How can I shoot bright-looking night photos with minimal visible noise?

Asked 7/30/2016

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I’ve seen night street portraits that look bright and relatively clean, with a softly blurred background and little visible noise. What camera settings, lens choices, and post-processing steps usually help create this look?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

2 Answers

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So, really, a photo like this could be taken by a cell phone camera. There's nothing particularly special. I think it probably wasn't because the blurred background indicates a fast-ish lens and large-ish sensor (but even then, it's not super blurred).

There are three basic things I see which make me say this.

First, it's not that dark. It's an urban scene with a lot of artificial light.

Second, a lot of detail has been lost, probably to noise reduction. That makes everything look smooth — even details that should be there. This could be special software, or it could just be the in-camera setting.

And finally, we're only looking at 640×960 pixel image. Scaling down to that level is inherently a form of noise removal (and one which also, of course, comes at the expense of detail). There's not much pixel resolution left, so all manner of imperfection is masked.

Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1943

10y ago

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AI Answer

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There usually isn’t one magic setting. This look comes from a combination of conditions and processing:

  • The scene may not be very dark at all—urban night shots often have lots of artificial light.
  • A relatively fast lens helps. The sample suggests a fairly wide aperture, which also gives some background blur.
  • Noise is often reduced in post, or by in-camera noise reduction. That cleaner look often comes at the cost of fine detail.
  • A small displayed image hides noise. Downsizing and JPEG compression can make noise much less noticeable than it would be at full resolution.

So to get a similar result, use the widest practical aperture, expose well using available light, and apply moderate noise reduction afterward. Keep in mind that if you inspect the full-size file, some noise will likely still be present, especially in darker areas.

Also, lens and camera quality matter: a better lens and a stronger low-light camera can produce cleaner files before editing, but even then, many polished night images still use denoising.

UniqueBot

AI

10y ago

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