D2H ISO 6400 shot recovered

<p>Hi,<br>

D2H + 50mm f1.8 AF Nikkor, @f1.8.<br>

It is amazing what can done now with modern PS technique - LR3 beta 2. Previously, I would have rejected this image. Still not perfect, but considering this is pushing the camrera to its extreme I am happy with it. What do you think?<br /><br /><img src="http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u161/stingOM/HISO.jpg" alt="" width="999" height="712" /></p>

<p>not bad - i guess i should try the same with my D90 pictures....</p>

<p>nice to see that you were able to work at iso 6400 !!!</p>

<p>I'm always surprised with the high iso capabilities of my D2h.</p>

<p>I shoot fairly routinely at 3200 and 6400 with my D2H. It's noisy compared with the most current dSLRs but still beats the heck out of any ultra-fast color film I used, so for my purposes it's still useful.</p>

<p>Definitely needs chroma noise reduction, but I usually go easy on the luminance NR. I don't mind the grainy look and too much luminance NR tends to soften details. Noise Ninja and Noiseware work well enough.</p>

<p>Other challenges are the greatly reduced dynamic range and zero tolerance for underexposure. Any underexposure produces banding, which can't be easily fixed, so I usually dial in around +2/3 exposure compensation.</p>

<p>Most of the time when I shoot above ISO 1600 I just convert to monochrome. The overall look is somewhat similar to Delta 3200, including the prominent luminance noise - kinda resembles the fluffy popcorn grain of Delta 3200.</p>

<p>Here's one from last year at an industrial fire. This is cleaned up from the NEF. D2H at 6400 - technically, "2 steps over 1600" or "Hi-2", since I don't think Nikon ever claimed the D2H offered a true ISO equivalent over 1600. The excellent 300/4.5 AI ED Nikkor wide open, 1/125th handheld (probably the last time I was able to handhold this rig steadily due to increasing back and neck problems during the past year).</p>

<p>I'll attach the original JPEG straight from the camera in a follow up post for comparison, since somewhere down the line another user might find it useful for reference.</p><div></div>

<p>You can still see some banding in the above photo, mostly in the background area. It's generally only objectionable in large areas of continuous tone or similar colors. Not bad for emergency purposes and the D2H was intended as a photojournalist's camera. Most newspaper and even some magazine reproduction would mask most flaws.</p>

<p>Here's a JPEG straight from the D2H (should appear as a link rather than inline with the thread). EXIF is attached. The industrial park outdoor lighting in that location was a nightmare - no white balance setting was working, even auto which is usually not too bad with the D2H. I gave up, set it to direct sunlight and shot raw to have more to work with. Most of the other settings were auto-everything: auto tone comp, sharpening, etc., because I planned to edit from raw.</p>

<p>I don't normally do that when I shoot JPEG only. When shooting JPEG only I normally carefully set the WB, set sharpening to one notch below maximum, a custom tone comp that boosts gamma slightly and compresses shadows and highlights slightly. Works well enough for most purposes when I don't want to bother with tweaking lots of files.</p>

<p>Eh, just noticed the attached JPEG didn't display right side up, dunno why. It does on my viewing software. Anyway, there's decent resolution but pretty awful chroma noise that would be obvious even in newspaper reproduction, so chroma NR is practically a must at 1600 or above.</p>

<p>The current crop of dSLRs - D300, D700 and above, even the D90 - are waaay better than this. That's why I have to laugh when owners of those cameras whine about high ISO noise.</p><div></div>

<p>I think that's amazing Simon.<br>

Steve</p>

 

<p>Cheers for the comments folks! Lex, I hope you mind me trying out your Fireman's shot. I cleaned it up in LR3 using the jpeg file just for comparison with your version. This LR3 software seems to be very competent indeed! I am sure it would come up even better if I had the NEF file and better skills of using the NR tool!<br>

Some more info here:<br>

http://ishootshows.com/2010/03/23/lightroom-3-beta-2-initial-thoughts/<br>

<img src="http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u161/stingOM/00W63A-232395684-2.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Another useful info:<br>

http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2010/03/noise-reduction-in-lightroom-3/</p>

<p>This is what Noise Ninja does with it in untrained hands.<br>

Steve</p>

<div></div>

<p>Well, just to add another variation, here it is with Topaz DeNoise. (This is a very nice picture by the way, Lex.)</p><div></div>

<p>It's very obvious that there is a trade off between sharpness and noise, and I suppose a lot would come down to personal taste.<br />Steve</p>

 

<p>For me, I think LR3 beta3 does the best job in achieving balance between NR and maintaining details.</p>

<p>I'd go for the Topaz, but a lot will come down to user ability I'm sure!<br />Steve</p>

 

In the dog pic it looks like most of the noise has just been covered up by darkening the dark areas thus hiding the noise.

