a6000 Grain

[LandensnevoK]

I've been having some problems with my a6000 ever since I got it.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm doing something wrong, or if there's some hidden setting I've gotta change, but there is a whole ton of grain in any shot I take with the a6000.  No matter the ISO, shutter speed, or light level of the room, the shots always come out pretty grainy.  Is there anything I can do to fix this?

[bob345]

I've been having some problems with my a6000 ever since I got it.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm doing something wrong, or if there's some hidden setting I've gotta change, but there is a whole ton of grain in any shot I take with the a6000.  No matter the ISO, shutter speed, or light level of the room, the shots always come out pretty grainy.  Is there anything I can do to fix this?

you have an example shot? take a shot at the lowest iso you can and post it. are you shooting in auto or manual?

[LandensnevoK]

you have an example shot? take a shot at the lowest iso you can and post it. are you shooting in auto or manual?

I've tried it in both.  For some reason, auto comes out better than manual, but they are both still pretty grainy.  

[bob345]

I've tried it in both.  For some reason, auto comes out better than manual, but they are both still pretty grainy.  

if you use auto in a dark situation, it will bump up the iso and cause allot of noise in the pic. i could guess you will see a difference if you take a shot on a bright sunny day outside you will get a cleaner pic than if you take a picture indoors.

[ashypanda]

it's hard to say if we don't know what settings you camera is using, also an A6000 is fairly similar to my samsung NX3000, which for comparison's sake, doesn't really get noisy until you reach ISO 6400.

and some things which can contribute to poor image quality is dirty lenses, and dust on the sensor.

[LandensnevoK]

if you use auto in a dark situation, it will bump up the iso and cause allot of noise in the pic. i could guess you will see a difference if you take a shot on a bright sunny day outside you will get a cleaner pic than if you take a picture indoors.

The thing is I'm in a super bright room right now.  I can keep the ISO under 2000 and have everything overexposed.  Macro pictures usually turn out great, but any picture farther than a meter away just looks terrible.  

 

Here's an example pic. I made sure it was in focus and the ISO was low.  

[LandensnevoK]

it's hard to say if we don't know what settings you camera is using, also an A6000 is fairly similar to my samsung NX3000, which for comparison's sake, doesn't really get noisy until you reach ISO 6400.

and some things which can contribute to poor image quality is dirty lenses, and dust on the sensor.

Is there some sort of guide that has the best settings in case I'm doing something wrong?  I already tried resetting it and changing all the settings, but it didn't fix it.  Also, I tried doing the sensor cleaning thing in the menu, but that didn't do anything.  My lens is also perfectly clean.  

[bob345]

I can keep the ISO under 2000 and have everything overexposed.

it sounds like you may have it backward. The lower the iso, the les exposure you get. Higher iso's make the sensor more sensitive too light but causes noise.

[LandensnevoK]

it sounds like you may have it backward. The lower the iso, the les exposure you get. Higher iso's make the sensor more sensitive too light but causes noise.

No, I mean the room is so bright, that even with only 2000 ISO everything in the picture turns out too bright.  

[ashypanda]

No, I mean the room is so bright, that even with only 2000 ISO everything in the picture turns out too bright.  

that's because ISO2000 is too high, try 200,400,800,1600 and see what it looks like.

[LandensnevoK]

that's because ISO2000 is too high, try 200,400,800,1600 and see what it looks like.

I'm saying it's like that with any ISO, not just 2000.  Whether it's 100, 500, 1000, 2000, or 15000, it's always bad.  

[ashypanda]

ok, have you tried to see if taking a RAW photo is any different to a jpeg? as it's possible for the compression to add some noise.

[LandensnevoK]

ok, have you tried to see if taking a RAW photo is any different to a jpeg? as it's possible for the compression to add some noise.

Yeah, I thought it could be that too.  The raw pictures didn't look too much better than the jpegs though.  

[ALwin]

Yeah, I thought it could be that too. The raw pictures didn't look too much better than the jpegs though.

Disable Auto Noise Reduction in the camera settings. It may also be called High ISO noise reduction or similar. See if that helps.

 

And don't use Auto ISO in the light condition you have in your photo, that doesn't look like ISO 100 or 200 to me.  Take a test photo outdoors in daylight, and manually set the ISO.

