On my Fuji FinePix 1400, I've noticed substantial graininess in the resulting image, even when on the "Fine" setting. I realize that the compression factor causes some graininess, but I was hoping that maybe I'm just not using the right combination of natural lighting, flash, focus, etc. I've only had the camera for a day so I haven't done too much experimenting, but I noticed the problem mostly with faces and skin tones. So far, all my testing has been done indoors with "regular indoor home lighting" and auto flash. With close ups of faces the problem isn't really noticeable but when the subject is anywhere from 4 to ten feet away, detail in the features is lost and graininess increases. I haven't tried the zoom lens yet. Would that help? Thanks in advance.

-- DJ (dkjuarez98@earthlink.net), July 17, 2000

Answers

The problem is underexposure, or not enough light in other words. The built-in flash is so underpowered it'll only light up the area in front of the camera for a distance of a few feet. The camera electronics try to make up for the lack of light by "boosting" the image, but this also makes it noisy or grainy. The level of compression has no effect on the graininess, other than that high levels of compression will tend to smooth it out by losing detail.

You need more light.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), July 18, 2000.

In addition to the above, which is excellent and true, you might look for a slave strobe with a built in photo sensor that will fire the strobe when it senses the camera's strobe. There are lots of interesting lightig effects possible with this. Put the slave behind your subject, it does nice things for their hair, etc.

-- denis in Minneapolis (lucky@usfamily.net), July 18, 2000.