50d in poor light

[john-henry]

Just upgraded from a 400d to a 50d and managed a few shots of blackbirds in the garden today. The light was pretty poor but they didn't seem too bad for noise to me.
I've put a pic of the best one below, any opinions please re noise etc.

400mm f5.6, ISO 800, 1/320 @ f5.6, -0.33EV, partial metering, WB cloudy, the bird was about 20ft away.

pic 1 is a 7"x5" crop at 300ppi, levels and USM applied then saved for web at 80%.

pic 2 is a 7"x5" crop of the head from this, saved for web at 80%.

[Paul Jarvis]

great shot john they look very good to me, congrats on your upgrade.

[GYRob]

the first looks fine but i see a lot of noise in the seconed shot .
Rob.

[Roy C]

From that shot, and the heavy crop I would say that the noise level is about the same or a little worst than the 40D. Mind you a lot depends on the exposure - if it has been pushed in processing this would create some noise.

[hollis_f]

I'd agree that the noise on the 50D looks a bit worse than on the 40D when you look at individual pixels. But when you look at the full image those pixels (including the noisy ones) are smaller in the 50D image, which makes the noise less obvious.

[Tectortony]

You sum it up well Frank.

[john-henry]

I'd agree that the noise on the 50D looks a bit worse than on the 40D when you look at individual pixels. But when you look at the full image those pixels (including the noisy ones) are smaller in the 50D image, which makes the noise less obvious.

Frank, et al

Would I be correct in assuming if I saved pic 1 at a higher resolution than 300 pic 2 would not look quite so noisy due to more smaller pixels being present.

Also, of course, the pics are being seen at 72 or 100ppi not 300 so again I presume a print would look a lot better.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

John

[hollis_f]

Frank, et al

Would I be correct in assuming if I saved pic 1 at a higher resolution than 300 pic 2 would not look quite so noisy due to more smaller pixels being present.

Also, of course, the pics are being seen at 72 or 100ppi not 300 so again I presume a print would look a lot better.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

John
Nope. DPI means nothing to an image until you print it. Try saving the same image at 10 dpi and 1000 dpi. They'll look identical on the screen. That's because changing the dpi of an image doesn't change the image, it just adds a little label telling any printing software how big it should be if it ever gets printed.

[Roy C]

Frank, et al

Would I be correct in assuming if I saved pic 1 at a higher resolution than 300 pic 2 would not look quite so noisy due to more smaller pixels being present.

Also, of course, the pics are being seen at 72 or 100ppi not 300 so again I presume a print would look a lot better.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

John
Like Frank says, dpi is for printing only and bares no relationship to the file size or what you see on the screen.

[john-henry]

Like Frank says, dpi is for printing only and bares no relationship to the file size or what you see on the screen.

Sorry, I don't think I made myself very clear, I never mentioned printing dpi but image resolution ppi, surely a higher resolution image will give a better print than a lower resolution one.

[Roy C]

Sorry, I don't think I made myself very clear, I never mentioned printing dpi but image resolution ppi, surely a higher resolution image will give a better print than a lower resolution one.
ppi and dpi are the same thing in this context. Yes the ppi or dpi, whichever you want to call it, will effect printing quality but not image quality for viewing on a screen. To check it out for yourself, save a file at 50 ppi and 1000 ppi and have a look at the images on the screen - you will not see any difference (also the file sizes will be the same).

[Robert L Jarvis]

I think no matter what camera by and large was used a crop of that magnitude will surely produce noise particularly as I think it was a jpeg taken not a raw image.

[Roy C]

I think no matter what camera by and large was used a crop of that magnitude will surely produce noise particularly as I think it was a jpeg taken not a raw image.
Robert, the fact that it was jpeg and not raw should not make any difference, in fact a jpeg may well have auto noise reduction whereas a raw will not thus unless you apply some NR I would have thought that the raw would have more noise.

The two things that effect noise the most is high ISO and underexposing (and then pushing in processing).

I do not think anyone is complaining about the noise in the shot as it was the original poster himself who asks for comments on the noise in the first post. I for one would not have even bothered to contribute to the thread had it not been for the OP requesting "any opinions please re noise".

[john-henry]

Roy,

Many thanks for your reply.

Regards

john