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E-510 Very bad noise on blacks - Help

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ace1

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Hi guys,

Long time reader, thanks for all the tips and information.

I need some help.......

Have had my E-510 for a year now and it has been a loyal servant going round the world with me taking some great pictures...with little assistance from myself !

Recently the blacks have started being really grainy...even at low ISO's. Incredibly grainy. Not noticed it too much as most of my pics have been well lit, but I was playing around last night and couldn't believe the state of the pics. Totally unusable at ISO400 and ISO100 looks more like ISO6400 on a point and click.

So I swapped lenses...12-60 to 70-300 and still the same. Tried a reset, still the same. Tried with NR on and off (well set to low anyhoo).

Any ideas, what do I do...help !?

I don't have a flickr account but can happily send (e-mail) some examples taken last night complete with EXIF...all I did was convert them from RAW to JPG. And yes the RAW's have this terrible grain on them as well.

Thanks for looking
Andy
 
ace1 said:
Hi guys,

Long time reader, thanks for all the tips and information.

I need some help.......

Have had my E-510 for a year now and it has been a loyal servant
going round the world with me taking some great pictures...with
little assistance from myself !

Recently the blacks have started being really grainy...even at low
ISO's. Incredibly grainy. Not noticed it too much as most of my pics
have been well lit, but I was playing around last night and couldn't
believe the state of the pics. Totally unusable at ISO400 and ISO100
looks more like ISO6400 on a point and click.

So I swapped lenses...12-60 to 70-300 and still the same. Tried a
reset, still the same. Tried with NR on and off (well set to low
anyhoo).

Any ideas, what do I do...help !?

I don't have a flickr account but can happily send (e-mail) some
examples taken last night complete with EXIF...all I did was convert
them from RAW to JPG. And yes the RAW's have this terrible grain on
them as well.

Thanks for looking
Andy
Click to expand...
 
Had it set to off and on low...still the same.

Noise Reduction is set as on but that should only be used for dark frame sub
 
how about you post an image with an EXIF on it
--
Riley

in my home, the smoke alarm is the dinner bell (just)
 
I'm no expert, but might it be that it has something to do with the calibration of your monitor? Do you use a new monitor or different settings approximately from the time your problem popped up? Because, on my monitor, it doesn't look very grainy...
--

Groeten,
Arjan
 
Could you send me the jpeg to my email? [email protected]

I will need to look at this closer. It could be your monitor like mentioned above but I will have to see.

R
--
Isn't Photography Addicting?!?!
 
ACR should be recent.

Be careful about auto-gradation, if you're using it at all.
 
Ryan21 said:
Could you send me the jpeg to my email? [email protected]

I will need to look at this closer. It could be your monitor like
mentioned above but I will have to see.
Click to expand...
Even with this compression I don't look the noise you noticed
 
That's interesting...I hadn't thought of my monitor as other graphics are looking ok.

Let me go trawl around some pics to see what I can find
 
I'm not sure if what you see is the same problem that I have since de beginning with my E-510, for me is not exatly noise, but more as "patches" of pixels.

Here are some samples, order is E500, E510 with Noise Filter OFF and E510 with Noise Filter LOW:







 
I have plugged in an old LCD monitor and it looks a tad better....woo hoo my camera isn't bust....boo hoo my laptop could be !

Interestingly the windows look fantastic but the photos look rubbish ?!

I have an Acer 2920 12" (it's my take anywhere laptop)....I have updated the driver for the Mobile Intel 965 chipset.....any other ideas ?
 
Hmm... sorry I can't help you with your computer side you might try posting in the PC forum, I use a Mac and haven't had any issues yet. One other issue that it could be, looking at the other poster's crops reminds me of a similar issue I had with my RAW convertor's demosaicing algorithm that was causing a labyrinth pattern that looked like noise and weird artifacts.

Play around with your convertor and use some free trial convertors to see if i the problem is reproducible.

R
--
Isn't Photography Addicting?!?!
 
