I'm using a canon 50mm 1.8, for landscape pictures, why are they so grainy?

Question

I took pictures of some awesome clouds(RAW) and when I went to edit them (gimp) they looked so grainy on my screen...I have this problem multiple times, especially when I try to do an HDR picture with this lens

Answer 1

Amos did you set the camera for maximum resolution? Or expressed a different way. the setting in the menu gives about 3 settings for the memory card in the camera and shows you the number of pictures you can expect from that memory card. You SHOULD choose the setting which yields the LEAST number of pictures in order to get the best quality pictures. Oh, And don't judge quality by a 4x6 print! Have a11x14 print made (about $4.00-to-$5.00) to judge sharpness.



Also for landscape pictures you want to use the smallest lens openings for maximum depth of field (sharpness from front to rear of scene). f/22, f/16, f/11, & f/8.

Answer 2

Well a f2.8 or f1.8 lens will give you abit more light. So say you were shooting and correct exposure at a given ISO was 1/15 seconds, with an f1.8 lens you could get correct exposure at 1/60 seconds. 1/60 you can easily handhold, 1/15, not so much. That calculation is without Image Stabilisation. So yeah a lens with a larger aperture might help a little bit. But it won't help, in the above example, if correct exposure was 1/8 seconds with your current lens. So assuming you're talking about "really in the night" I mean no natural light whatsover and maybe a tiny bit of light from some small windows in a building nearby, even the fastest lens is not going to help you. Now assuming you're photographing building, streets, cityscapes (basically static objects), then you would be much better off saving you money and buying a tripod. For such things even the cheapest tripod (which will probably be alittle wobbly) will be of more use than a lens. If you are photographing subjects that typically don't stay still. Say people for instance, then you'd best buy a flash. However for this one thing a faster lens might actually be useful. The fact that people can easily be moved is to your advantage. You could for instance move the subject to directly under a street lamp, with a fast lens you'd then have plenty of light to work with. (It's still advissable to have a flash though).

Answer 3

Your problem is ISO noise - that's the only thing that causes "grain" in digital images.



Your ISO is set too high. When processing RAW images, they have no noise reduction - because they are RAW and have not been processed using the camera's internal noise reduction. Either use your RAW conversion software to reduce the noise, or shoot at lower ISO.



If you are using UFRAW with GIMP for your RAW conversion, there is built in noise reduction you can apply.



BTW a 50mm lens is not ideal for landscape photography, get yourself a lens that is ultra wide. Also landscapes are best taken with the aperture stopped down between f/8 and f/16 so fast lenses are not required.

Answer 4

If anything, the photos should be less "grainy" using a f/1.8 lens as it allows you to use a lower ISO.



Are you using auto mode on your camera?



If so, get out of auto, set your ISO to the lowest it will go, and try again. This may require you to use a tripod if your shutter speed is less than 1/60th of a second, and you may not want to use f/1.8 for landscapes, but these are other issues.

Answer 5

One possibility is that The GIMP has a lousy RAW converter. Try opening your files with Canon Digital Photo Professional.

Answer 6

Set ISO to lowest value, go out and try again.

Answer 7

That has nothing to do with the lens.