Unacceptible Noise 20D

[silvercapture]

Alright just to premise, I have owned 3 digital rebels, 4 10D's and

now 2 20D's. I am a professional wedding photographer and usually

produce great results. I am appalled by the noise levels of my

20D's. When I got the first one. I noticed vertical lines(not the

ones from the on camera flash as corrected by the firmware), but

just in everyday shooting. Not too bad, but not good. Mostly

correctible with noise ninja, but I was dissatisfied. On my newer

20D, The results are just rediculous. I am almost embarrassed at the

nose levels as I have to pump a lot of contrast in to images of

tuxes to try an hide lines that look as if I printed the image on a

bad ink jet and then scanned it. In addition to the terrible very

visible lines, I have a tremendous amount of standard noise. Take a

look at the image I have attached. I added some exposre to show the

noise a little better. I hope it is big enough. This is not some

tiny crop. This is 25% of the image, just scaled down for photo.net.

Here is the kicker This is 200iso 200ISO!

 

Pitiful, rediculous, unacceptible.

[silvercapture]

The first image was a little small. Look at this one. I hope it is not too large and annoying. Sorry if it is. Just looking for similar experience

[shambrick007]

did you <a href = "http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml">expose to the right</a>?

[PuppyDigs]

If he went much further to the right the flower would blow out. Maybe he's have to rethink

Portra 160NC.

[andrew_bradnan]

Are you shooting RAW?

 

I've rarely seen much noise myself. Nothing banded like you have going on in the picts.

[beauh44]

Hi Aron, That does look pretty bad - I'm not sure what's happening because I'm not getting noise like that from my 20D. Here's two shots of two different dark coats taken at a wedding using flash - one at ISO 400 and the other at ISO 800.

 

One thing that probably does help is that I shot these in RAW and used PS CS's built-in Camera RAW converter which has the color noise and "Luminance Smoothing" adjustments that really do help with noise.

 

Still, the only time I've gotten noise as bad as what you posted was using ISO 1600. Good luck!<div></div>

[beauh44]

20D ISO 800<div></div>

[beauh44]

Sorry - both were 100 percent crops.

[chrisjb]

Just wondering what your parameters are set for?

[silvercapture]

Responses to all. I did shoot in raw so I did add some exposure to show the detail of the noise. The specs were ISO 200 1/125 @ f/5.6. I am getting this a lot, and the noise doesn't so much bother me as much as the banding. I think that this originally might have been a hair under exposed which probably could have added a little to the noise, but I have seen better images myself at 800. As a matter of fact, I thought as I was processing the raw files that I was looking at iso 800 images until I looked at the exif data. My jaw dropped becuase I hadn't seen it this bad before. Maybe the same firmware upgrade that took care of the banding with the on camera flash will help this. I did the upgrade with the other camera. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Some of my bridal shots were great, but white dress vs dark tux usually offers a lot less visible noise and noise ninja really has been a life saver for me.

[robert_p.]

If that's ISO 200, there's definitely something wrong. That's like something I'd get from pushing ISO 3200 and moving the white balance slider toward daylight until the banding lines appear. Something must be wrong with your sensor, that's about all I can think of.

 

Send your cameras back to Canon for service.

[lukedavis]

Wow, ISO 200? That's insane. Something has got to be up with your sensor or your firmware. I'd send that baby in to a Canon repair centre for a check-up ASAP, if I were you. It can even be difficult to get noise like that at ISO 1600 with the 20D, but unless you SERIOUSLY underexposed the image, then I don't know what happened.

 

Also, FWIW, if you are adding exposure in ACR when converting raw files (in attempt to fix underexposed images) and you add too much exposure, that can really bring the noise out.

[henry_minsky1]

That does look like results I see at ISO 3200. What RAW conversion software are you using? If you're using the version of DPP that came with the camera, you need to update it, that version had some serious bugs in it.

[kristen riley]

Where do you go for the DPP update? Is it on Canon USA website? Thanks, Kristen

[mike_smith2]

There is a thread on the Rob Galbraith site discussing banding on 20D in the 300D/10D/20D forum.

