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Setting E-PL6 for minimal noise at high ISO

Started Jan 17, 2016 | Discussions
alexisgreat Veteran Member • Posts: 6,459
Setting E-PL6 for minimal noise at high ISO
1

I'm trying to figure out the proper settings to have the least amount of noise at higher ISO (ISO 6400-25,600) while maintaining a good level of detail.  After some testing, what I've come up with is Sharpening -1, Contrast -1, Saturation -1 and Noise Filter set to Low with Noise Reduction set to On.

I set everything first to -2 and then slowly altered the settings, and didn't find a significant difference until I changed Saturation to 0, when chroma noise went up significantly (mostly higher than ISO 6400).  I set noise filter to Low instead of Off because I found the noise at Off too much (especially chroma noise), while Low seems to control it much better.  Standard wipes away too much detail, so I find Low to be a nice compromise.  I dont want to be applying my own NR for each image, so I find setting it to Low a matter of convenience and a good compromise.

About setting noise reduction to On, I'm not entirely sure that means it is On for very short exposures (shorter than 1/4 sec) but setting it to Auto I believe only has it on for exposures of 2 seconds or longer, and I wanted it to be on for 1 second exposures and also if the camera heats up.  By setting noise reduction to On, I've noticed no hot pixels during long exposures, even when the camera felt warm in my hands.

 alexisgreat's gear list:alexisgreat's gear list
Olympus C-7070 Wide Zoom Fujifilm FinePix HS20 EXR Fujifilm FinePix HS50 EXR Olympus E-520 Olympus PEN E-PL6 +3 more
Olympus PEN E-PL6
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