In order to take a break from the mundane, we must challenge ourselves by striving to improve what skills are lacking. For me, I'm always trying to improve my photography - but generally, to no huge avail. I will agree with you, my shots have improved, but I'm starting to hit a plateau, I believe. A couple of reasons may cause this to occur, whether it be physical limitations, or just loss of interest.

I recently picked up my camera, and began to shoot once more after a couple weeks of no-shoot time, and I gotta tell ya, I'm really enjoying it. Sometimes we've got to just step back and see the world around us with our eyes, and not through a faulty piece of glass (I'll get to the faulty bit in a second). And secondly, for the physical limitations - this could be the fact that I don't generally get out of town much (even though I'm a firm believer in the fact that I will (some day) leave this place), or it could be the fact that my camera equipment is either not up to par, or not behaving properly. I believe the latter to be true.

For those of you who don't know, I've got a Canon EOS 40D, which I bought (used, DAMN!) in New Zealand, to replace my Canon Rebel XTI (400D) which had been stolen. I've been a huge fan of Canon's quality, so when I had to get a new camera, it was a no brainer. However, with my hasty decision, I believe I may've made a mistake, and it has cost me dearly. No, I'm not going to die, and no, I'm not going to be homeless. It's caused me many hours of frustration, and irritation because of some flaws it has. My XTi never had a problem, well... not one that I can think of anyway. Always worked as it should've. Anyway, about the 40D, there are two main issues. Even during low ISO (grain amount, light sensitivity) the camera has still been giving me a lot of grain, which (in my opinion) reduces the image quality.

The problem with digital cameras is they don't produce a three dimensional grain. Film is obviously a three dimensional substance, and therefore, grain in it isn't all at a single level. Think of film as 3, or 4 pieces of tracing paper, you know, that really thin stuff. If you put random dots in different places on each of the sheets, you'll see the grain at various intensities - which is the good kind of grain.

The problem with digital grain is the fact that when your camera's sensor was designed, it could not have possibly been designed with that third dimension aspect involved. You can't have light sensors on different layers, one over another. That first layer would block out all the other ones. To continue the analogy, use a single piece of construction paper, and draw different dots randomly upon it. What do you notice? Each dot has the same intensity, and may even be clumped around various regions of your sheet. This is very similar to the way a sensor is made, in the fact that you're going to have certain regions of it that are especially susceptible to light, and others that aren't. It's the darker regions which produce that grain.

Unfortunately, those regions aren't random. They're clumped. Going back to when the sensor itself was made, the process required allows these clumped regions to form lines. If you have a dSLR (if you don't know what that is, you probably don't have one. ;) ) take a shot or two with a really high ISO, and under expose it. When you put it on your computer, brighten it up. What do you notice? Chances are, you'll notice this grain appear to form in lines across the image, from left to right, if you're shooting landscape format, and top to bottom if you're shooting portrait format.

Back to the problem of my camera - I believe it's creating a bit of unnecessary grain, or noise. And that's one of the main reasons why I've been so down about taking photographs. I've been getting that noise all too much, and it's a pain in the ass to remove it. Sure, there are photo programs and plugins and such to remove it, but generally, they won't remove those lines that form, or the clusters of noise. Why? Because the programs look for random pixels that are 'hot' or are considered 'noise.'. If it notices a lot of pixels have noise within a certain viscinity, it'll say, "Oh, that's probably part of the image. I won't mess with it."

However, on the contrary, I can't say that I haven't gotten an acceptable amount of shots that I deem to be quite decent. It's just that I've gotten a couple that drag me down. Real photographers don't let one or two tear them to the ground, do they? Of course not. That's how they become better. They learn from their mistakes.

And that's precisely what I plan on doing.