Nikon D50 noise for no reason?

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vecsri

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Richard Black
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Hi, i'm new here, i'll do a welcome thread in a mo'

I bought a Nikon D50 (bit of entry into the D-SLR, learnt alot since) back in august last year and loved it ever since. Lately i've really been playing out with it, photoing everything that will stand still long enough for me to do so, and have ago at anything that won't.

I've been photoing quite abit in low light situations using longer exposure and a tripod. Been using a remote to reduce shake too. I know the D50 is known for being quite good with noise, yet i seem to be getting quite abit of noise?

Its not even over exposure, so i cant explain it. Auto ISO is turned off and its set at ISO200 so i cant find any explanation.
I hope you can help before i go out and buy a D200.

Also can anyone suggest some decent lenses that will do me for the D50 and a future camera i might choose to buy.


Cheers.
 
Hi vecsri, welcome to the forums :D

Could you post up one or two of the images you have taken that have noise?
 
Cheers for the welcome!
Yeh, i can do should i post them up at JPG? they're currently in RAW .nef
If i resize them they'll lose soem fo the noise i'm thinking of and it won't show as bad.
I'm currently at work but I'll do it when i finish.
 
you could post up a a resized image so we can see it has a whole image, then post up a cropped section of it.

I used to think that mine looked like they had lots of noise. but if i was going to zoom in to 100% i had to expect it.

Like you say, when you resize them to a viewable size they look fine :D
 
I'm not sure if the D50 has in camera noise reduction but if it has (like many other Nikons) you will need to switch it on for long exposures. Once you have taken a shot the noise reduction gets to work and usually takes as long as the shot itself so make sure your batteries are charged, during processing you should see 'Nr' in the top LCD screen.
 
For its time, the D50 was accredited for its low noise levels. Here are some D50 noise comparisons: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond50/page17.asp

I'm interested in seeing your noisy photos, I've got a D50 so am more than willing to compare a similar shot from your camera to mine to compare the noise levels.
 
http://www.btinternet.com/~black.richard/dsc_48651.JPG
dsc_486512.JPG
 
There ya go, if you look at the N2 banks and the yellow barrier you can see it clearly. I don't get it!! lol
Been playing with my mates 5D today. Jealous!!
 
Try turning on "Long Exp. NR" (Long Exposure Noise Reduction).
 
Its on :(
 
Perhaps I'm being too picky at it then?
 
Exif says 1/13th second F5 200 iso. The only 'noise' you will be seeing is from under exposure. If it is like Canon then 'noise reduction' does not kick in until exposure time goes over 1 second.
 
Underexposing will increase noise with Nikons...I had a lot of this with my D2x's in Afghanistan when I was trying to show shadow-detail from dark interiors with very bright sunlight coming in from outside. In the end I had to use up to three exposures and combine them in a half-assed HDR-type thing.
You'll have to reduce the ISO to it's finest setting: (100 if you have that option) and expose for the shadow areas.
This may mean a lo-oooong exposure, but the newer Nikons will cope with up to a minute without additional noise being evident.
The image you've posted above looks very dark to me - I'd guess maybe 3 or 4 stops underexposed. Remember if you want it to 'look' dark and moody, the best way is to expose properly and manipulate it to suit your taste later on.
It's less of a problem with the new full-frame D3 (which is why the Army is buying them for us this year...nice) as the ISO range starts at 200 and goes up...and up...the same pixel-count on a larger CCD will give the appearance of a sharper, less noisy image...
 
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