 

Or it's defective

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/54007220

[ShadowCaptain]

Yeah, I thought it could be that too.  The raw pictures didn't look too much better than the jpegs though.  

 

RAW photos dont look good, they are designed to be edited and ignore a lot of correction done by the camera

 

 

I just think you need to learn a bit more about RAW and Manual shooting to make the most of your photos

[ALwin]

RAW photos dont look good, they are designed to be edited and ignore a lot of correction done by the camera

 

Which is at it should be.  The OP needs to disable the use of Auto ISO and any in-camera noise reduction.  It's up to him/her to shoot in JPEG or RAW, but in the photo posted it didn't look like ideal light conditions so Auto ISO was boosting the ISO.

 

Additionally I see some online discussions saying that the in-camera noise reduction used by Sony for the A6000 is a bit on the extreme side.

[ShadowCaptain]

SNIP

 

Agreed,

 

to OP - JPEGs are fine if you can get it right in the camera, but RAW gives you a lot more wiggle room if you want to take the photo into an editing suite after, you can take a dark horrible photo and make it into something usable in lightroom quite easily with a decent RAW file 

 

But out of the camera RAW can look worse than JPEG since the camera is not trying to "beautify" the images 

 

 

Turn off ALL automatic camera settings, pop it into manual, dont forget if you are in a dark environment like your photo and want to use a low ISO you will need to use a long shutter speed - you either need to hold it very still or use a tripod or rest the camera as any movement will just make it blurry

[LandensnevoK]

Which is at it should be.  The OP needs to disable the use of Auto ISO and any in-camera noise reduction.  It's up to him/her to shoot in JPEG or RAW, but in the photo posted it didn't look like ideal light conditions so Auto ISO was boosting the ISO.

 

Additionally I see some online discussions saying that the in-camera noise reduction used by Sony for the A6000 is a bit on the extreme side.

 

Agreed,

 

to OP - JPEGs are fine if you can get it right in the camera, but RAW gives you a lot more wiggle room if you want to take the photo into an editing suite after, you can take a dark horrible photo and make it into something usable in lightroom quite easily with a decent RAW file 

 

But out of the camera RAW can look worse than JPEG since the camera is not trying to "beautify" the images 

 

 

Turn off ALL automatic camera settings, pop it into manual, dont forget if you are in a dark environment like your photo and want to use a low ISO you will need to use a long shutter speed - you either need to hold it very still or use a tripod or rest the camera as any movement will just make it blurry

Wow, thanks!  Lemme go and try those ideas out, hopefully it'll fix my issues.  I didn't know that RAWs were supposed to look worse out of the camera, but now I gotta learn how to edit them.   

[ALwin]

Wow, thanks!  Lemme go and try those ideas out, hopefully it'll fix my issues.  I didn't know that RAWs were supposed to look worse out of the camera, but now I gotta learn how to edit them.   

 

RAWs are not "designed to look worse", they appear worse because they record almost everything that the sensor is capturing without letting the in-camera image processor "process" (or with minimal processing) the data before saving it onto the memory card.  JPEG's are the data captured by the sensor, processed by the camera, before getting stored on the memory card.

 

However many RAW files come with a "preview" that can appear worse or just as good as the in-camera JPEG, depending on the settings in your camera.  It's just the file contains all the extra data that lets you modify the look and feel without making things worse, while JPEG's have already discarded most of the extra data.

 

Put it another way

JPEG: Cookie already baked

RAW: All the ingredients necessary to make the cookie is provided, perhaps (and perhaps not) already in measured proportions

[LandensnevoK]

RAWs are not "designed to look worse", they appear worse because they record almost everything that the sensor is capturing without letting the in-camera image processor "process" (or with minimal processing) the data before saving it onto the memory card.  JPEG's are the data captured by the sensor, processed by the camera, before getting stored on the memory card.

 

However many RAW files come with a "preview" that can appear worse or just as good as the in-camera JPEG, depending on the settings in your camera.  It's just the file contains all the extra data that lets you modify the look and feel without making things worse, while JPEG's have already discarded most of the extra data.

 

Put it another way

JPEG: Cookie already baked

RAW: All the ingredients necessary to make the cookie is provided, perhaps (and perhaps not) already in measured proportions

Ah, thanks for clearing this up!  I'm a bit of a camera newbie, so I don't know what all the terms mean quite yet.