Why the Noise on my DF ?

[fwellers]

Hi,

I just bought a DF this week to replace my D700 as my daily camera. On my D700 I pretty much never used auto-iso unless I was changing lighting situations a lot. But I figured I'd try it on the DF since it's supposed to have such clean high ISO files.

Well I think that either I got a bad camera, or I am doing something wrong that I never noticed before.

I have two quick pics I took , the dog is at ISO 1250 and the sunset is at ISO 2200.

These jpgs have been converted to tiff in Cnx2, had a little contrast added in Nik Cep, and because of the noise, I ran them through the default automatic mode in Nik define.

While it cleaned them up a little, you can still see a lot of noise in them. I don't get it. I didn't push the exposure up in post at all, I don't have Active D lighting turned on in the camera, I just let auto iso do it's thing.

I've seen many very clean images on this site at ISO 6400 and 12800, and I have all kinds of noise at only iso 1250 and 2200 ??

Can someone please explain why ? Did I get a broken camera, or is the photographer broken ?



Thanks,

floyd













--
Peace,
Floyd

 

[Carsten Pauer 2]

Can someone please explain why

Less Light means less Gradation/Information to save the needed Information in the bits.
Same as 24-Bit DTS vs low-fi.

You need more Light, even with high ISO Values, that is all...
...or use a mobile Tri-Pod. ;-)

 

[mootaineer]

Hi Floyd,

Aside from ISO capabilities of the Df, I'm wondering:

• For the first shot, could you not have used a wider aperture, allowing you to use a lower ISO?
• For the second shot again I would suggest a wider aperture (if the lens allows). I also think I see camera movement (i.e. you could use a faster shutter speed or hold the camera more steadily) before high ISO noise becomes a consideration.

As for low noise you might see elsewhere, I think there are a few factors to consider:

• Low light will still cause higher levels of noise (from my observations)
• The Df probably allows for easier removal of noise using noise-reduction software

 

[michaeladawson]

I don't see a lot of noise in those pics. What I do see is a lot of exaggeration of the noise due to what appears to me to be obvious signs of sharpening of the noise. It's possible your workflow might need a little overhaul.

 

[Margouillat]

I would second this option ! I use LR5 or Aperture and don't have this sort of grain effect at those levels of IOS.

I guess it's more about the PP chain then about the camera !

--

"Un photographe, finalement, c'est quelqu'un comme les autres, mais qui prend des photos." - Man Ray

ArchiVue

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[fwellers]

Thank you for the replies.

I have noticed in the past that if you use high ISO where there is more light, it doesn't make as much noise. I guess I just assumed that ISO 2000 should be good even in a dark situation on the DF. But in reality, I never liked to take my D700 above ISO640 or maybe 1250 tops for a clean image, so I guess if the DF is a stop or so better than the D700 that would make sense kind of.

I did sharpen a little bit, and probably shouldn't have. I usually have no problems when I use a radius of 1.

I will take a closer look at my workflow. Like I said, I usually don't process high ISO, because I try not to shoot with it. I thought I would be able to shoot with it more freely with the DF, but I guess that doesn't relieve me of proper care in PP, such as masking out the noise areas from any contrast bumps that I make and from any sharpening I do.

It's just that I've seen images on this forum and others ( but mainly this one ) that show very high ISO shots that are supposedly SOOC with no in camera NR used that are much cleaner, that I started wondering if maybe something is not right with my copy of the camera. Maybe I was just expecting too much in that area.

 

[user_name]

Thank you for the replies.

I have noticed in the past that if you use high ISO where there is more light, it doesn't make as much noise. I guess I just assumed that ISO 2000 should be good even in a dark situation on the DF. But in reality, I never liked to take my D700 above ISO640 or maybe 1250 tops for a clean image, so I guess if the DF is a stop or so better than the D700 that would make sense kind of.

I did sharpen a little bit, and probably shouldn't have. I usually have no problems when I use a radius of 1.

I will take a closer look at my workflow. Like I said, I usually don't process high ISO, because I try not to shoot with it. I thought I would be able to shoot with it more freely with the DF, but I guess that doesn't relieve me of proper care in PP, such as masking out the noise areas from any contrast bumps that I make and from any sharpening I do.

It's just that I've seen images on this forum and others ( but mainly this one ) that show very high ISO shots that are supposedly SOOC with no in camera NR used that are much cleaner, that I started wondering if maybe something is not right with my copy of the camera. Maybe I was just expecting too much in that area.

