Digital cameras and noise reduction

cocolgooh

I wondered if anyone has any tips for reducing noise in photos taken with digital cameras? Mine's a Vivitar camera, although I honestly couldnt tell you the number code for it. It's only a few weeks since I bought it to replace my old camera that died but the noise levels on it are really bad. I've already reduced ISO levels but that's not made any difference whatsoever. Does anyone know of any other potential ways to reduce noise? Thanks to anyone who answers this.

ukcarper

The best solution is to shoot at the lowest ISO if it’s bad on that there is software such as http://www.neatimage.com/ but although they remove noise they are not perfect and you will lose detail.

cocolgooh

Hmm okay, that's sort of what I expected. Do you think it could be worth taking the camera back and asking to exchange it for another one? It's so bad on some images that pretty much all you can see is noise. I mean that can't be normal, can it?

Dave_C_2

Any digital camera should still produce reasonable pictures at lower ISO settings. It sounds like it's faulty if all you can see is noise. You should take it back.

With digital cameras you can demonstrate the fault in real time, practice before you take it back.

Dave

cocolgooh

You can see perfectly fine until you take the picture. Only then is the picture covered in noise. But I agree that it sounds faulty, hence hoping I could take it back. Maybe I have it on a bad setting, to be fair, but it just seems to be getting worse. I may have to take it back.

Hammyman

Buy a decent camera. Its a 7MP camera for £25 or less. You get what you pay for and in this case, a crap CCD and poor software.

keith1950

Hi, I completely agree with Hammyman, this is a very,very budget camera, don't ask for an exchange, pay a decent price and get a reasonable camera. It isn't just a case of getting more pixels, you need the inbuilt image processing to be good as well. I have seen an old 3MP Panasonic produce better images than a 7MP cheapy.

paddyrg

Sensor noise is down to not enough light hitting the sensor to overwhelm the background stray currents - are your pictures all indoors/under domestic lighting? The human eye is *extremely* tolerant of poor lighting and you may not realise how badly lit the subject is until you try using a camera! Try it outdoors in daylight, if you get the same result, it sounds like a fault. It it is ok, try adding a flashgun for your interior shots.

ukcarper

I’ve just had a thought some cameras set the ISO in full Auto mode and if the distance from flash to subject is to far they will increase ISO to compensate. If you have a Program mode try setting it to that and setting the lowest ISO. What is the noise like outside on a sunny day.

[Deleted User]

How to reduce noise? Shoot in more light! If you're using > 400 ISO, then don't expect much

If you're getting noise at 100/200 then something sounds wrong