My D300 Images Noisier Than Everyone Else's!

[leigh_edwards]

I must be doing something wrong. Several people have posted examples of gorgeous, noise-free shots taken in low

light with the D300 at ISOs of 800 and greater. I just got a D300, and I can't see any improvement over my old

D70, at least not at ISO 800. There's plenty of noise. The attached photo was shot at ISO 800, with in-camera

noise reduction set to "normal" (the default setting), and the noise reduction sliders set to "25" in Adobe

Camera Raw. It's hard to tell with this tiny image (I can't figure out how to post anything larger), but perhaps

you can still see all the noise on the ceiling and in the subject's cheeks. At 100%, the noise is very obvious.

Are people getting the noise-free results by cranking in-camera NR up to "high," or is there something else I

need to be doing?<div></div>

[leigh_edwards]

If it matters, "Active D Lighting" is turned on.<div></div>

[dcphotography]

Active D-Lighting definitely matters. Turn it off :).

[photo5]

Active D-Lighting does add a bit of noise in the shadow areas, but it's no different from post-processing and boosting the shadows then, which also will add some noise.

 

What ISO did you shoot this at? If it's 400 or above, there will be some noise. Why is this a problem for you? It's a nice photo.

[ShunCheung]

The EXIF data indicate ISO 800, and Leigh has some noise in the shadow area.

The D300 should be able to do a bit better but this doesn't seem to be totally out of line.

[rene gm]

Noise is not the only quality measure, nor is it sharpness. Looking at your natural skin colors and the well exposed image, I am tempted to cash out the fortune for the D300.

 

Of course, D-lighting will lighten the dark areas and thus amplify the noise too. You can remove this with any noise filter, applied on the dark areas only, if you need to. Or with Camera RAW developed twice with different noise settings, and blending the two images. Or you just don't care.

[jose_angel]

It seems a bit noisy to me too... probably it is due to a slight overexposure, thought. Check my attached image: same settings as you, except for the NR (which I think it must have a little effect at 800 ASA), straight RAW file converted to .jpg. D-Lightning set to "normal".

 

My scene were really dark except for the Coke dispenser room; I exposed for that dispenser. Check that the dispenser is bright black, it shows a little noise, but the also very dark corners of the frame show a little higher noise... this areas are overexposed thought. I`m not an expert here, perhaps others could corroborate (or not) my words. (Please no comment allowed about the image, I know it`s one of my worst ones!) ;P<div></div>

[jose_angel]

I`ve found D-Lightning is very convenient on most shots, but annoying on others, more thoughtful shots, where light can be under control.

[elliot1]

I doubt that your D70 would have done nearly as good as your D300 with this shot. Did you shoot RAW or JPG?

Have you tried opening and processing the file with NX rather than an Adobe product?

 

My guess is that the 'problem', if there truly is one, lies with your post processing (either the program or your

settings).

[timberwulf]

Or it was underexposed to start with and was boosted automatically by the raw editor.

 

If you're using Photoshop, what settings were set automatically in Camera RAW - specifically the Exposure slider?

[lex_jenkins]

Leigh, that sample photo looks much better than my D2H at 800 out of the camera. While the luminance noise ("grain") is comparable the D300 has far less chroma noise (splotchy discoloration). It's also far better than anything you could do with 800 color film.

 

Not saying there's no room for improvement, but if you want truly noise-free high ISO photos you'll just need to keep refining your technique and possibly use a dedicated noise reduction software like Noise Ninja (there are others, I'm just familiar with that one).

[leigh_edwards]

Thanks for the responses. I'm not terribly unhappy the the noise levels; it's just that others are raving about the amazing lack of noise, and I don't seem to be getting those kind of results. If you search these forums for "D300" & "noise," you'll find lots of examples of shots taken at ISO 1600 and above with virtually no noise at all. My shot shown here is only ISO 800 and is quite grainy. Does anyone set their in-camera noise reduction to "High"? I don't mind the noise and can deal with it with Photoshop or its plug-ins, but I just don't like the nagging feeling that my shots are not supposed to be this grainy with the D300.

 

Regarding the question about the exposure, it was shot in raw (NEF) and I boosted the exposure by 0.85. Luminance smoothing and color noise reduction are both set to 25.

[joseph_smith3]

Leigh, if you got a free copy of Nikon Capture with your D 300, try loading it and processing your NEF image with it and see if the noise is reduced. Joe Smith

[richard_driscoll]

I think there may be something amiss since the noise in the brown tones at the back looks similar to the brown tones in an untweaked camera JPEG from my D40 at ISO 900 (I used auto ISO) and I'd expect a D300 to be better.

 

I was actually trying to match the noise/sharpness myself on a RAW image and failing, although this is only with GIMP so don't read to much into it.

 

I was going to say try an in camera JPEG of something similar and compare but Joseph's idea of trying Nikon Capture may be equivalent since it may use the same algorithm as the in camera procedure.

 

It's a really good picture anyway.

[richard_driscoll]

If you can bear to look at a photograph of a pile of untidy clothes, here is a 1/4 of the D40 frame:<div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

Ditto Joseph's suggestion to try Nikon's own software for NEFs. When I got my D2H I tried every software package available that handled NEFs. Nikon's own software consistently produced the best results. Not the best software, necessarily, and some folks continue to report it's a bit sluggish even on fast computers. But for maximum image quality it's probably the way to go.

 

Also, Leigh, you mentioned boosting the exposure slightly. If that's the case, the original photo may have been slightly underexposed. This will always contribute to noise, even at lower ISOs.

