I'd be grateful if peeps could cast their eye over the four photos I've taken using my new lens; a Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 DG Macro.

The images are a bit grainy with red speckling.....can anyone advise me as to what that is, and what causes it so I can prevent it from happening again? I used manual focus but had it on auto exposure. The resultant images were rather bright and washed out, so were tweaked using Pentax Photo Lab software. I also had a UV filter attached to the lens when shooting using the setting designed for capturing moving objects.

Four photos taken with new lens (http://community.webshots.com/album/555992934ZylnZy?vhost=community&start=12)

Much appreciated!!!

PS: I also had the lens set on the macro setting. Could this be the cause of the colour bleed-through considering I was atleast 8 feet away from the blue tits?

The images look noisy, perhaps due to using a high ISO/ASA ?

The images look noisy, perhaps due to using a high ISO/ASA ?

I agree, they do look "noisy" (getting to know the jargon!).

Erk.....ISO/ASA......let me just check my camera......

The images look noisy, perhaps due to using a high ISO/ASA ?

Okay.....just done some homework....ISO/ASA is the film speed, right? Having a DSLR I need to check the setting on my camera which is........3200.

3200 would explain the noise.

I'd wind it down to 400ASA - should be fast enough in daylight and you'll get better quality pics - less noise. Most dSLRs are very noisy at 3200 and give less contrast and colour saturation too.

The rule of thumb if you're hand holding is to aim for a shutter speed (in fractions of a second) of at least the same as your lens focal length in mm. So if you're using your zoom at max, 300mm, then you should be looking for shutter speeds of 1/300 or faster. Adjust you ASA setting until it's just fast enough to give that sort of shutter speed. (Doubling the ASA rating will double the shutter speed btw.) You'll probably end up working at max aperture too - prob f5.6 or f6.3 tho if you can afford to stop down to f8 and still get good shutter speeds you might get better definition.

Are you still here? Try setting F8 at 1/300 in manual and adjust the ASA setting until you get good exposures. If it's still up at 3200 then compromise a bit on the aperture (open it up to f5.6) and/or the shutter speed (go down to 1/125) and see how it goes.

There is a nice thing on noise here :

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/noise.htm

Small ISO numbers are your friend :)

Unless of course if you have one of those Nikon D3's - apparently you can pretty much shoot in the dark with them (ISO 25,600 equivalent ?!) and people are doing all sorts of crazy stuff you couldnt do before (the lucky so and so's !)

Just spent absolutely ages playing around with various menu settings as no matter what setting I select, the ISO remains as 3200, no matter what I change.......so, having reached the stage where I'm getting ratty cos I've applied logic and that's had bugger all effect......I'm going to put my camera away before I lob it across the room and smash it, and read the manual tomorrow when I'm calmer.

:hihi:

Many thanks for all your advice, even though I've had to swot up like mad using different resources to make sense of it all to any degree.

Dammit......I need to get this sorted and myself happy with it before I go to Marwell Zoo next week......

There is a nice thing on noise here :

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/noise.htm

Small ISO numbers are your friend :)

Unless of course if you have one of those Nikon D3's - apparently you can pretty much shoot in the dark with them (ISO 25,600 equivalent ?!) and people are doing all sorts of crazy stuff you couldnt do before (the lucky so and so's !)

Nah, mines a Pentax K100D Super........hang on........at the suggestion of the gubbins with the lens, I've switched the auto-focus off.......would that have an effect, I wonder......???

Nah, mines a Pentax K100D Super........hang on........at the suggestion of the gubbins with the lens, I've switched the auto-focus off.......would that have an effect, I wonder......???

Nope......no effect.......soddit.......put it down, Djelibeybi, before you throw your rattle out the pram and your DSLR across the room at the telly.......:loopy::hihi:

What camera do you have?

What camera do you have?

Pentax K100D Super.

I know what I've got to do, I've got to sit down quietly with my camera and the instruction manual, and carefully look up where the controls for the ISO are and how to change the settings so I can achieve what I want.

I know the lens is compatible with my camera as the packaging clearly states that it's a Pentax AF fitting, and AF does work with it when I turn it on (I prefer it off for this lens).

Pentax K100D Super.

I know what I've got to do, I've got to sit down quietly with my camera and the instruction manual, and carefully look up where the controls for the ISO are and how to change the settings so I can achieve what I want.

That'll be pages 121 and 122 of this here manual (http://www.pentaxslr.com/files/scms_docs//K100D_Super_e_web.pdf)

:)

After giving up on the manual for being about as much use as a chocolate teapot, I began fiddling about with my camera menus.........

Eventually I managed to find a screen I'd not seen before! I almost lost it again as I wasn't exactly sure how I'd found it!

In the Manual setting, if I pressed the Fn button, a screen came up allowi8ng me to set the AWB, Flash, and ISO!!! Woohoo! :hihi: :thumbsup:

Anyway.....knocked it down to 400 ISO and will see how that fairs. It does appear that it changes the ISO across the board, no matter what the setting is....Manual, Tv priority, AV priority etc etc.

