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I’m an amateur trying out photography. I’ve been recently gifted my aunt’s underused Canon 60D and I’ve only used it to take pictures of some accessories. I can’t help but notice that there’s a glow and grainy effect. It’s not for all photos, just some.

Can somebody please share how can I avoid the glowing and grainy effect? The image was taken under f13 ISO 320 1/80 settings, the camera was mounted on a tripod and I’ve used a remote shutter. enter image description here

Michael C
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Brian
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2 Answers2

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Diffraction

At f/13 on a Canon 60D, you're well past the sensor's Diffraction Limited Aperture (DLA) of f/6.9.

For the Canon EOS 60D, you can see the calculated DLA of f/6.9 at that camera's review at The-Digital-Picture. Bryan also has a short article about what DLA is and how it affects images.

For more about diffraction and Diffraction Limited Apertures, please see these related questions here at Photography SE:

Does sensor size impact the diffraction limit of a lens?
Do smaller apertures provide more depth of field past the diffraction limit, even if peak sharpness suffers?
Is there an online lens diffraction and maximum sharpness table?

Michael C
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Lots of factors will contribute to the quality of photos.

  • Lens
  • Camera sensor size. I think 60D has an APS-C sensor, which will tend to be noisier than the "same" image shot with a full frame sensor.
  • ISO. 320 is pretty low, but you should always strive to use the lowest possible ISO, especially if reducing noise is important to you. For a shot like this, where you are using a tripod and your subject is pretty stationary, try manually setting your camera to the lowest ISO and adjust aperture and shutter speed accordingly.
  • "Glow" in an image can be caused by the shutter speed not being high enough to "freeze" the movement of the subject. Is it possible sometimes you move your hand slightly?
  • Image quality settings in the camera
    • Are you using the highest resolution?
    • Are you using "Fine" or equivalent?
    • Are you shooting in RAW or JPEG?
  • Proper exposure of the shot. If your image exposure is low and you post-edit to bring up exposure and/or shadows, this will amplify the noise (grain) in your photo, especially in darker areas.
  • Cropping, which drops the total image resolution. This may cause a perceptibly lower quality image when rendered at the same size as before a crop because now there's less image data.
  • Certainly others!

If you are shooting in RAW, then the images directly out of the camera will tend to be surprisingly bad and likely need manual adjustments. For a long time I did not realize that JPEGs are automatically being adjusted by your camera, so they will almost always look better when compared to the same RAW photo. You will need to do post-editing to achieve great results with RAW, sometimes including de-noise (remove grain), de-haze (may help with "glow"), etc.

If I were you, I would try to rest the necklace on a stationary surface, which will take possible motion blur out of the equation, and allow you to lock in 100 ISO and get proper exposure by using a slower shutter.

ericdain
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    If you open photos in your camera maker's native software, the RAW you see will have the same interpretation as the jpg, just at full resolution & editable. The start point will be 'just right' though, as you saw on the back of the camera after you took the shot. [Opening RAW in any other editor will be a guess, based on reverse engineering.] – Tetsujin Aug 28 '22 at 17:42
  • Thank you so much for the tips! I’m going to try it out as you have advised and improve my shots! – Brian Aug 29 '22 at 09:37
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    Cropping in and of itself does not alter the image quality (though some simultaneous operations can, like non-cardinal rotation). I think you're actually referring to the phenomenon that cropping can reveal inherent quality issues in an image when you crop, then view the result at the same size, mostly due to the drop in resolution. Cropping is actually a powerful and beneficial tool that can drastically improve most images. (I say most because the camera's aspect ratio is rarely optimal for an image.) – LightBender Aug 30 '22 at 13:59
  • @LightBender I absolutely agree, my thoughts on cropping were hasty and lazily written. I will update my post to hopefully explain this more accurately! – ericdain Aug 30 '22 at 19:15