01-03-2009, 01:38 PM
The answer most certainly lies in your settings. If you shoot in automatic mode then your camera determined it's ISO setting for the amount of light that was in the room. By looking at the pics, I would say that it was somewhere around 400 - 800. A lot of p&s cameras are very grainy (noisy) when you have to use a higher ISO setting which is due to the sensors in p&s cameras being so small, they just can't handle all the light coming in. DSLR's don't have this problem due to the size of the sensor. Even if you are just shooting model railroad pics, it really helps to learn how to use your camera in manual mode. The problem with that is, if your camera has the really bad noise at high ISO's, even in manual mode they will still be noisy (grainy). You could use a lower ISO in manual mode and use a slower shutter speed, but then again you have all that light hitting the sensor resulting in the noise.
The key lies in your lighting of the scene, if the scene is properly lit then you can use the lower ISO setting resulting in less noise. A cheap lighting solution might be the shop lights you can get at Home Depot. The only problem with these is that there is no way to control the light and they are very hot. If you can spend some money, I would recommend something like these: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/48833-REG/Smith_Victor_401488_K61_Thrifty_Quartz_Tungsten.html">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4 ... gsten.html</a><!-- m --> These have barndoors on them so you can control the light a little better, however they still get pretty hot as they are tungsten. I use something like these for doing portraits until I can buy a set of studio flashes.
The key lies in your lighting of the scene, if the scene is properly lit then you can use the lower ISO setting resulting in less noise. A cheap lighting solution might be the shop lights you can get at Home Depot. The only problem with these is that there is no way to control the light and they are very hot. If you can spend some money, I would recommend something like these: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/48833-REG/Smith_Victor_401488_K61_Thrifty_Quartz_Tungsten.html">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4 ... gsten.html</a><!-- m --> These have barndoors on them so you can control the light a little better, however they still get pretty hot as they are tungsten. I use something like these for doing portraits until I can buy a set of studio flashes.
Mike