Noise with 5D Mark II

[jim_morka]

<p>I have 5D Mark II, which I got with certain expectations, among which was also hoping to shoot on high ISO rates without significant noise. I do not have extreme needs of high ISO, but somehow I was expecting to shoot e.g. at ISO 1600 and do not have noise visibly impacting pictures. <br>

However, I've noticed that shooting till ISO 400 is just perfect, while already with ISO 600 noise appears, which is kind of limiting factor for me and I try not to have higher ISO than 400. I shoot wildlife and in early mornings I would appreciate higher ISO rate, but hesitating to push so in order to avoid noise. <br>

I really do not like digital noise, probably also that I do not how to manage it. I treat pictures with Aperture where I did not find noise reduction tools. Further I treat with Photoshop, however somehow strangely noise reduction tool is not noticeable (at least to the level I would like to).<br>

I know that 5D II is a nearly perfect body, no complains at all - the "problem" is obviously with photographer (me). Maybe I have my settings wrong set on camera. In custom functions under "high ISO speed noise reduction" I have set on "Standard". <br>

Can you advise me:<br>

1. what CFn setting I should have under "high ISO speed noise reduction" to work best - to have minimum noise and at the same tome do not compromise with the image quality. I am really "peferctionist" on maintaining the best quality (by the way, of course, I shoot RAW only). <br>

2. Your experience: what is you highest ISO rate, which you shoot and at the same time do not bother about noise (in other words - how high you secturly use your ISO without having significant noise?)<br>

3. What software/settings you use (and which are most effective) for noise reduction?<br>

Appreciate to get your thoughts. </p>

 

[sattler123]

<p>If you shoot RAW then any noise reduction settings in the camera do not apply - so don't worry about it. The 5DII is one of the best high ISO cameras available today - therefore I must question your exposure. You shoot expose to the right of your histogram for best results and adjust in post processing. There really is no other magic to managing noise, other than post processing programs like NoiseNinja etc.</p>

<p>You might also have to adjust your expectation somewhat - clearly ISO800 will look different than ISO100!</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>Your expectations of DSLR photography may be unreasonable. There is no such thing as a "noise-free" image - the issue is one of how much noise there is, how visible it is in your final output (not under 100% magnification on the screen), and what level of noise is really an issue.</p>

<p>First, to limit the amount of noise in your images some of the following can help:</p>

<ul>

<li>generally shoot at the lowest ISO that is reasonable for the shot</li>

<li>be careful to avoid under-exposure since the signal to noise ratio decreases as the image brightness decreases</li>

<li>Shoot RAW since this will give you the greatest ability to maximize image quality in post.</li>

<li>When necessary apply some noise reduction in post. (In-camera settings a a blunt tool, and they don't work when you shoot RAW.) </li>

<li>Consider the actual visibility of the noise in the final image - not the worst case noise that you can see when you view at 100%. (See <a href="http://www.gdanmitchell.com/2009/12/15/experiment-2-revealed">this post at my blog</a> and the post it links to for an example.)</li>

</ul>

<p>I shoot the 5D2 and my output includes large prints. (My printer will go up to 24" x 36".) So I have some experience with the real world effect of noise on actual photographic output. My general feelings about ISO settings that I've used on the 5D2 include:</p>

<ul>

<li>ISO 100 and ISO 200 are essentially indistinguishable in terms of noise. In a properly exposed image the noise levels are very low and I have never had a problem with the noise in a print.</li>

<li>ISO 400 will exhibit a very slight increase in noise that will be visible at 100% magnification on the screen if you look in areas of uniform color/brightness. In practice this noise is essentially insignificant in a print.</li>

<li>I don't generally use ISO 800 for landscape work, but I regularly use it for wildlife (and the occasional sports) shot. The noise won't be visible in, say, a 12 x 18 print and the image quality is quite high. It might be a bit visible in very large prints if you look closely - but most observers would never see it, and the level is far, far lower than the film grain "noise" you would have gotten from prints in the old days.</li>

<li>I have shot at 1600 in certain conditions - some active sports shot in low light, certain photographs of wildlife, etc. Again, a 12 x 18 print is going to look great. When the noise becomes visible under close inspection or in a larger reproduction, it is my view that it is "good noise" that has a nice quality not too different from some sort of film grain. If you want to do anything to it you might apply some NR in RAW conversion, most likely to chroma noise.</li>

<li>I can't report on higher ISOs from my own experience since I rarely need to use them in my photography - but I would not hesitate to use them if it was necessary to get a shot that I'd otherwise have to miss. </li>

</ul>

<p>On those rare occasions when I do apply NR in post (maybe 1 in 20 images or less) I most often use the NR features in ACR which allow me to combine it with a small amount of edge sharpening. In (very rare!) cases of extreme noise (say a badly underexposed shot that I'm trying to recover) I use Noise Ninja in CS4.</p>

<p>Dan</p>

[tdigi]

<p>This may be of some interest</p>

<p>http://forums.canonphotogroup.com/showthread.php?t=2541</p>

[PuppyDigs]

<p>NR in Aperture 3 is a lot better than Aperture 2. I find it okay up to ISO 1600 with my 5DII. However, for high ISO, even default NR settings DPP 3.8x are a notch better. You can only beat it by tweaking a dedicated NR plugin.</p>

[dan_south]

<p>I think the Standard setting works fairly well at ISO 1600 (assuming a properly exposed image). ISO 3200 requires the High setting, but even at that setting there's quite a bit of noise to filter out in post-processing. I prefer to use my D700 when I need high ISO performance. It spoils me.</p>

[jim_morka]

<p>HI, thank you so much. I got three important and valuable learnings:<br>

1. then you shoot on raw, noise reduction settings on camera just do not work. <br>

2. I did not see Noise Ninja software before, now I downloaded and tested the trial on Aperture - it looks indeed impressive! thanks for that. I still do not have Aperture 3, just the older version, thus I do not know if Aperture will offer any new tool for noise reduction.<br>

3. The test show that I should not bother with ISO till 1600, which is impressive. However in practice, there is difference slowly starting at 400. But now it looks OK then you know that you can effectively manage i (with Noise Nija) </p>

[denton_hoyer]

<p>If you've never tried high res jpeg setting on the 5DMII you may be surprised how well it does at cleaning up the noise. Of course, shoot raw, but also shoot jpeg, even at ISO 6400. <br>

AND, make sure your exposure is spot on!<br>

Denton</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>I find the 5DII is gerat up to ISO 400 and very impressive beyond this. I will shoot up to ISO 3200 for indoor sports (when you have no choice) but try to be 400 or less for most other uses. ISO 800 and ISO 1600 are still very good so long as the shot is correctly exposed. I also think that ISo settings off the stanard set are noiseier than the standard settings so I stick with 100, 200, 400, 600, 1600 etc. A I say the high ISO settings are very sensitive to exposure so try bracketing if in doubt.</p>

[g dan mitchell]

<p>To reiterate, one more important thing:</p>

<p>Just because you can see some noise at 100% on the screen it does not necessarily follow that this is anything to worry about. Check it in your typical output format (jpg or print) and see what it looks like. You almost certainly won't see the noise.</p>

[stuart_anthony]

<p>Dan.<br>

correct me if im wrong but In camera noise reduction on 5dII takes a second black image and uses this to subtract any noise from the first image. this makes it not a blunt tool and can not be reproduced in post?</p>

<p>Stuart</p>