Attached Link: Late Afternoon Looking Over The Welsh Countryside

Well, have I got the blues about my photography skills at the moment (or lack thereof!!)  :b_crying: I went out last weekend to get some shots of the local countryside (I did upload one shot from my digital camera... which wasn't that good in all honesty, despite your nice comments!).

I took my 35mm camera with me too - I haven't used this for quite some time, actually, I've rarely used it since I bought it several years ago (what a waste - over £250 at the time, not a lot by comparison to some that you semi-pros are using, but for just using on holiday shots, it was a lot of money!!) I also bought a bigger zoom lense and a larger flash.

Now, OK, so I haven't got a clue what I'm doing with a camera yet, I've just been fairly lucky with a few shots from my digital camera, but I don't know the first thing about ISO (whatever that means?), manual focussing, aperatures etec., etc., but I have to say that, when using four films - 93 images in total, I did expect at least one of them to be reasonably OK!!

Every single one of them is grainy!!???
Now before you all ask me what film I was using, I don't know!!  All I can say is it was Fuji but don't know the specifics about it.  My husband picked up a pack of five of them from the local supermarket on our way out into the country and I only have one left that I can look at for the details, but it's in the camera at the minute!!

Please, please, don't worry about hurting my feelings because believe me, I'm ready to just jack it all in - the thought of me being a "budding amateur photographer" makes me want to laugh right now - who am I trying to kid? I really need to know - why would they all come out grainy?

Is it the film?
Could it have been the windy conditions and no tripod?
Or was it just a useless photographer?

I'm devastated and totally disheartened!!  I'd only just created my own gallery on my website to display some of my photography and now I feel like a complete fraud, an imposter in this community.

You are all fantastic photographers and I feel so humbled in your presence - I aspire to be as good as you all are in the future but in the meantime, I'm frustrated and sad!

I was going to do a photography course, but my local college only seems to do things like digital photography and editing software which, when you read the detail on the course, basically goes through simple things like; how to get your picture from the camera to your PC (I can do that bit!!), how to manipulate the image using Photoshop (I can do that a bit too!) but nowhere does it say "How to use a camera" and what it's all about!!

I want to sit down with someone and have them show me what all the bits and pieces on my cameras mean, how to best utilise these features, when to use that button and when not to etc.

I'm sorry for my ramblings here, but I feel a bit better just for admitting in public that I'm c**p!

Honesty please if you reply.

Thanks for reading. (example attached in the link)

Hi bibby,

I have this links for you...

Thanks Valouchufy - a lot of reading I think is in store for me!!

I have a correction to make to my original post though ........ My husband has just gone through the car and found the boxes that the film came in and they weren't Fuji!!  They were: Kodak Gold 200.

I don't know if that makes a difference at all?

Thanks anyway, but I think I'll leave photography alone for a while until one day when I have some time to study up on it.

The grain/noise problem with the example you have linked to is not caused by windy conditions, no tripod or a useless photographer.

Best to take one problem at a time. 

Firstly - Is it the scanner, or the film, that is making the grainy effect ?   
It looks very much like digital noise to me in which case it is the scanner.  Did you scan these at home, or have the processing lab do it for you ?  What do the prints look like, if you had any done?  The cure is to get better scans, or enjoy the traditional wet process prints.

Films and ISO's and things.
The higher the ISO number the more sensitive the film (or digital sensor) is to light. This has a trade off though, the higher the ISO the more grainy film will be, or the more noisy digital images will be.  
Use the lowest ISO film, or setting on a digital camera, you can to get the highest quality images. Sometimes you will have to use higher if the light is poor.  

I doubt very much there was high ISO film in a supermarket because it is getting quite hard to find it nowdays in photography shops.

Basic photography classes are quite hard to find - lots on basic computer skills as you have discovered, but they are very few and far between on the skills required to take a good shot to start with. 

Now about the image you posted as an example.
You have captured a dramatic sky and light and all the basics are there for a great photograph. I like the light reflecting of the fence and wall and patches of sun on the field.  Good exposure - keeping detail in the shadows and the light sky. No problems with camera technique as regards to holding or pressing the shutter everything is sharp, no camera shake there - a tripod wouldn't have made any difference. My opinion you have far more phortography skills than you are crediting yourself with. Look at your statements above and ask yourself is it true. In many instances not - in addition now you know the basics of ISO and film speeds too, another step along the way.  

It is disheartening when things don't turn out as planned - I wish you well with your photography it seems to me you are not that far from suceeding in producing the images that you saw in your mind before you raised the camera to capture them.

ps edit - I have just seen you were using Kodak 200 - it is not the film that is causing the grain it is definitely the scanner.

Yes there are some diferency between both :

• The Fuji is better if you want more saturated colors: intense reds, purples, and blues... When I worked in the photo store, I see a real problem with the Fuji is underexposure, which you had wash out colors and graininess like your picture
• Kodak Gold 200 is great if you want some bright or partly sunny conditions with fine combination of saturation or accuracy color. It's also useful for indoor, general-lighting picture taking...

Onslow - thank you for your explanations, they have cleared a few things up in my mind.

In response to you question about whether I scanned them or not.... no, I just took the films back to the supermarket where we bought them and asked for them all to be processed onto a CD - no printouts (I like to see the pictures first to decide if I want any of them printed, as was the case with five images I took last year in Bodnant Gardens, but I ordered large 14" x 11" prints of them online so I could frame them.... yes, they look quite good on my dining room wall, if I say so myself!)

The image in my example is exactly as it has come off the disk, no editing or re-sizing at all.