... and I can't speak to any noise because the JPG compression is so strong.
It looks like Pbase has recompressed your shots.
ace1 said:
Here are 2 samples. Second one is with flash....check out the web
site on the screen.

http://www.pbase.com/andy_mead/image/98785054

http://www.pbase.com/andy_mead/image/98785099

Thanks for looking
Click to expand...
--



E-Five-Ten/E-One/E-Three-Hundred/E-Ten/C-Twenty-OneHundred-UZ/E-OneHundred-RS
DZ Eleven-TwentyTwo/DZ Fourteen-FiftyFour/DZ Fifty-TwoHundred
EC-Fourteen/FL-Fifty/FL-Forty
Oldma-cdon-aldh-adaf-arm-EI-EI-O
 
Looking at the original (test 5) I notice what looks like botches patches, not really noise, especially in the desk area and the background.

Remind me of the same problem I had with a Pana FZ-5 which required a few trips to the service center until they got it right after changing quite a few parts.

The patches might as well be from some heavy compression either from you first saving the photo and second from PBase. How about you upload a 100% crop area saved with the least compression?

My guess is that it's from the compression as the patches don't show nearly as much on the laptop.
---------
Equipment in profile.



I take a great picture, they ask me about my expensive cameras.
I cook a great meal, no one asks me about my expensive pans.
 
For what it's worth I am experiencing the same problem, noise in shadows and no one else (except you) seems to be experiencing (or at least admitting to it) too, but for me it is very real... as it is for you. I shot the same scenes with my old Canon 10D at equivalent ISO (100), equal focal length lens, both on jpeg and both on tripod. The Canon showed very low to no noise in shadows whereas my E410 and E510 were horrible (in comparison).

I love the Olympus compact size and the fabulous lenses but unless the E420 & E520 are a significant improvement in shadow noise reduction over the 410 & 510 I will be calling it quits on the Olympus gear I have and going back to Canon, which is not something I look forward to since I love the Olympus E410 & E510 physical size and fabulous lenses (I have no desire to have an E3), but IQ is more important to me.
 
I am new to Olympus and 4/3s but I have noticed that my 420 noise performance is very sensitive to overall exposure. When exposure is good and dynamic range isn't pushed, I find the images luminous and colorful with good detail retention. If exposure is a bit under or the range of the scene is to large and it meters on the brighter end, I find dark areas to have extraordinary noise/mottling.

Still loving it and find it enjoyable for it's strengths. I don't think we're crazy, though. I am also starting to identify some horizontal banding, but I am not sure how best to reproduce it, nor am I totally convinced I am seeing it ^ ^

I am mostly working in JPEG and have only begun integrating Oly Raw into my workflow, so I have no doubt a great deal of my impressions are tainted by artifacting.

Cheers,

S.G.
PostAngst said:
For what it's worth I am experiencing the same problem, noise in
shadows and no one else (except you) seems to be experiencing (or at
least admitting to it) too, but for me it is very real... as it is
for you. I shot the same scenes with my old Canon 10D at equivalent
ISO (100), equal focal length lens, both on jpeg and both on tripod.
The Canon showed very low to no noise in shadows whereas my E410 and
E510 were horrible (in comparison).

I love the Olympus compact size and the fabulous lenses but unless
the E420 & E520 are a significant improvement in shadow noise
reduction over the 410 & 510 I will be calling it quits on the
Olympus gear I have and going back to Canon, which is not something I
look forward to since I love the Olympus E410 & E510 physical size
and fabulous lenses (I have no desire to have an E3), but IQ is more
important to me.
Click to expand...
 
Those of you having trouble - take a look at your gradation setting. If you have SAT active it may be causing your trouble. If it's got to effectively go to ISO 800 or so to pull back detail in the shadows that'll bring up noise...
 
Gary Berg said:
Those of you having trouble - take a look at your gradation setting.
If you have SAT active it may be causing your trouble. If it's got to
effectively go to ISO 800 or so to pull back detail in the shadows
that'll bring up noise...
Click to expand...
The gradation setting in my 410 provides only for "Normal, Low Key, & High Key." Mine is set to "Normal." Is that the gradation setting you refer to or am I missing something? Please define "SAT active."

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Don
 
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