Canon 1300D lots of noise (even with low ISO)

[Robin4321]

Hi everyone,

I'm having big issues with my CANON 1300D. As the title says, I'm having a lot of noise in most of my pictures even if the ISO is at 200.

For example that picture (beside the fact that it's overexposed, it's a good example) :

There it's cropped a little bit then you can see it clearly :

It's 10 times worse than my smartphone.

It does the same thing with both my lenses so it doesn't seem to come from there.

I had the same issue before with a compact camera I bought, I resetted it and for some reason it solved the problem but there it doesn't...

At the moment I'm traveling and it's a bit frustrating to take pictures with my smartphone lol so I hope you can help me there! 🙂

[ebiggs1]

"If I want more sharpness, should I consider changing the camera and the lenses or only the lenses?"

The camera doesn't take the picture, the lens does.  The camera simply converts and stores the image the lens saw.

However, far be from me to say not to upgrade your camera but you will likely get a bigger bang from better lenses.  I have forgotten what lenses you have but as I recall you have a T6?  It is a pretty basic camera so if there are features you want and don't have, look for an upgrade.  Perhaps an 80D or 70D ? 

I am a big fan of the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens.  The new ef 50mm f1.8 prime is a real nice lens and very sharp. Of course there is always the "L" line up.  You really can't go wrong with any of them.

There are a few third party lenses I really like and can recommend from personal use and ownership.  Let me know if you would like to know the ones I like best.

[Waddizzle]

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@Robin4321 wrote:

Hi everyone!

I'm back after a couple of months of not taking lots of pictures lately.
I took a few last week and I'm still a bit frustrated about the quality. I used a tripod this time and it doesn't help much like you can see on that spider picture that is blur even if I'm 100% sure it was focused on it when I took the picture:

Since everyone here seems to think the pictures are fine for the camera I've got, I'm seriously thinking of getting a new gear.

If I want more sharpness, should I consider changing the camera and the lenses or only the lenses?

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The best thing that you can do to get "more sharpness" is to better educate yourself on the basics of photography.  There was nothing wrong with your gear with the picture of the horse rider in the water, and there is nothing with this macro photo, either.

At macro photography distances, your depth of field can become extremely narrow, as little as 1/8 of an inch or less.  Having just as small portion of the photo in sharp focus is NORMAL.  If you wish to capture this entire subject in focus, then you would likely need a tripod, take a series of shots capturing different parts of the subject in focus, and then use focus stacking in post processing to build the final image..

[Robin4321]

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Waddizzle wrote:

The best thing that you can do to get "more sharpness" is to better educate yourself on the basics of photography.  There was nothing wrong with your gear with the picture of the horse rider in the water, and there is nothing with this macro photo, either.

At macro photography distances, your depth of field can become extremely narrow, as little as 1/8 of an inch or less.  Having just as small portion of the photo in sharp focus is NORMAL.  If you wish to capture this entire subject in focus, then you would likely need a tripod, take a series of shots capturing different parts of the subject in focus, and then use focus stacking in post processing to build the final image..

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I do educate myself on the basics of photography by watching videos on youtube, reading some articles online and talking to you guys on forums and I know about what you mentionned just now.
There, I used a tripod, and I focused on the middle of the big spider but even the middle of the spider isn't sharp, that's why I'm starting to think my camera/lenses are just not good enough.

I read about focus stacking yesterday by the way, I don't think I need it there but it's a really cool technic.

Peter wrote:

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Next time, try shoot in Live view instead. Then you will get rid of AF variance and you will not have a mirror flipping up and down making small shakes.

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Yes, I'll try that, that might help a bit.

[Waddizzle]

Unless you are using a macro lens, then your best results may come from manual focusing in Live View.  If you are using the EF-S 18-55mm lens that came in the camera kit, then do not expect too much out of it.  That is a much older design than the camera.  The lens was first introduced when DSLR cameras had much lower resolution sensors.  

Every lens has a MP limit, a point where a higher resolution sensor does not improve the image quality.  In fact, in most cases a higher resolution sensor will produce worse image quality than a lower one, when the hi-res sensor exceeds the resolution of the lens.  Your 1300D has better resolution than the 18-55mm lens that comes with it in a camera kit.  Canon has since introduced a much sharper, STM version of the 18-55mm camera kit lens.

Try one of the inexpensive Canon primes: EF 50mm f/1.8 STM; EF 40mm f/2.8 STM; EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM.  They are all very sharp, and all use the latest "STM" focusing motor technology.  They are all pretty sharp, but I think the 50mm is the sharpest. The wider apertures mean that the lenses will pass more light to the AF sensor when it focuses, which typically translates into sharper photos.

[Waddizzle]

At macro distances, a variation of as little as 1/8 of inch, or 2mm, can make the difference between in focus and out of focus.  If the subject is moving in the least, then a sharp photo can be difficult.  

If you are using a tripod, then turn of Image Stabilization.  Try to manually focus with Live View, instead of using AF.  Try taking  a photo of a static object, like a coin on a table to gain a better understanding on macro photography.  

Like I said above, the depth of field at macro distances is very shallow.  An out of focus macro shot may not mean that the lens failed to focus. It usually means that the subject was outside of your depth of field.  A properly functioning lens is always in focus at some specific distance.  Making that focus distance align with your subject can be tricky.

When you are shooting action photos of live subjects, do not expect all of the shots to be "keepers".  You can expect many, if not most, to be marginal at best.  Until you get more practice, you can expect a low keeper rate with macro photography.

[Robin4321]

Ok, thanks for all the information.
I think I would like to go more for a not fixed (I don't know how you say it in english) focal length.

Would it change the sharpness a lot?
What do you think of the EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM ?

[Peter]

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@Robin4321 wrote:

Ok, thanks for all the information.
I think I would like to go more for a not fixed (I don't know how you say it in english) focal length.

Would it change the sharpness a lot?
What do you think of the EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM ?

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EF-M won´t work with your 1300D. Your mount is for EF, EF-S, MP-E and TS-E.

EF-M is for mirrorless cameras. I own EF-M 15-45/3,5-6,3 IS STM. I use it every day. Light, but a lot of CA at 15mm. On the other hand, I never have any AF variance, back focus or front focus with my 15-45 together with my mirrorless camera.

Just do what I wrote before heading out buying new things. Live View with autofocus. Live View is always exact in normal light and if you have a good subject like the spider, but slower than the AF in your viewfinder.

[Robin4321]

Hi guys,

It's been now about 2 weeks that I've realised why others' pictures always looked nicer and sharper than mine...
I discovered lightroom and it completely changed my pictures, it's crazy.

I kind of feel like this is cheating but it seems like all good photographers use that kind of software so...

I tried not to overuse it though.

Here you can see some of the pictures I took in the past few years (with that canon 1300D or with my old compact camera) :

https://www.facebook.com/Robin-photography-2001638433405179/?modal=media_composer

I would be happy to have some advises/feedbacks on how to improve if you feel like it 🙂

[ebiggs1]

Great photos are made in post editing. Not in the camera!  

 If you think LR is good just wait until you discover Photoshop.

[Robin4321]

I've known Photoshop for a long time (even if I'm not so good at using it yet) but I've only known Lightroom for 2 weeks and I like it a lot because it's really easy to make nice improvement of the picture by just a few clics.