 

[user_name]

Hi Floyd,

Aside from ISO capabilities of the Df, I'm wondering:

• For the first shot, could you not have used a wider aperture, allowing you to use a lower ISO?
• For the second shot again I would suggest a wider aperture (if the lens allows). I also think I see camera movement (i.e. you could use a faster shutter speed or hold the camera more steadily) before high ISO noise becomes a consideration.

As for low noise you might see elsewhere, I think there are a few factors to consider:

• Low light will still cause higher levels of noise (from my observations)
• The Df probably allows for easier removal of noise using noise-reduction software

--
Joe

I think that the first picture's problems have more to do with the fact it is underexposed, so the noise is more prevalent than it would have been if he had exposed it correctly.

Look at the histogram for that image in LR5.

Even the second one is somewhat underexposed...

It's better than the first, but the root cause appears to be underexposure.

 

[Daniel Bliss]

I don't see any problem with the dog pic. As for the sunset, you should probably expose right a little more -- there's room there for a bit more exposure before the highlights start to clip -- and it looks to me like you may have noise reduction switched off. But even there, the noise you've got is unlikely to cause trouble in a typical (a3 or a4) print.

 

[Margouillat]

Most pictures shown are often reduced in size for web display (thus reducing apparent noise). Depending on the metering, if you have to "lighten up" the raw file, you'll get more noise then otherwise. A perfect exposition, will give a good picture, even up to 8000 ISO. At 10 000 or 12 800 ISO the noise will be easily manageable with most software.

Out of camera JPEGs with noise reduction and ISO noise settings in the camera will give a showable file, with RAW you'll have a better file at the end of the process, depending on one's skill and the software.

Coming from the D3x, I find the Df almost "noise free", meaning that up to 5000/8000 ISO, a very slight correction is needed. After it depends on the scene and the exposure quality. AT 2000 ISO I don't even bother as I usually reduce my files to a 3000x2000 pixels for computer uses

In what we call "noise" there are two parts, the "grain" that doesn't really affect the resulting picture (specially if you add some slight grain in you pictures in PP) and "noise" which can be mostly small color artifacts much less agreeable for the final results.

Sharpening, in such cases must only be done on a "clean" file at the end of the process, applying it at the beginning can make that noise to stick out all the way...

Most times, the Df allows me to get either a faster speed or a better DoF (when needed), but it still follows the usual photographic rules and I wouldn't use all those ISOses for shooting a starry night, but they can be useful for some quick grab portraits in not so good light !

Anyhow I haven't yet tested all the possibilities, as the camera is still new to me...

 

[user_name]

I don't see any problem with the dog pic. As for the sunset, you should probably expose right a little more -- there's room there for a bit more exposure before the highlights start to clip -- and it looks to me like you may have noise reduction switched off. But even there, the noise you've got is unlikely to cause trouble in a typical (a3 or a4) print.

Have another look at the area just below the sky's horizon. The area there is very noisy and I think you nailed it with the exposure. Here is the histogram for that shot...

 

[user_name]

Floyd,

I should add that it is not your post processing, but try reshooting and checking your in-camera histogram.

Your first shot was underexposed.

As an experiment try recreating that shot, but keep the ISO the same and take one where the histogram looks like the above histogram, then repeat the shot with a higher exposure so that the whole histogram is shifted so that it is just touching the right side of the frame.

It may take a few exposures before you dial in the amount of compensation necessary, but when you do, compare those shots (first and last) and see ho much noisier the first shot will be compared to the correctly exposed shot.

The in-camera histogram is your friend and it pays to review it after you take a shot. It will help you get a feel as to what the correct exposure should be.

 

[mootaineer]

You're right.

I hadn't checked the image histogram. Having said this if the EXIF reveals that (and I'm a bit too lazy to check + a bit late at night to feel like wanting to do it now) the jpeg isn't OOC, isn't there the chance that it's a changed histogram after having been processed?

 

[user_name]

You're right.

I hadn't checked the image histogram. Having said this if the EXIF reveals that (and I'm a bit too lazy to check + a bit late at night to feel like wanting to do it now) the jpeg isn't OOC, isn't there the chance that it's a changed histogram after having been processed?

