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Hello all. I have recently had some difficulty getting my pictures to come out less grainy. It always looks as if it is really grainy, and makes the paint look thick. I changed the ISO on my camera, and it is set at 80. I can see the difference, but it still looks very grainy. Is it a possibility, that The primer it self isnt smooth, and that is what is causing the grainyness? In person, it isnt smooth as silk, but it is a lot less grainy then in the photos. Here are some pictures to show you what I mean.

If it is the primer, How do you get the Army Painter White Matt Primer smooth?

If you look at the background.. The background is fine, so I am more incline to say its the figure.. If the figure has any graininess the camera will pick it up, even when we don't think its bad.. It almost looks like a rough coat was applied..

Hmm, yep, that looks like the graininess you get with Army Painter primer. I used Army Painter once, won't ever use it again. Apparently from what I've found looking around, white seems to have this problem more often than black. When you're spraying too far, the spray particles like to clump up and that's how you can get the graininess on the surface. I'm not a big fan of the spray nozzle on the Army Painter, I would prefer Testors over theirs. Recently I've been using Tamiya and that has been pretty great. That is definitely no the graininess you're getting from taking a picture, the quality is actually pretty good. It's just the graininess you get from Army Painter.

Ok...Yeah, The wierd thing is, is I havent had this problem at all till recently. Ive sprayed 200pt+ of nids with the white, and I havent had any problems...I dont know why it happened all of a sudden. As for the grainyness, it look fine in person, but Is the camera just picking it out and amplifying it?

Are you using flash? It looks to me like the bright flash is reflecting off the different facets of the grain, making it more obvious.

Another possibility is you are using a low ISO and high exposure time. The longer the expose the more differences in lighting are highlighted. So again, if it has grainy facets reflecting light at the camera the differences are going to be more obvious than they would be to the naked eye.

riplikash wrote:Are you using flash? It looks to me like the bright flash is reflecting off the different facets of the grain, making it more obvious.

Another possibility is you are using a low ISO and high exposure time. The longer the expose the more differences in lighting are highlighted. So again, if it has grainy facets reflecting light at the camera the differences are going to be more obvious than they would be to the naked eye.

[Camera]
Camera Manufacturer : EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Camera Model : KODAK DX7590 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA
Orientation : top-left (1)
X Resolution : 230
Y Resolution : 230
Resolution unit : Inch
YCbCr Positioning : centered (1)

[Image]
Exposure time [s] : 1/320
F-Number : 2.8
Exposure program : Normal (2)
ISO speed ratings : 80
EXIF version : 02.21
Date taken : 2012:06:03 11:18:53
Date digitized : 2012:06:03 11:18:53
Components configuration : YCbCr
Shutter speed [s] : 1/315
Aperture : F2.8
Exposure bias value : -1/3
Max aperture : F2.8
Metering mode : Multi-segment (5)
Light source : Unknown (0)
Flash : No flash
Focal length [mm] : 6.3
FlashPix Version : 01.00
Colour space : sRGB
EXIF image width : 2576
EXIF image length : 1932
Interoperability offset : 3504
Exposure index : 80
Sensing method : One-chip color area sensor (2)
File source : DSC
Scene type : A directly photographed image
Custom rendered : Normal process (0)
Exposure mode : Auto (0)
White balance : Auto (0)
Digital zoom : 0
Focal length (35mm) : 38
Scene capture type : Standard (0)
Gain control : None (0)
Contrast : Normal (0)
Saturation : Normal (0)
Sharpness : Hard (2)
Subject distance range : Macro (1)

Seeing the Exif data, no flash was used, and the shutter speed was good.. So we can rule that out.. It is most likely the primer..

What about the ISO..... Could be that.

ISO is fine.. anything on the high end will cause grain, not on the low end..

Yeah....im preatty sure its the primer...I dont know why it happend to this model though. all the rest were fine.

The HIGHER the ISO, the grainier the image.

Auto program or manual setting?

Auto program will adjust the ISO, the shutter speeds and the aperture to get a "good" picture. Sometimes ramping ISO100 up to 1600 or worse (1600 is good in bright sunlight if you want to freeze a fast moving object. Not so good anywhere else).

I use manual mode on my camera. Setting ISO (100), Shutter, Aperture and any compensation and any graininess is often a result of the camera enlarging/magnifying what is there. Digital pics at high resolution will expose flaws you didn't know were there.