7d and 5dmk2: high noise at ISO 200

[stephan_matthies]

<p>Hello everybody,<br>

For wedding shots I set on both cameras the following: highlight tone priority (enabled), auto lighting optimizer (standard). The event was outside on a slightly overcast day. The shot included (cropped) was taken under a canopy covered with very transparent gauze material with 1/100, f 5 and ISO 200 on the 7d with the ef 24-105 mm (IS = on) . I find the noise (in all the pictures) unacceptable and the overall appearance not sharp. My questions:</p>

<ol>

<li>Is this due to the settings?</li>

<li>I imported the pics into Lightroom without any development settings. In EOS Digital Professional the noise is less. How can I get the less noisy Raw file from EOS DP into Lightroom without the noise.</li>

</ol>

<p>Thanks for any advice.<br>

Stpehan</p>

[stephan_matthies]

<p>sorry, forgot to put in the image.</p><div></div>

[picturesque]

<p>1. The image is underexposed. Noise is made worse if you underexpose and have to pull the exposure up in post processing. Highlight tone priority introduces a bit more noise than 'normal'. Read the instruction manual. The sharpness or not, of an image should not have anything to do with noise, unless the noise is so bad, it breaks up detail--not the case here. It looks like there are sharp areas in your image but it is hard to tell.</p>

<p>2. Don't underexpose. Particularly for weddings where people are wearing white or white is prominent, you can even overexpose very slightly and recover in post processing. Lightroom has pretty good noise control options. Read about and use them. Don't pixel peep. Noise appears much better in a print.</p>

[stephan_matthies]

<p>Thanks Nadine. I guess it is a mixture of underexposing and the camera setting in this image. I have others with no white and correct exposure and still too much noise for my taste. I shall revise the other images with what you said in mind.</p>

[michael_elenko]

ISO 200 on the 7D is pretty clean but the "enhancements" added mess things up a bit. No biggie, just learn to use the

excellent NR in LR3. Balance the NR with sharpening and sharpening masking; judicious use of fill light will help too.

 

ME

[PuppyDigs]

<p>Nadine nailed it. The white curtain on the right "fooled" your meter (it doesn't understand what's important in the frame), hence the underexposure. Wedding photogs are really good at riding the QCD due to the ever troublesome white dress and black tux.</p>

<p>Also, disable the highlight tone priority and auto lighting optimizer. They "process" the image and basically reduce contrast by lightening shadows and lower mids and thus increase noise.</p>

<p>I find images are a little cleaner at ISO 160, 320 and 640 compared to 200, 400 and 800.</p>

<p>Both the 7D and 5D2 are less tolerant of underexposure than the previous generation of EOS. However, if you shoot RAW, expose to the right and process carefully, images will be amazingly clean.</p>

[stephan_matthies]

<p>Thanks everybody. I already disabled the settings and will keep your suggestions in mind.</p>

[User_1172872]

<p>Check the settings on the Canon software. You can set the software to import the camera noise reduction settings, or you can set a default level of noise reduction regardless what is set on the camera. [i find that if I set the chroma noise reduction too high I can sometimes generate odd artifacts.] Often a very modest degree of luminance noise reduction will have a dramatic effect on noise with little effect on detail, but it depends on the subject matter. I suspect the luma noise reduction is slightly higher on DPP than Lightroom in your case. Regarding the sharpness, are you judging by your monitor or a print? Examining the file at the pixel level on a monitor it may not appear sharp but remember that's functionally equivalent of looking at a billboard from a distance of 3 feet! (And the same is true for noise.)</p>

[dan_south]

<p>The camera's meter saw the white cloth and underexposed the photo by nearly two stops. Effectively, it tried to make the white look gray, and it succeeded.</p>

<p>Your responsibility as the photographer is to determine when the meter is going to give the wrong exposure value and make override its decisions. You can do this by either by shooting in Manual Exposure Mode or by applying some amount of Exposure Compensation in the A, S(Tv), or P modes.</p>

 

[picturesque]

<blockquote>

<p>I have others with no white and correct exposure and still too much noise for my taste.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Again, don't pixel peep. Try printing some of the images. Unless you are processing your images only for monitor viewing, you shouldn't worry about noise that appears at 100% view. Even if you are processing for monitor viewing, wedding clients are not going to look at them at 100% view. Also, use a calibrated monitor. You may think you aren't underexposing, but you might be.</p>

[david_henderson]

<blockquote>

<p>you shouldn't worry about noise that appears at 100% view</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I didn't realise that the highlight zone priority option increases noise and indeed the extent of noise is my only real disappointment about both the 5D mk11 and its predecessor. I'll stop doing it. </p>

<p>Sadly I wish I could follow this advice, but those who supply images to the larger stock libraries will be only too aware that editors and QC functions typically assess images on screen at 100%. The fact that on screen viewing means that they are in reality seeing an image at two or three times the size of anything that they promise a client, and the fact that client's usages rarely even approach the limits possible on the image seem completely ignored. </p>

[picturesque]

<p>David--I would say you need to educate editors and others about noise. Notice above, that I said 'wedding clients'. Or, use some noise suppression software. I can't even recommend any, since I rarely do anything about noise using my 5D. The only time I use such programs is when I really blew the exposure by a lot, or my flash doesn't go off, and I really want to save the image, etc.</p>

[danielleetaylor]

<p>As everyone else has pointed out, you underexposed the image. That said I can't help but laugh at what passes for "noise" these days. Shoot some 35mm film at the same ISO, scan it, and pixel peep it. You'll have a heart attack. Yet you could make normal prints all day from said film and the prints would have no noise.</p>

