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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Noise (1 Viewer)

psilo

psilo

Well-known member
Just recently I have been experiencing an alarming amount of noise in my photos. This photo included was photographed today in good light (the sun was shining through dark storm clouds) the example i show is cropped by 25% but the noise is very evident even in the uncropped version. I havent tweaked it or sharpened it at all. The exposure is more or less right so why is it so noisy?
settings were iso 400 f10 @ 1/2000
From those settings I know i could have gotten away with iso 200 by opening my aperture more.

Im sure my camera used to perform better at higher iso. I get noise like this at iso 200 as well.
Am I expecting too much? Has my camera finally succumbed in quality from its dunking last year? am i obsessed with not having noise? What do you think?
 

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mike from ebbw said:
have you tried putting it through a noise filter?
Click to expand...

No Mike i havent and that isnt the point I am trying to make. The 350d should be able to handle noise well at high iso but mine doesnt seem to be doing so. Im not sure whether at the moment it is because of the settings I am using/poor llight quality or a fault on my camera.
 
psilo said:
Just recently I have been experiencing an alarming amount of noise in my photos. This photo included was photographed today in good light (the sun was shining through dark storm clouds) the example i show is cropped by 25% but the noise is very evident even in the uncropped version. I havent tweaked it or sharpened it at all. The exposure is more or less right so why is it so noisy?
settings were iso 400 f10 @ 1/2000
From those settings I know i could have gotten away with iso 200 by opening my aperture more.

Im sure my camera used to perform better at higher iso. I get noise like this at iso 200 as well.
Am I expecting too much? Has my camera finally succumbed in quality from its dunking last year? am i obsessed with not having noise? What do you think?
Click to expand...
It's odd if it has changed, isn't it? Looking at this test of the camera, though, your shot shows no more noise than the test shots seem to show:

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon400D/page4c.shtml
 
Annette compare it against this - a 100% crop no other processing.

This shot was 1 stop under exposed to get a half decent shutter speed on such an overcast day. 400 ISO but the brightness level of the background is about the same as your sky. Therefore the signal to noise level should be about the same.
 

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I have a similar problem with grey clouds or grey skies. It seems that conditions like these do not capture well in the digital format. If I have a white bird against this type of sky I do sometimes have difficulty in achieving a satisfactory image.
 
Thanks for that guys. Scampo that link is interesting. The 350d shows noise even at 100 iso on that chart though i dare say light was low there.
Rob the light I was shooting into was quite good really but i guess the grey sky wasnt giving off good light hence the noise.
The photos will clean up ok in neatimage I was just worried in case there was something wrong with the camera especially as I am sure it is on borrowed time!
 
psilo said:
Thanks for that guys. Scampo that link is interesting. The 350d shows noise even at 100 iso on that chart though i dare say light was low there.
Rob the light I was shooting into was quite good really but i guess the grey sky wasnt giving off good light hence the noise.
The photos will clean up ok in neatimage I was just worried in case there was something wrong with the camera especially as I am sure it is on borrowed time!
Click to expand...
I'm no expert, but would low light make any difference to noise?
 
Annette,

does the apparent increase in noise coincide with you moving to RAW?

If so, remember that any in-camera NR which is applied to jpegs won't be applied to the RAW files.

As Sandpiper says though, skies always tend to show the noise, and as John R suggests, use a low contrast setting as a starting point.
 
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Keith I cant remember specifically if it did or not but it might have done. I may shoot some shots simultaneously in jpeg and raw to see if there is a difference.

oops forgot to sign out again!
 
I recently read a very interestingarticle on the importance of exposing to the right of the histogram with DSLR's.
The amount of information gathered is not even across the histogram, but hugely favours the right hand side. Once you move to the shadows there is a massive drop in processable information, which means more noise.

It recommends getting exposure as far right as possible without actually blowing the highlights. Even though this will often look overexposed on the lcd, and at first in the raw processor, once adjustments are made you will have a much higher quality, and less noisy, image. I'll try and find the link tomorrow.

Also very important, as others have said, is setting the contrast as low as possible and adjusting at raw conversion (I set my 30D/5D below zero on a custom function).
 
with a negative compensation (underexposed) it will show some noise too at higher ISO (even with Canon). To be sure anyway it can be a good idea to go at Canon for an inspection of the camera. Even if they already make some repair, they sometime not doing it right the first time. My wife Annette, have to go back at least 4 times at Canon for the same repair in her GL1 video camera.
 
deshojo said:
I recently read a very interestingarticle on the importance of exposing to the right of the histogram with DSLR's.
The amount of information gathered is not even across the histogram, but hugely favours the right hand side. Once you move to the shadows there is a massive drop in processable information, which means more noise.

It recommends getting exposure as far right as possible without actually blowing the highlights. Even though this will often look overexposed on the lcd, and at first in the raw processor, once adjustments are made you will have a much higher quality, and less noisy, image. I'll try and find the link tomorrow.

Also very important, as others have said, is setting the contrast as low as possible and adjusting at raw conversion (I set my 30D/5D below zero on a custom function).
Click to expand...
Is this contrast setting in the menus.I have noticed lots of "squiggles " in the sea and sky on some of my shots.Mostly when the shots are greyish in colour.
 
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