I was a bit surprised when I saw this photo shot with a D800

<p>I came across <a href=" photo of the die Karslkirche in Wienna, shot with a D800. It looked so nice and well lit. Then I went for the bigger copies and to say that I was surprised by the noise level is an understatement. Is the noise level really still this bad in some of the higher end cameras?</p>

<p>no image.... </p>

<p>Now it is in there, thanks David.</p>

<p>First of all, this is a link to the image: <a href=" />It is also available in other sizes.<br />I just took a look at the largest version, and EXIF shows that ISO was 1600, 1/13 sec and f3.5, and the noise level is expected.</p>

<p>Last month, I was the "official" photographer at my wife's high school reunion. I bought three flashes with me for their group pictures: SB-700 on my D800E as the master and two SB-800 as slaves. It was all fine after a bunch of group pictures, and as I was packing up, all of a sudden they wanted another group picture with everybody in it. Since we were kind of in a rush, I only use one SB-800 as the others were packed already. I ended up using ISO 1600 on the D800E for a group shot with about 50 people. I was just checking that image this morning, and it was a bit noisy. It still makes a fine 8x10 print, but looking back, I wished I had asked them to wait that extra minute or two so that I could get up three flashes again.</p>

<p>If I were to capture that image in Vienna, I would certainly set up on a tripod and use the base ISO 100 for a time exposure. The problem is that there were some people at that location. You may see some motion even on a one-second exposure.</p>

<p>This oversharpened little image is too small to show noise properly. I'm guessing the visible speckling is caused by an aliasing effect between noise in the original picture and screen pixelation at a reduced scale. There's also some colour banding or "blotching" visible as well, and that's definitely not typical of a D800 image.</p>

<p>We also don't have any exposure details. Maybe LE noise reduction was turned off.</p>

<p>If you right click on the image, you can chooce the other sizes, Joe.</p>

<p>Bah<br>

Nicely composed and poorly shot. Must have been under exposed then brought up in post to have that much noise. Looking at the EXIF data they had -1 EV dialed in. Looks to me like they exposed to the left and not the right.</p>

<p>It looks like this could have been shot with the noise reduction completely off, which would make the noise bad, but this is still not terrible considering the pixel density of the D800. At the same aperture, this could have been shot at 0.625 sec at ISO 200 on a tripod with much less noise.</p>

<p>If you are shooting in aperture priority, you would usually have to make some reduction in exposure to avoid blowing the highlights from the indoor lights showing through the windows. I know I have to do that on my D300. But I would have thought that the D800 would do much better than my D300 in the dark areas in a motif like this.</p>

<p>I was going to suggest underexposure and correction in post, as Michael B. has. This has happened to me many times. I don't let that stop me. I think mistakes are really enjoyable the 50th time around.... </p>

<p>PS Properly exposed even my D700 produces less noise than that at ISO 1600. Not a lot less, but less. </p>

<p>Hehehe....<br /> <br /> But seriously, you have to expose for the hightlights, if you only make one exposure of a motif like that. I would think that this is what he has done here.</p>

<p>Like any camera, post processing makes the difference between a noisy or noise free shot at higher ISOs. After post processing, my ISO 6400 shots with the D800 printed at 8 x 10 size easily look like ISO 200 - ISO 400 and have incredible detail.</p>

<p>Do you also get this much noise when shooting with your D800 at ISO 1600, Elliot? Or could there be something wrong with his camera?</p>

<p>I don't think there is anything wrong with his camera. I just think his image is minimally processed without much if any NR applied. Any simple NR program would easily handle the linked image and produce a noise free image without loss of detail for a smaller print.</p>

<p>I have NR turned off on my camera as I prefer to handle noise during PP myself. Good post processing software along with down sampling combine to produce stunning 8 x 10 prints from the D800.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I have NR turned off on my camera as I prefer to handle noise during PP myself. Good post processing software along with down sampling combine to produce stunning 8 x 10 prints from the D800.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Hopefully I will live to see the day when a camera can do that on it's own and I would not have to worry about that anymore.<br /> <br /> Edit: With no down sampling needed to hide the noise.</p>

<p>This is a 100% crop from an ISO 6400 + .3EV. </p><div></div>

<p>DXO processed...</p>

<p>(I have an uncropped print of this shot hanging on a wall. The detail in the eyelashes and skin tone color is truly amazing.</p><div></div>

<p>There were no highlights to avoid there, Elliot. Otherwise that is a very good result when using ISO 7163.</p>

<p>Hmm! I clicked on the "all sizes" link earlier and got nothing. Now, having looked at the link Shun gave I notice the largest size is still only 3024 x 2178 pixels, and the Exif data reveals it was taken with a 16mm DX lens. IMO there's absolutely no point in using this image as a guide to the noise you could expect from a D800 when used with <em>full-frame</em> lenses. Besides, the IQ in terms of lens sharpness is pretty poor, which further enhances the impression of noise.</p>

<p>All I can say is that I've been able to get perfectly acceptable handheld shots well after twilight from the D800, with noise that isn't anywhere near as bad as that Karlskirche shot.</p>

<p>Elliot, I think we should bear in mind that noise is also a function of light level and exposure time as well as the camera ISO setting. Your example was obviously shot under far higher lighting conditions than the church at night, but even so the noise difference is quite startling.</p>

<p>But even if the lens was a bad one, it shouldn't be causing sensor noise, should it? Which lens did he use?</p>

<p>Unprocessed D800 images at ISO 1600, or even ISO 800 are not noise free out of the camera.</p>

<p>But the prints are perfect (at 8x10 size).</p>

<p>Below is a 100% crop at ISO 1600. Again, after processing, the print looks amazing at 8 x 10).</p>

<p>(The unprocessed sample images I have posted have absolutely no NR or other image processing - they look substantially better when opened with Nikon software like View NX2 - my images are 'real' RAW unprocessed images so you are seeing them at their 'worst'.)</p><div></div>

<p>I have taken many photos in poor lighting and the end result is not different than the samples I have posted - noisy to some degree out of the camera, but after processing and printing look great.</p>

<p>I have never been using any noise reduction software on my photos from the D300. Now I am thinking that I might as well do that instead of buying a higher end camera and still have to apply noise reduction software on the photos.</p>

<p>"Now I am thinking that I might as well do that instead of buying a higher end camera and still have to do apply noise reduction software on those photos." Good idea, why spend money on a new camera that takes noisy images. </p>