 

Someone tried a series of tests defocussing the lens against a grey card or similar. Results were not even, a 50mm and 35mm lens were OK, but a kit IS lens gave visible banding with identical shutter ISO aperture settings etc.

 

Rough conclusion is that it may be electrical interferance from the IS electronics affecting the sensor.

 

What lens are you mainly using when banding appears?

[silvercapture]

Interesting point about the lens. I do use an IS lens a lot, but the IS is rarely turned on. I have not compared it to my 50mm but I may do some tests. I do get very mixed noise results and I use a variety of lenses.

[henry_minsky1]

I got the updated DPP from the Canon web site someplace, I forget where though. In the same area that the firmware updates came from I think, under Applications.

[ilia]

Banding noise in 20D is well documented. If you need to pull details from the shadows, you going to get that banding quite often, regardless of the use of IS or not. It is not too bad at ISO100-400 (well, it's bad enough to ruin that tuxedo shot for you), but becomes real problem at 800 and up. I had my 20D serviced by Canon service center in NJ, but it didn't help at all. In my phone conversation with the techs there, they openly admit that it is a problem and it is related to the way CMOS sensor is being read on 20D, and there is nothing they can do, other than suggest "proper exposure". The problem with ?proper exposure?, as you probably know, is that you have to chose one of two evils ? either blow out the highlights (bride?s gown) or provide your groom with ?pinstriped? tux. To make story short, I ended up selling my 20D and buying used 1Ds(mk1) instead - I would much rather have higher levels of "uniform" noise than that horrible banding.<div></div>

[david_kieltyka1]

I've seen banding in less than half-a-dozen 20D photos out of nearly 10,000 taken over the past eight months. This includes many taken with IS lenses...probably 30% of the total. It doesn't include deliberately underexposed shots where I tried (successfully) to induce banding. I shot the problem photos at ISOs 1600 & 3200. So problems as severe as Aron's are not endemic to the camera. It seems different samples show different amounts of patterned noise. I suspect most 20Ds behave like mine.

 

-Dave-

[justin_dodd]

I've had the Digital Rebel, a 1D mark I and the 20D and all in all I don't think the noise is that much different between them (not counting iso 3200 where the 1D is horrible).

 

When the 20D exposure is spot on or there are no dark areas it blows both of the other cameras away. However, I think it's a noiser camera in general at low iso. Canon does a good job of covering this up with in camera processing, but sometimes it doesn't work too well and I can get high noise in low iso shoots. At 800 or above I can get banding fairly easily but it's inconsistent and often times has nothing to do with the exposure. There are plently of people who seem to feel the same way. Take a look here:

 

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/221538

 

However, unless your tux shot is pushed a lot, it does seem to be a bit much so there could be a problem. That being said, I don't think the 20D pictures respond well to any pushing over about 1/2 stop because it can bring out banding even at low iso.

[clauder]

My 2 10D's give me exactly the same pattern at ISO 800 and up, and never did that before... it just came one day, and one does show it more than the other! maybe the sensor circuitry needs calibration or something... I'd go to canon, as this kind of banding cannot be normal for an ISO 200 shot (btw, it is almost impossible to get rid of it with noise ninja or similar, it will lose all the detail then...)

[david_pichevin]

I can tell you that my 20D also shows high level of noise at ISO 100/200. Visibly more than my D60 did, and more ugly. Exposing to the right, most of the time actually overexposing a shot to make sure that noise in dark areas will be minimal is a ridiculous way to get around a defect and sure to get you a lot of unusable, blown-out shots. The camera shows absolutely *no* possibility of exposure correction of the shadows which makes for a really limited dynamic range. As far as I know the picture quality has been lowered a serious notch because of that and is not up to par with a D60. I sure hope Canon is going to get out of that path soon.

 

Let consumer digicams try to cram more pixels on tiny sensors.

 

As for banding, I have seen it at ISO 200 in the shadows *without* pushing the shot one bit.

 

My Camera has been sent back to Canon and I have asked them to look at the noise issue, as I am sending it back in for back-focusing problems.