Grainy Pictures Canon R mirrorless

[megansegale]

Hello! 

I just purchased a mirrorless camera and have had trouble with shooting indoors- my settings are ( from what I know) are correct- 1/125, f3.5, iso 800 -1000),AWB, the photos are turning out pretty grainy. What am I doing wrong?

[jaewoosong]

which image quality are you shooting with?  take a look at page 75 on the manual, you'll want to shoot at FINE/LARGE to get the best jpq quality.

[megansegale]

Thank you for your help, yes, my image quality was on the wrong setting. So, should it be on RAW and fine/large always?

[jaewoosong]

Shooting RAW is overkill for most casual photographers.  I shoot a lot but I mostly just shoot using JPG and rarely use RAW (too lazy to post process images).  However, for portrait settings, I will shoot both JPG and RAW (both at max settings) to get the choice later if I want to further edit the picture (you'll end up the 2 files for each shot).  Shooting RAW will eat up your disk space which is another reason why I limit using it.

[rs-eos]

I would say always capture RAW.  You'll never know if one day you want to edit your photos.  With JPEG, you're literally throwing so much information away.

To have the best of both worlds (maximum editing capability plus maximum convenience), do capture in RAW+JPEG at the maximum resolution settings for each.  If your camera additionally has cRAW (compact RAW), prefer RAW over that.

Storage these days is very cheap.   And, the growth increase of storage you get per dollar has outpaced the growth of image files.  If I look at all the RAW files I have captured over the past 10 years going on 11, it amounts to around 300 GB.   Or 15% of the 2 TB data drive they reside upon.

[pedz]

jaewoosong is correct.  Make sure you are getting the largest image.  But given the situation pictured, I would trade some ISO for shutter speed.  ISO 400 (instead of 800) and 1/60 for the shutter.  ISO 1000 on the EOS R, as I recall, was pushing its limits to get grain free images.

[megansegale]

Thank you for your reply. I thought the rule of thumb was to keep the shutter at least double that of your lens ( which is a 50mm, meaning 1/100 at least. 

[pedz]

That is a good rule of thumb but two factors also need to be considered.  Today, many lenses and cameras have image stabilization.  This allows for slower shutter speeds without introducing any camera shake.  I don’t recall what the EOS R has and I don’t know what lens you are using but I’m guessing that you have either stabilization in the camera or the lens.  The other consideration is you seem to need to compromise somewhere somehow.  Even without any stabilization, it is very possible to not have any camera shake by holding the camera very steady at slower shutter speeds.

The way to get clarity is to take some test shots.  In an area that would allow it, take shots using different ISO settings (and correct the other settings to compensate or allow the camera to do that for you so the images are properly exposed).  Then compare the images and see at what ISO does the grain in the image become beyond what you want.  Then make a note that ISO at that setting or higher is going to give you grain.  Sometime, a grainy shot is better than no shot so those higher ISO settings are still useful.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Also curious, is your camera and EOS R (canons first mirrorless camera) or another R series model body?  What lens(es) are you shooting with?

[rs-eos]

My guess is that your lens has a widest possible aperture of f/3.5? What was the focal length for this particular image?   As mentioned earlier, if your lens has image stabilization, it will allow you to use (within reason) slower shutter speeds which in turn you could then lower the ISO.

For this scene though, there is lots of light coming in through the window.  Strong backlighting can be challenging.  Instead, a few options to add more light to your subjects which would then allow for lowering the ISO value:

• Have your subjects face the window (at least partially) to allow more of that light to illuminate their faces.
• Use a reflector.  Could be a simple piece of white foam core (may need either a single large piece or few medium sized pieces for photos of multiple subjects).   This will help direct some of the window light to fill in faces.
• Use a flash to provide some fill light (same concept as with the reflector).