I think the only way I'm going to find a setting I'm happy with is to keep playing with it between now and when I go on holiday next Sunday. Methinks the birdies in the garden are going to be photographed alot! :hihi:

That'll be pages 121 and 122 of this here manual (http://www.pentaxslr.com/files/scms_docs//K100D_Super_e_web.pdf)

:)

THAT's the one, Grissom!

When I was rummaging through my manual I could not find that page! That's the screen I stumbled upon by twiddling with the darn camera! :hihi:

As my grandad used to call me; "Barmpot!" :loopy::hihi:

This always happens when I try to resolve something when I'm tired....something which has become the norm since I developed this flamin' balance disorder! GRRRRRR!!! :rant:

I'd just like to thank you gents for being so kind to a complete dingbat! :hihi:

Best thing I ever did was join this section of the Forum!

After giving up on the manual for being about as much use as a chocolate teapot, I began fiddling about with my camera menus.........:hihi:

By the way, there's an index on page 206 of the manual :D

This always happens when I try to resolve something when I'm tired....something which has become the norm since I developed this flamin' balance disorder! GRRRRRR!!! :rant:

Well you are posting at 1 in the morning. Not the best time to be reading manuals for anyone I guess :)

Grissom

You're right about the 1am bit......not exactly the best time of day to be thinking clearly, even if you are too scared to go to kip! :hihi:

I drove out to Chatsworth last night to try and get some practice in. It took me ages to work out why my images were so bright and appeared over-exposed when the light was fading fast. Fiddling with the camera made no difference at all, especially considering it was set on Auto (derrrrrrr! :loopy:), so.....I removed the lens hood and tadaaaa!!!! perfect exposure!

I tried photoing some deer on the other side of the river, some cows, some ducks.......will have to try and load them onto my laptop to see what quality they ended up as!

Many thanks, Grissom, and everyone else, for your patience and advice!

Small ISO numbers are your friend :)

Unless of course if you have one of those Nikon D3's - apparently you can pretty much shoot in the dark with them (ISO 25,600 equivalent ?!) and people are doing all sorts of crazy stuff you couldnt do before (the lucky so and so's !)They aren't grain free, but there are good on colour noise. But they do produce nice shots, but I like grain anyway. Having said that if you use the Canons' and underexpose as if it a higher ISO and then 'push' in the RAW developer, the Nikons aren't so advantageous, unless you shoot JPEG, as many Photojournalists have to. Either way the D3 has given Canon a good nudge up posterior.

djelibeybi - you can remove colour noise afterwards, though it's better to do so with RAW files not JPEGs. I've not used the software you mention, but there should be a colour noise removal tool/filter somewhere. It can't do much with the grain but will often get rid of the nasty coloured speckling which always looks crap.

djelibeybi - you can remove colour noise afterwards, though it's better to do so with RAW files not JPEGs. I've not used the software you mention, but there should be a colour noise removal tool/filter somewhere. It can't do much with the grain but will often get rid of the nasty coloured speckling which always looks crap.

It does, and I tried, but it had minimal effect. No matter what I did with it, the red speckling was always there.

Since installing the Pentax Photo Lab software on my laptop (which came with the camera) I now shoot in RAW format rather than jpeg, as RAW is the only format the photo lab software will accept. Besides, I wanted to be able to adjust the images in "post production" to try and make myself look a better photographer than I actually am!!! :hihi:

Are you using the latest version of software?
Also try using Lightroom. Camera makers software is unsurprisingly always somewhat poor in UI/workflow compared to software companies software, but should be better for things like colour and noise removal of their proprietory files.
You can always get a free trial of LR to see if it works any better.

Are you using the latest version of software?
Also try using Lightroom. Camera makers software is unsurprisingly always somewhat poor in UI/workflow compared to software companies software, but should be better for things like colour and noise removal of their proprietory files.
You can always get a free trial of LR to see if it works any better.

Some very good advice there, thanks!

I've no idea at this time if it's the most current version of Pentax Photo Lab, but as you say, camera manufacturer's software tends to be basic at best. To be honest, anything more complicated right now would scare the pants off me! It's taken me about 2 or 3 months to even become vaguely comfortable with using it.

As I'm unable to work due to a disability at this time, money's very tight, and the camera etc was bought with backdated Incapacity Benefit, so more complicated processing software is certainly on the wish list for the future, but let's see if I can learn how to get the best from my camera first.

Here are some more shots using the 70-300mm lens with tripod, with an ISO of 400:

24/6/08 - Chatsworth Estate (http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/563920991zsumzz?vhost=outdoors)

Admittedly, there's still alot of room for improvement, but hey, atleast I'm moving in the right direction with picture quality! They've been tweaked using Pentax Photo Lab as per usual, but at the time, it took me over an hour to discover that the combination of fading light and a lens hood over-exposes the pictures! :loopy::hihi:

(Pssssst! I took the photos between 7:30pm and 9pm as it was getting dark and rain clouds kept passing overhead!)