 

Occasionally I've been forced to use my D2H at the Hi-1 and Hi-2 settings (ISO equivalent 3200 and 6400, respectively). It can actually produce usable photos, especially if I convert to grayscale, with noise resembling grain from Ilford Delta 3200 at 3200-6400 (popcorn fluffy). But it is completely unforgiving of underexposure. Even the slightest underexposure produces banding. I can deal with the noise but banding produces a useless photo. So I have to discipline myself to remember that with digital, ISO 800 means 800, not 1000; ditto 400, 1600, 6400. No fudge factor.

[wpahnelas]

no, your photo is not noisier than everyone else's. it really depends on the circumstances of the shot. this bird was in the wrong place at the wrong time -- the sun should've been at my back, not his. but he was BIG so i stopped the car to do a photograph. when viewed later at 100 percent, it was quite noisy. ISO at 640, by the way, and i've turned off active d-lighting in captureNX. you can shoot at higher ISO and get acceptable results with a D300, but you can still get noise.<div></div>

[garydem]

the image to me is lighted ok, now. but if you boosted the exposure by .85 stop then it was underexposed by almost a full stop when shot. underexposing is guerenteed to produce noise. when you shoot you are always trying to maxamize the S/N ratio. the way to do that is cram as much signal(image data) into the shot as you can, without blowing the highlights.

 

the way to get the signal amount high is to expose to the right. that is on the histogram, i think the d300 has 4way histogram, put the histo line as close as you can to the right wall without actually touching the wall. the histo line should touch the floor of the histogram just before it reaches the right wall. this maximizes the signal and decreases the noise to lowest amount possible.

if the resulting image is too bright then simply hit auto levels in photoshop or pe5-6 to get the light at the normal amount. the light amount is then reduced to a normal level and the image noise is reduced along with it. but if you underexpose, as you did, when the image brightness is increased to normal, the noise amount is increased as well. you are far better off shooting to the right and increasing the signal and decreasing the noise.

[jongaus]

I believe there is another issue in comparison of the D70 and the D300 capabilities: You can take advantage of the D300's higher resolution. Compressing the photo will reduce noise. If you shoot "Large" on D300, which is 4288x2848 pixels, and reduces the photo to ca 3000x2000, which is max resolution on the D70, then you can compare. I believe you will find D300 far superior. And what is already said about avoiding underexposure is very significant. I attach an example of a full resolution crop from an ISO 720 JPEG shot from my D300 (no post prosessing). As you can see, this is not noise-less. But when reduced to PC screen resolution (72 ppi), it will look quite good.<div></div>

[jose_angel]

<i>... but if you underexpose, as you did, when the image brightness is increased to normal, the noise amount is

increased as well.</i><p>

 

It could be similar to overdevelopment of an underexposed film. It produce similar results on grain. How could be

called this process on digital? Boosting? Oversaturation?

[photo_dark]

Well if that's the case, then I'm sure happy I have a 40D rather than a 300D. Even at ISO 1600, I've never had an image even remotely that noisy.

[richard_driscoll]

Jon,

 

I wondered the same as you about the number of pixels making the D300 example look bad when compared with my D40 one so I downsampled Leigh's original to 2904x2205 and compared again.

 

I think my D40 image actually looks less noisy both before and after the downsample. The ratio is sqrt(2) which should be the correct factor since the D300 has double the pixels. I used GIMP for the downsample. I don't know if Photoshop or something else might be different.

[leigh_edwards]

Darn - I was going to install CaptureNX and see if it handled noise better than Adobe Camera Raw, but apparently my D300 only came with ViewNX, which does not appear to be an editing program.

[richard_driscoll]

Try in camera JPEG. I think that is what Jon's portrait uses and it looks much less noisy.

 

I'm interested in this since I'd quite like the D300 in D80 clothing when it eventually arrives!

[scott_warn]

I think that there are several issues going on with this image. The first is the use of ACR. Frankly, I believe that Adobe still has some catching up to do in regards to the files from the D300. I would suggest that you try using Capture NX on your image and see the difference for yourself.

 

BTW, ACR will ignore the following settings during the conversion. First, the AD-L will be ignored, I believe that is a tag that triggers NX to process the image using the setting in the camera. So, the good news is that your noise was not due to the use of AD-L. The second issue is that any Noise Reduction you have set in the camera is also done by NX during the conversion. That means that ACR imported your image without any noise reduction. The third issue is the underexposure that you had to correct for. Anytime you underexpose an image using a digital camera, increased noise is a sure result. I also have to ask if you did any sharpening to your image. If you did, this will drastically increase the noise of the image if it's done prior to applying some noise reduction.

 

My advice is that you either consider using NX if you want to keep on shooting RAW, or consider taking pictures like this using JPG.

 

I will let you in on a little secret here, the JPG "engine" in the D300 is simply superb. It is so good that about the only time that I now shoot RAW is if the lighting is really funky. I'll grant that shooting JPG doesn't provide the "cushion" that shooting RAW permits but, if your careful about getting everything correct, you can shoot JPG and produce images that are capable of producing results that are essentially identical to what can be done shooting RAW. So, you may find it worthwhile spending some time experimenting with shooting JPG and learn how the camera responds well enough that you can shoot JPG and not spend all that time converting and post processing images shot in RAW. As for my tips for shooting JPG, basically I set the camera so that it "tinkers" with the image the least amount possible. Specifically, I leave the High ISO Noise Reduction set to OFF, as well as the AD-L. These are items that can be corrected in NX with a much higher degree of control than the in camera settings. I also have my Sharpening in the camera set to level 2. Which is fairly low but the images respond so well to Unsharp Mask that I just don't see any reason to risk the increase in noise that a higher setting would cause. I am also very careful about exposure and white balance because shooting JPG will not permit the flexibility for correction that shooting RAW permits. My point here is that if your very careful, you can shoot JPG without any deficit.