Noise and detail perception

Noise increases the perception of detail in a particular photo.

Both are converted from a digital color image to a black and white image. One has noise added to it to simulate film grain, one is clean, as is converted from the original image.

Noise helps trick the eye into thinking there is detail in areas which seem very “clean”, such as skin, walls, and fabric. We typically perceive very fine patterns in these objects which might not be apparent in photos taken digitally, and so adding noise can serve to “fake” the texture of these objects.

Cleanly converted

Added noise

Bounce flash

Original image of phone taken in flourescent lighting in the room.
Mouseover shows one that is taken with external flash bounced vertically up. Click it to show comments.

A simple vertical flash bounced into the ceiling helps a lot with photographing stuff in an indoor lit environment. Mine is an all-manual Chinese-made Yong Nuo YN560, mounted via adapter onto my Sony A55, with 1855 kit lens.

If I had RMXXXX, what camera would I buy? Starting at RM2000

Introduction

This seems to be a very common question that people ask – what camera should I buy for RM*insert amount of money*?

Thus, I’d like to share just a *not very* short post on what I think would be a good investment for just RM2000. I might update the list as time goes on, and probably introduce higher price ranges as I also upgrade my equipment. Heh.

Please note that this equipment guide is mainly for enthusiasts or budding  hobbyists looking to really spend some effort and time in photography. Therefore it’ll definitely be biased towards more advanced or technical gear such as advanced compacts or dSLRs cameras.

Also note that it is what camera, not what model I would buy. There are plenty of reviews for individual models of cameras out there, such as http://www.dpreview.com, http://imaging-resource.com, http://cameralabs.com and many others.

Okay, so let’s proceed!

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