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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tdodd" data-source="post: 1417788" data-attributes="member: 55450">There is a tutorial on DPP here - <a href="http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=1228" target="_blank">http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=1228</a>. It is for V3.2, which is slightly long in the tooth, with V3.5.2 being the current release, but should get you going pretty well. I'm not sure why you should be struggling with noise if you have good light. In bright sunlight you should be able to use an exposure setting of something like.... f/5.6, 1/800, 100 ISO That should give you virtually no visible noise, easily freeze the motion of birds just sitting and hopping about, but will push your lens to the limits due to the wide open aperture. If you want to give the lens an eaier time of it then try.... f/8, 1/800, 200 ISO, which should yield sharper images and still with noise all but absent. It's worth noting that it is important to get your exposure correct, or at least not to underexpose. If you underexpose and then brighten the image in editing then you will amplify any noise, especially in the darker areas of the image. That is a strict no-no. Have a look here - <a href="http://ronbigelow.com/articles/exposure/exposure.htm" target="_blank">http://ronbigelow.com/articles/exposure/exposure.htm</a>and here - <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml</a>for some information on the importance of exposing correctly, and for raw shooters the benefits of "Exposing To The Right". Here is one of my photos processed in DPP. It was shot at 380mm, f/8, 1/250, 400 ISO in hazy light, not bright sunlight. It's not a very good shot, certainly not razor sharp, but I'm not seeing noise, even at 400 ISO. The only edits were to set Picture Style = Standard (I shoot with Neutral Picture Style) and to set Sharpening = 3 (I shoot with Sharpening = 0). Noise reduction sliders were both at 0. First the full frame and then a 50% crop.... EDIT : I've just added a picture of a robin, and a 50% crop, this time shot with flash at 100 ISO, f/11, 1/250, 400mm. The only edits in DPP are as above - PS=Standard, Sharpening=3 (oh, and WB = Flash). It's also worth pointing out that (over)sharpening is not a magic cure for photos that are out of focus or blurry. With my photos, when processing in DPP, I normally use Sharpening = 3 as my default setting but I'll go to 4 or 5 if I have to, 6 at the maximum. If I need to go any higher than that then I have to question whether the photo was sharp enough to keep.</blockquote>

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