<p>This image could be repaired and printed and the print would not show a hint of noise. When you pixel peep a 7D or 5D mkII image you are looking at the equivalent of 60" print from arm's distance or less. Imperfections you see under that magnification do not show up in, say, an 8x10 or 11x14. Heck, given proper exposure it's hard for me to spot imperfections in a 24" landscape print.</p>

<p>Check your exposures on the scene, and stop pixel peeping after.</p>

[dan_south]

<p>DLT, good point as to what noise levels have become "unacceptable." In the post-D3 world we have become remarkably spoiled.</p>

[doug_landrum]

<p>Shoot RAW with AdobeRGB colorspace.<br>

See this link:<br>

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/optimizing_exposure.shtml</p>

[linda_jones1]

<p>I find the LR Noise reduction [my fav is sharpen,20-noise reduction, 20-20, works very well. Bring your exposure up a little, do a little fill. Then noise reduction may handle it. You can also use the brush, to soften specific areas that show the noise, and also sharpen just a few things like the eyes.</p>

[john_bellenis]

<p>The rest of the people here have nailed it - under exposure, unnecessary camera settings, meter fooled, viewing at 100%, new concepts of unacceptable, etc.</p>

<p>I would add one thing... people tend to set the new, wonderfully bright LCDs on the back of their cameras to the brightest setting (so that they can see them better in sunlight, etc.) and this often gives a false impression of exposure. It may look great on the boosted LCD, but in reality it's underexposed. If you are going to chimp, I would rely on the histogram and work off that - even if the preview image now looks too bright. Underexposure is the enemy for noise, at any ISO, and correcting for the shadows in post processing is going to lead to disappointment. </p>

[dcstep]

<p>Shoot RAW and "expose right" (to the right of the histogram). Either of those cameras would have had no isssues with that image if it hadn't been underexposed. With digital (forget your film training) you have the most dynamic range when you expose as far to the right of the histogram as you can, without blowing out highlight. You can turn on the "blinkie" warning lights that'll show you an blown highlights in the Preview screen. That particular shot needed at least +1EV. As someone mentioned, the sheers confused the metering sensors and there are dark shadows.</p>

<p>Your in-camera exposure will look somewhat washed out and too bright, but when you do your RAW conversion you pull the levels down, add contrast and put the color where your want it. (Another reason not to give your client the RAW files). I think that you SHOULD pixel-peep, but realize that the end product will not be as critical.</p>

<p>I routinely shoot my 7D at ISO 800 to get the shutter speed and/or aperture that I need. Here's one in full, bright sun, but still shot at 800 so that the SS could be pumped to 1/6400 and I used +1/3EV to "expose right." You'll get less noise at higher ISO with proper exposure.<br>

<a title="Rufous hummingbird (female) sizes up a wildflower by dcstep, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6013/5986110228_6b0a4c6892_b.jpg" alt="Rufous hummingbird (female) sizes up a wildflower" width="1024" height="1024" /></a></p>

[mark_pierlot]

<p>Remarkable hummingbird photograph, David. Not only is it sharp and well exposed, but it's also beautifully composed.</p>

[dcstep]

<p>Thank you Mark.</p>

<p>I hope it inspires a few more digital photogs to "Expose Right" and not fear higher ISOs. I seldom give noise a thought at ISO 800 on my 7D and ISO 1600 on my 5D MkII. I'll push the 5D2 way beyond, but rely on extra NR for my final result in those cases. Every digital photographer needs a noise mitigation strategy, but simply keeping the ISO low is not the answer.</p>

[dan_south]

Be careful with strict adherence the "rule" to "not blow the highlights.". If they are specular highlights you'll have to

blow them in most cases or the rest of the image will be underexposed. And there are backlit shooting conditions

where it's perfectly acceptable to blow highlights in order to properly expose the subject.

 

Also, keep in mind that the histogram and the blinking highlights display are based on JPEG preview files and do not

accurately represent the exposure limits of a RAW file. The preview is in turn influenced by camera settings such as

contrast curves.

 

As a result ETTR can be difficult to achieve with accuracy and should be avoided altogether in some cases.

[dcstep]

<p>Dan is absolutely right, like all "rules" ETTR has many situations where it should be broken. In this case in particular, it's ok to blow out highlights to get the subject properly exposed. If warnings are going off and it's a static subject, then many digital photographers would elect to shoot realistic HDR.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>I find that as well as having a better high ISO noise performance my 5DII is a lot more resilient to noise issues due to underexposure than my 7D. I am not sure this is the case although I expect it relates to the different pixel densities and thus the fact that the 7D is operating with a (presumably) lower signal strength but similar ambient noise levels. If anyone has not read it there was a very interesting article in the UK magazine Amateur Photographer (one of the May issues I think) on why ISO may become obsolete on Digital cameras.</p>

[dcstep]

<p>Phillip, if you could provide the actual title of that article, I'd love to read it at AP's site.</p>

<p>Also, I agree with Phillip about the difference in the quality of noise comparing the 7D and 5D MkII. My 7D can produce some really nasty mosaic like noise in underexposed shots with a lot of potential details. The 5D2 is at least a stop or two more tolerant and not as nasty when it goes into noise.</p>

[Brad_]

>>> Also, I agree with Phillip about the difference in the quality of noise comparing the 7D and 5D MkII.

 

In addition, I've found that 5DII files are more robust, holding up much better in

post in challenging situations. And in normal situations, needing much less work in post right from the start.