allow the use of NR software so a well exposed,sharp and low grain image are the order of the day, alot of the new cameras these days are sold as low grain and high ISO but that doesn't mean that you can shoot willy nilly at high ISO and get nice smooth images-exposure is ALL important, Get the exposure spot on and the images are great but if the exposure is slightly off and needs some adjustment in PP then grain really shows, Exposure to the right is ok but when i shoot at high (for me) ISO then i prefer to get it right in camera so in PP i just have to add some curves and sat and that's it, Plain backgrounds are not your friend with high ISO and will show grain more than say a forest background, In reality grain today from most modern digital cameras at ISO 800 is better than grain from film/slide at ISO 200/400 and with the D3/s you can up that figure to 1600 or more-remarkable,However with all the talk of cameras being able to shoot at huge ISO i think we need to remember that for Nature Photographers these ISO's are not really designed for our use, mainly for press and indoor sports guys, I would always recommend using the lowest ISO as possible for the very best image quality
Last night i did my first opossum shoot and will show these in my next blog

Dave

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.