<p>Simon, for you picture it looks to me like LR3 did a pretty good job. I am most curious to see how it performs on NEF files. BTW, the NN example looks like it did a good job at the expense of some detail, while the Topaz example (IMHO) doesn't look all that great.</p>

<p>Nice work. Old cams can still be good.<br>

Here is one from a D1h at ISO 6400.<br>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photogsjm/4150611171/sizes/o/</p>

<p>A Canon IXUS point and shoot at ISO 1600<br>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photogsjm/3070912897/sizes/o/</p>

<p>A D80 at ISO 3200<br>

<p>And another from the D1h at ISO 6400<br>

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photogsjm/2935504074/sizes/o/</p>

<p>Had to post links as they are 1000px wide.</p>

<p>Hi Mark L, Scott Pogorelc<br /> Yeah you're right on the money about the masking of noise due to increased black point I applied. The dog shot I took was a NEF file to start with.<br>

Nice shots with the old dSLRs Stuart!</p>

<p>To me the shots showing more grain (noise) look better than the cleaned up versions. The gritty look is not a bad thing.</p>

<p>Lex, the best I could with the small jpeg size was that, in 2 minutes :<br>

<a href="http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/6568/00w62z232393584.jpg">http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/6568/00w62z232393584.jpg</a><br>

I am pretty sure you can recover much more with the original Raw file.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>sorry, here's the image :<br>

<img src="http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/6568/00w62z232393584.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Interesting to compare results from the same pic - and I don't mind at all, that's why I provided the hi-rez photo. It's a tricky one. If you don't mind working with layers it's possible to get remarkably good results from the D2H at high ISOs. I've done it by applying heavier luminance noise reduction on one layer, chroma NR only on another and blending the two. This preserves fine detail where desired - such as a subject's face - while smoothing out all traces of noise in out of focus backgrounds (such as the wall in my sample photo).</p>

<p>And with some pseudo-HDR tricks, including the clarify filter and contrast masking, you can even restore some of the dynamic range by avoiding blown highlights in the original and carefully applying NR in the shadows when those dark areas are brought up out of the mud. (Incidentally - and I don't mean to start an ETTV vs. whatever war - ETTR is very tricky with the D2H because the histogram shows only one channel. The limited data causes me to err on the side of caution and risk a slight underexposure to avoid blown highlights. Folks with newer dSLRs need not worry about this.)</p>

<p>Is it worth the effort? Probably not now, when the D90, D300 and other models can beat the D2H without jumping through hoops. If I was a working PJ I'd have gotten a D300 or D700 when they first appeared. I'd keep the D2H for daylight action, especially in bad weather - it's a tough cookie and excels in daylight. (Unfortunately the D2H is a pain in the neck with people pix under most artificial light due to excessive IR sensitivity - ghastly skin colors and black fabrics are too magenta.)</p>

<p>But I can't justify the cost of a newer model and don't mind spending more time carefully editing photos to get good results. For my purpose, a newer model wouldn't be cost effective.</p>

<p>If anyone is interested I can supply high ISO NEFs from this same session - each is around 6 MB, not too bad due to the 4 mp D2H limit. A few are at 1600, most are 6400. But other than a few tricky areas at the extremes of highlight and shadow and maximizing detail in the face of the firefighter in the foreground, the NEF won't offer many advantages over the JPEG. Where I really see differences between JPEG and raw with the D2H is in photos with large expanses of blue sky, where out-of-camera JPEGs tend to show posterizing. It's not an ideal camera for a fine art approach to landscapes, wildlife, nature or still lifes, but was never intended to fill those roles.</p>

<p>Michael, I prefer less noise personally. I think it's generally agreed that digital pixel noise is much less attractive than film grain, the same is true in the movie business. It comes down to the fact that film grain is pretty random and oddly shaped while pixels are always the same and so more obvious and more objectionable. Each to their own though of course.<br>

Steve</p>

 

The only limit is banding. The methods for noise reduction continously improve, and if you still have your RAW files from some years ago you will see a notable improvement in quality upon reprocessing them with current software. For that reason I still shoot my D70s, which also can be "pushed" to 3200 (by seeting EV to -1). If banding does not occur, after processing with modern software, you can get some acceptable results (leaving luminance noise alone, reducing only chroma).

<p>I shoot almost entirely in B/W, film and digital. This makes it easy to shoot at 3200, even on a Nikon D40, because I think grain or noise in colour is horrible, but in B/W? Looks good</p>