Noise on the Olympus OMD EM 1 II

First post here, so thanks in anticipation. I've read plenty of other posts and have learned a lot. However, I haven't found a solution to my issue. Noise.

I have been playing with the Olympus 100-400 on the camera and was sure that it would produce tack sharp pictures. The photos are, as with other lenses that I have used eg the 75-300, plagued with noise. They look OK ish until you start to look for feather definition. It's not even the lack of sharpness that bothers me, as I can put this down to me learning to use the long lens, but noise? That's surely something in the settings or something else. I've gone through Robin Wong's advice about reducing noise in pictures, but nothing works. I need some advice.

I'm uploading a picture I took today with a crop of it. The pelican was fairly close to me. It shows the noise problem to perfection. So disappointing.

Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

If you can upload the RAW file (dropbox?), I would try to process it with with DxO PL4.

See what comes of it,,,

Just a comment:  your ISO seems pretty high for an outdoor shot in decent light and the subject not really moving.

A screen cap is only marginally useful

MNE wrote:

Just a comment: your ISO seems pretty high for an outdoor shot in decent light and the subject not really moving.

Due to the deeper depth of field given by m4/3 gear, most wildlife photographers stick to full aperture, which should have been fine for this subject, and it would have given better subject isolation from the background. Taking the converter off would also have allowed a wider aperture.

The two together would have allowed much lower ISO, and avoiding under-exposure is also an important part of playing to the strengths of m4/3 while minimising its weaknesses. 1/1000th would have been perfectly fast enough for the shutter speed, too.

Get the tele converter off when you don’t need it and use the longest exposure time you can that fits the scene.

Andrew

... Why f9.0?

Why is 1250 in broad daylight?

Was this very underexposed? And was that purposefully?

I would start here Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera. Not sure why you would have those settings  for a static bird in daylight.

You need to manage the shadows.

> shoot raw

> don’t photograph a backlight white bird, otherwise you can easily get a bright over exposed outline (or head in this particular case) with the bulk of the bird in its own shadow

> set your ISO as low as is practical for your shot and expose to the right as far as you can. Turn on the histogram display and learn to use it.

> be prepared to trade  DoF to capture more light

> if in PP you find yourself needing to lift the shadowed areas of your subject to reveal detail then surely you will see a noisy ‘mush’ there

> ideally your exposure should be such that in post processing you’re pulling back the overall brightness and maybe dropping the highlights a little.

If you can’t better manage your shadows through exposure then you might need one of the new AI Noise reduction programs, but IMO resorting to those without getting the exposure right is prematurely reaching for a crutch

Peter

Hi Bruce,

Welcome to the world of m43 ... lol

Noise and DR are always lively topics here, but please keep in mind that our comments and suggestions apply to all formats, including APC and FF.

Mark

Hi, fellow E-M1 Mark II (and Mark III) user here.

1. The crop of the wings looks very processed and not at all what an Olympus RAW file would look like at ISO 1250 from an E-M1 Mark II viewed at 100%. Is it possible that's a 400% magnification screen shot? If so, why are you pixel peeping at such high magnification?

2. Any underexposure at all with m4/3 will exacerbate noise. Saturate the sensor with as much light as you can without totally blowing out any highlights you care to have detail/tone in. I've found that the image needs to look a little "hot" on the camera's display for it to be a good exposure. Also, I pay close attention to the histogram.

3. What is your final use for your photos? Large prints? Social media? Books? I've made 16x20s with ISO 2000 files from this camera and they look great! Again, though, proper exposure is VERY important, and adding about 20 points of noise reduction in LR does wonders. Or apply noise reduction selectively in Photoshop by dedicating a layer to noise reduction, creating a layer mask, and then applying that layer in the locations and in the amounts you prefer. I use Dfine, but pick the app or plugin you like.

4. The 2x teleconverter is probably making the noise look worse by degrading any fine detail even more. I have never used the 2x (or the 1.4x), but teleconverters certainly never improve image quality!

Ultimately, though, you need to consider all this advice against your tolerance for image noise. Some photographers demand, and work to achieve nearly noise-free photos. Others are fine with considerable noise. I'm in the latter camp and so, for example, the Olympus at ISO 4000 is OK with me... as long as I don't underexpose!

Bruce DW wrote:

First post here, so thanks in anticipation. I've read plenty of other posts and have learned a lot. However, I haven't found a solution to my issue. Noise.

I have been playing with the Olympus 100-400 on the camera and was sure that it would produce tack sharp pictures. The photos are, as with other lenses that I have used eg the 75-300, plagued with noise. They look OK ish until you start to look for feather definition. It's not even the lack of sharpness that bothers me, as I can put this down to me learning to use the long lens, but noise? That's surely something in the settings or something else. I've gone through Robin Wong's advice about reducing noise in pictures, but nothing works. I need some advice.

I'm uploading a picture I took today with a crop of it. The pelican was fairly close to me. It shows the noise problem to perfection. So disappointing.

Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the Oly 100-400 with MC-14

Honestly, the 100-400 did not convince me. I have seen lots of pictures like this. When I was in the tropical rain forrest with the 100-400, it became useless even without 1.4x TC.

I love the rendition of my EM1.3 using the 17mm Pro and the 45mm Pro, but when it come to long telephoto in mediocre conditions, i have not found a Oly solution.

Photolab 4 can help a lot

Cheers

Martin

Hi Bruce. A few things spring to mind.

1. Your image example noise pattern looks typically like an out of camera jpg which has been processed to try and bring out detail.

If processing from RAW this should be greatly improved.

2. The 1.4x teleconverter is handy but degrades image quality and reduces light reaching the cameras sensor.

Unless you need more than 400mm, take it off.

3. Maximising sharpness using long telephoto lenses takes good technique and lots of practice. It took me a few months before I could get really sharp images from my Panasonic PL100-400 & Em1-mk2 combination.

Practice your long lenses technique.

4. Optimise your camera settings:

Use electronic shutter whenever possible.

Always shoot with as wide an aperture as possible.

Keep ISO low, while keeping shutter speed as high as necessary. (This is always a compromise, and remember noise is preferable to blur).

Target your focus point carefully, and if practical use S-af if subject reasonably static.

I look forward to seeing your picture progress.

Best wishes.

The camera has 0.8 Ev highlight protection built in so this can result in noise in the shadows.

Easier way is to increase 0.3 to 0.6 Ev or perform an exposure shift to correct the metering

I could be wrong, but I see that pattern of noise in my Olympus raw files if I import them directly into Adobe Lightroom. I convert my raw files to tiff in Olympus Workspace and then import them into Lightroom. 
I recently posted this example in another thread. I think the noise pattern is pretty close to that in the OP pelican image.

Adobe Lightroom

Olympus Workspace

Good point.