How do I know if my photography has a lot of noise?

B

bluegirl

New member
I am new to the whole photography thing . . .digital at least. I am taking a photography class at a local college and for our first assignemnt we had to shoot a portrait or still life using the manual setting on the camera. The picture had to taken using a natural light source and we had to take a picture of the same thing twice one with and without a reflector. I ended up chosing a still life object near a window with sunlight coming in . . .so some shadows were cast. I shot a few using an ISO of 200 and ones with 400. The 400 produced a crisper image, but I am curious if produced noise. I know its hard without seeing the picture, but wondering what is noise. I know its the film version of grain. Its hard to tell in my pics. Since it was taken with a white wall behind, the object was dark in colour and using a piece of white bristol board as a reflector. Help please. Sorry I know this may seem confusing to some, but I want to know if I should retake the pics.
have nikon d60 18-105mm lens
10.2 mp
have nikon d60 18-105mm lens
10.2 mp
sorry have no idea why it posted that twice
camera was on tripod
 
Noise is the random variation of brightness or color information in images produced by the sensor and circuitry of a scanner or digital camera. Image noise can also originate in film grain and in the unavoidable shot noise of an ideal photon detector.

It means you can see the separate colors that make up the picture, little dots of yellow, red, and blue.
 
Depending upon the camera, noise starts to become a problem at around 800 ISO, unless you have a camera designed to shoot under low light conditions like the Nikon D3 and then noise is not a consideration until you shoot at ISO's over 6400.

Noise is what the camera produces when it amplifies small amounts of light that strike the sensor. It is this amplification that produces noise.

The probable reason for crisper images at 400 ISO has more to do with the higher shutter speed, thus no camera movement which causes blur. My guess is if you mounted your camera on a tripod and took the same shots at all the different ISO settings, you would learn a lot more about noise and "crisp" photos
 
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