 

[Wahrsager]

Hi,

I just bought a DF this week to replace my D700 as my daily camera. On my D700 I pretty much never used auto-iso unless I was changing lighting situations a lot. But I figured I'd try it on the DF since it's supposed to have such clean high ISO files.

Well I think that either I got a bad camera, or I am doing something wrong that I never noticed before.

I have two quick pics I took , the dog is at ISO 1250 and the sunset is at ISO 2200.

These jpgs have been converted to tiff in Cnx2, had a little contrast added in Nik Cep, and because of the noise, I ran them through the default automatic mode in Nik define.

While it cleaned them up a little, you can still see a lot of noise in them. I don't get it. I didn't push the exposure up in post at all, I don't have Active D lighting turned on in the camera, I just let auto iso do it's thing.

I've seen many very clean images on this site at ISO 6400 and 12800, and I have all kinds of noise at only iso 1250 and 2200 ??

Can someone please explain why ? Did I get a broken camera, or is the photographer broken ?

Thanks,

floyd





--
Peace,
Floyd

When I had the Df, (and I've experienced the same w/ the D4s files).. I've had by far the best results with Lightroom 5. I shoot raw and leave all of Nikons assistants off. (Hi ISO noise reduction, Active-D, vignette, etc) and do it manually in Lightroom. The noise in the reddish photo is exactly what I was getting w/ images processed in camera, exported as a .TIFF from View NX (before Lightroom 5 recognized D4s files). Although I love Nikon Picture Control colors, I prefer the cleanliness of the files that can easily be achieved by Lightroom.

 

[fwellers]

You guys are awesome. I think you hit the nail on the head. I have some better exposures that are currently in my recycle bin. I'll process that tomorrow and expect less noise. My problem with sunsets has always been that the "proper" exposure appears too light to me. In this case I dialed in -1 or -1.5 ev compensation to make it look better on image review. From now on for dark shots I'll leave it up to the histogram and keep it more to the right.

I'll tell you, after reading all the hoopla in the df threads for the last weeks while I was deciding on this camera, I was Leary of posting this thread. I thought I'd get slammed big time.

Thanks for reminding me why I love this place. Good honest smart people to learn from.

 

[clarnibass]

In addition, some of the noise in the first photo looks like weird processing...
If I understand you took JPG photos and then processed them a little more?
Maybe you can try a RAW photo similar to the first photo and post the RAW file?
The photo of the dog looks fine, nothing looks more noisy than it should.

 

[Margouillat]

Maybe you should downtone a bit the luminosity of your camera screen ? I had the same feeling on numerous digital cameras (i.e. It's too bright or dark) while it was more a "chimping" problem, looking at what ones suppose is the picture that was shot, while in fact it's just a "mock-up" of the "real" raw !

The histogram is more important and truer at the moment. When setting the screen lighting a bit low you always tend to expose to the right...

My two cents advice

 

[fwellers]

Interesting. I've never heard that before. Yea, maybe I'll put the screen brightness on my menu. ( If I tone it down in the evening, I'll need to brighten it back up in daytime ).

Or, maybe not chimp.

When I first got the camera, I was messing around with the settings and took image review off. It was a bit weird just seeing a black screen after each shot. )

Thank you.

 

[Wahrsager]

Hi,

I just bought a DF this week to replace my D700 as my daily camera. On my D700 I pretty much never used auto-iso unless I was changing lighting situations a lot. But I figured I'd try it on the DF since it's supposed to have such clean high ISO files.

Well I think that either I got a bad camera, or I am doing something wrong that I never noticed before.

I have two quick pics I took , the dog is at ISO 1250 and the sunset is at ISO 2200.

These jpgs have been converted to tiff in Cnx2, had a little contrast added in Nik Cep, and because of the noise, I ran them through the default automatic mode in Nik define.

While it cleaned them up a little, you can still see a lot of noise in them. I don't get it. I didn't push the exposure up in post at all, I don't have Active D lighting turned on in the camera, I just let auto iso do it's thing.

I've seen many very clean images on this site at ISO 6400 and 12800, and I have all kinds of noise at only iso 1250 and 2200 ??

Can someone please explain why ? Did I get a broken camera, or is the photographer broken ?

Thanks,

floyd





--
Peace,
Floyd

Here's a snapshot of my Dad's pet chickens shot at 12,800 ISO.. Processed entirely in LR5. I think it's "cleanish."

Chickens