Bad Photo of the Day (8/31/06)

Today’s Photo of the Day is a testament to poor photo skills: mine.

This is an example of what happens when you get a new digital camera and you are not careful with all the new-fangled buttons and settings. I managed to capture this great shot of an Alaskan eagle taking off only to later discover the very poor, grainy image you see above.

Damn! I invested in an 8-megapixal camera just to ensure my photos weren’t this crappy. So, what happened? Somehow I had managed to adjust my ISO to 400. Although I have an automatic function on my camera, I switched to another setting that was supposed to compensate for cloudy days. In doing so, I must have accidentally switched the ISO. I don’t know much about cameras but I did learn that the higher the ISO, the more “noise” which appears in photographs-as is evident above.

Apparently there is “noise reduction” software which is supposed to fix this problem for us hapless photographers who’ve blundered into it. Does anyone have recommendations on the best software out there?