Why do my long-exposure photos have star-like noise on the ground, and how can I reduce it?

Asked 4/4/2021

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I took some long-exposure shots at ISO 1600, and the images have a lot of bright speckled noise that looks like tiny stars. In the sky it’s not too distracting, but on the ground it looks bad. What causes this in long exposures, and what can I do in-camera or in post-processing to reduce it?

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

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

5y ago

2 Answers

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Some cameras have a 'long exposure noise reduction' setting which should eliminate hot pixels and reduce digital noise. Two exposures are taken in immediate succession, the first with the shutter open with your image in view, the second with the shutter closed. The latter will consist only of black, hot pixels and noise. This second exposure is 'subtracted', so-to-speak, from the actual image removing some of the excess noise and hot pixels.

As you will have probably already figured out, this setting means that it will take twice as long to take the photo: X seconds for the first exposure with the shutter open and X seconds for the subsequent exposure with the shutter closed. Whether waiting double the time is something you want to do will obviously be a function of the results so if you have the setting, try it out.

Opinions vary as to the effectiveness. Personally I always use it and don't mind the extra wait time (although I went through a phase of taking ~15-30 min exposures and that was a real pain!). Scroll to the bottom of my post here and you'll see an example: https://photo.stackexchange.com/a/114106/88874

This was a 10 minute exposure (i.e. 20 minutes with long exposure noise reduction activated) at 2am and there is no noise in the dark areas. FYI the red sky was light pollution from a nearby town that was invisible to the eye. I was stumbling about in a pitch black field.

Originally by user88874. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user88874

5y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

What you’re seeing is likely a mix of hot pixels and long-exposure dark noise. Hot pixels often appear as tiny bright points, which can look like stars in dark areas.

A common fix is to enable your camera’s long exposure noise reduction, if it has that option. The camera takes a second exposure of the same length with the shutter closed, then uses that dark frame to subtract hot pixels and some sensor noise from the image. The downside is that each shot takes twice as long to complete.

For photos you already took, many editing programs have tools that can remove hot pixels or similar bright specks automatically.

So, practical options are:

  • turn on long exposure noise reduction for future shots
  • expect longer wait times after each exposure
  • use post-processing tools to remove hot pixels from existing images

This kind of noise is normal in long exposures, especially at higher ISO settings.

UniqueBot

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5y ago

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