I am mindful of the fact that I think I can see a good shot before pressing the button but as you say, it is somewhat frustrating when the images you see afterwards don't reflect what your eyes saw at the time!

I will take on board what you have advised about high ISO film as I always thought that the higher the ISO, the better the photograph, but I suppose that unless you are a professional, in a studio, with tripod and good lighting, then you would not necessarily get very good results from it.

With a slightly less heavy heart, I think I will go out tomorrow and try and get a couple of good shots on my digital for the genre challenge this month (I had given up on the idea of entering it this month!!)

I will still take the time, when available, to study up some more and perhaps if I can get a bit of "hands-on" tutorage from my step-dad's brother, who is a professional photographer, then maybe in the future, I will be reaching the extremely high standards of others within this community - I know that this is an art and won't necessarily come to me overnight.

I must be patient!!

Thanks again for your helpful advice.

**Valouchufy - thanks for the explanation of film - I always thought that Fuji was a good film to use, but obviously you have to be careful when to use it.

It must be a Fuji processing lab that the Supermarket uses as the packaging that the CD came back in has a FDI logo on it (Fuji Digital Imaging).

Perhaps I should find a proper photography lab rather than a one-hour processing lab within the supermarket next time I use my 35mm!

Thank you both for your help.

Hugs

Chrissy**

Aloha Chrissy,

After reading you comments I had to laugh a little as I think we all go through this phase when we first started shooting images.  Even with the best of cameras,  we all get less then perfect pictures from time to time.  Don't be disheartened, it's all part of the learning curve.  With the options that are given on the latest cameras, it can be overwhelming to try and use all of it's features to it's fullest potential.  I looked at your picture and yes, there is a lot of grain present in the image.  Type of film, time of day,  high ISO, all effect the final outcome of your image.  Here is a little explanation on how ISO works.

ISO sensitivity expresses the speed of photographic negative materials (formerly expressed as ASA).

Since digital cameras do not use film but use image sensors instead, the ISO equivalent is usually given.

What ISO denotes is how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the image sensor and therefore the possibility to take pictures in low-light situations.

And, where you would have needed to physically change to a different roll of film if you wanted a different ISO speed, digital technology allows you to simply dial one in. In this way, you can record images taken at different ISO speeds on the same memory card.

So basically the higher the ISO the more grain you will see in the image.  For normal shooting circumstances an ISO of 100 will produce pretty low grain, as opposed to a high of 400-1600.  A couple of reasons I would shoot at a high ISO would be to have a faster shutter speed in shooting sports, night shooting,  low light.  In your image it could be the film,  ISO is too high or the film might be wrong for the shooting conditions.  I would check out the camera's manual once again to get familiar with the camera,  lord knows I refer to mine often and I have had this camera for years.

I also use this free plug in that helps reduce noise in digital pictures as well as film.  This one is called NeatImage.  Here is a link:  http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

Now get out there and shoot a bunch of images, try different ISO and settings,  it's all trial and error in the begining but with digital cards you can make all the mistakes you want and it won't cost you a mint.  If I can be of any other help don't hesitate to email me.....

Aloha,

David K. Teves
Kana'es Photography
http://www.freewebs.com/punaguy/

Lots of good advice and help here already!
Onslow has nailed it here I think......It certainly does appear to be a scanning issue.

What is interesting to me is that they seem to have imprinted exif data onto the image as part of the scan process...from the EXIF;

Make: Fuji Photo Film Co Ltd
Model: SP 2000
Software: **FDi V4.5 / FRONTIER350/370-6.6-0E-818
**Date Time Digitized = 2007-02-13 13:27:23

So it is obviously an SP2000 scanner that they used....
My thought here is that you have still have the negatives.....go out an get one of the negs printed.  If they come out relatively clean, then you have isolated the problem to the scanning process.  As Onslow said, Kodak Gold 200 should NOT be the source of your problem.

As for photography technique tips?....Sorry, I'm certainly not the one to offer any help in that area....

I am soooooooooooo going to take the negs somewhere else to get them developed and see the result I get then.

I feel so much better already, knowing that perhaps at least some of the problem is the scanner and not all me!!

Believe me, a lot of the shots were just no good, even if they hadn't been grainy - I know that is my fault, but I never expect to get every single shot as a good capture - but I should, the law of averages states, be able to get a couple of reasonably ok shots from 93!!

I'm so much happier now - thank you all - I'll let you know the results of the processing when I have them done.

Big Hugs

Chrissy

Yikes, I took a bunch of bird shots today and how many will be really usable? Just a few.  Low light, low shutter speed, birds that don't want to stand still.  This is nature to some extent..once in a while we are blessed with a graceful sunlight.

You will always take some bad pictures and will always get better pictures if you keep at it.  I take plenty of bad pictures.  I also take a few nice ones.  Believe me, listening to the folks here has made the jump much easier and helps us learn how to keep focus on what a good shot requires..in compo certainly but in the pure techinical stuff that happens when the shutter is tripped.     Best wishes.  I really can't add to what has been said so well already by other posters.

I also had some films developed, scanned and processed to CD, and the images were all grainy as well... I wasn't happy with them at all. The next time, I took my films to an ELKA photo lab and asked for the highest possible quality, and the images on CD were impeccable (at least for 200 ISO film; the 400 ISO film also came out a little grainy, but still better). My guess is also that your problem lies with the film processing lab... Take one film to another lab and ask for the highest possible quality on CD. Maybe you'll pay three or four times as much, but it can be worth it...

I suggest having the place do a quick print..small and inexpensive before doing the photos to CD.