Lot of noise D7100

[tom_smith36]

<p>I am getting alot of noise from my D7100. I am using a 18 - 300 lens with auto ISO off shooting at 100 ISO in RAW. Any little tweeks I do via photo program I get alot of noise. What am I doing wrong?</p>

[phule]

<p>Providing an example would be helpful (with EXIF data intact). </p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>Providing an example would be helpful (with EXIF data intact).</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Precisely. If you are using Auto ISO with a slow lens such as the 18-300mm superzoom, the chance is that you are not using ISO 100.</p>

<p>Please specify your shutter speed, aperture, focal length and actual ISO used. If you underexpose, you can get a lot of noise at any ISO.</p>

[tom_smith36]

<p>Sorry I ment to put without auto ISO and my pictures are actually at iso 640 with a f22 and 1/80 shutter speed. How can I insert a picture on here? </p><div></div>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Please check the 2nd post on this thread on how to attach an image: http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00W7km</p>

<p>Why did you use f22?</p>

[tom_smith36]

<p>I am still an amateur learning the ways. I had read that f22 is a good place to start when doing landscape to get the entire picture in focus. </p>

[tom_smith36]

<p>Here is an other example </p><div></div>

[tom_smith36]

<p>It doesn't look as grainy now that I shrunk it down to 700 but when is larger the sun beam you can see the grain. </p>

[rick_m.]

<p>I think I may be missing something. The pic attached in opanda, for me, comes up as ISO 640, 1/1000 f/5.6. Maybe I am doing something wrong. But if these are the correct numbers me ask you if the shot was underexposed and did you lighten it after the fact?</p>

<p>My D7100 has no significant noise at ISO 640.</p>

<p> </p>

[tom_smith36]

<p>I did have to lighten the first picture up a little. I assume that will create the noise but on the second one I didn't have to lighten it up. Will I expect these result if I have to change the exposure? </p>

[pge]

<p>Tom, yes one way to reduce noise is to reduce the size of the photo as you can see from your example 2.<br /> I think we would all like to know your workflow so we can see where you could improve on the noise, but here is a small list of things that may be useful.<br /> Try to shoot at lower iso's when possible. Although I respect your need for great dof, and therefore f22, it seems a bit excessive. Try f11 and see if you are getting the dof you want. Experiment.<br /> If you find yourself "lightening up" your photos in general, or shadows specifically, try "lightening up" your overall exposure in camera. You get lower noise levels when you properly expose right off.<br /> Try shooting on a tripod so you can increase the time on your shutter and therefore reduce your iso.<br /> All photos have noise so you have to learn how to deal with it. Shoot Raw and then deal with your noise in Lightroom or a program that is "noise" specific. Achieve the look you want. DXO has an interesting noise routine that takes a long time but produces nice results.<br /> Lastly, don't worry about it too much. Pixel peeping can be your enemy. <br /> Great compositions btw.</p>

[tom_smith36]

<p>Thank you! and this is very helpful. I don't really have a designated workflow I have only been at this for the last year or so. I basically go shoot, come home, find the pictures I want and throw them into photoshop. Just hit them with small adjustments (clarity, contrast, etc which I assume you mean by pixel peeping.) I do shoot raw but I will work on getting my exposure calculations better so I don't have to make as much adjustments to the photo. I will take the advice on F11 and try again. </p>

[john_king15]

<p>all photos are shot in raw its just a question of when you convert to Jpeg ..so stop messing about and let the camera do it ..use large basic and get a life ...60,000 commercial photos sold as large jpeg with no problem ...noise /....what is that ....???</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>I have a D7100, shoot in raw all the time at iso 3200 and process in ps acr and I don't see "grain" as prominent as in your example. Maybe some of your adjustments are increasing the noise, such as clarity, contrast, etc. and maybe too much lightening. I don't know.</p>

[pge]

<p>John, you've sold 60,000 photos, impressive, and all without noise or problems.<br /> Nevertheless I think Tom is well within reason for asking on a photo forum how to better develop his photos.</p>

<p>Tom when you open your Raw photos in Photoshop do you apply any noise reduction at that stage? The third tab in the Raw Converter is called "detail" and contains noise reduction along with sharpening. If you haven't already, experiment with these setting until the result is more to your taste.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<blockquote>

<p>I had read that f22 is a good place to start when doing landscape to get the entire picture in focus.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This would be incorrect.</p>

<p>The best f-stop to use will depend on lens and usage, but f22 is almost always a BAD place to start, as diffraction will make your images fuzzy.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<blockquote>

<p>I did have to lighten the first picture up a little.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is where a lot of your grain came from, I'll wager.</p>

<p>You are better off, generally, shooting at a higher ISO at a brighter exposure than shooting at a low ISO and raising the brightness in post. The latter will almost always increase the noise.</p>

[tom_smith36]

<p>I will do so thank you guys for the advice. </p>

[randy_cooprider1]

<p>Your examples are shot into the setting sun. That is a very large dynamic range so when the highlights are not overexposed, the shadows are normally underexposed and when the shadows are opened in post the noise increases. You might try a series of exposures say +1/2 +1 and +2 to look at the effect on shadow noise. I use Neat Image to clean up noise although as mentioned, there is a noise reduction control in PS that can adjust both luminance and color noise. <br>

Good luck</p>

 

[Two23]

<p>f22? You are aware that diffraction is pretty heavy at that setting and that generally kills sharpness? For me, f22 is a last resort. Maybe you were reading from a book on large format suggesting using f22?</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>f/22 worked in the film era. in the digital era, a 24mp sensor like the d7100 will become diffraction limited past f/8. you can still get away with f/11 or in some circumstances f/16, but if you can stay within diffraction limits you are better off.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>You are possibly not using the best software to process these types of images.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

For high scene contrast in landscape photography, whenever possible, you should use base ISO, tripod

and capture multiple exposures so you get full highlight detail in the brightest part of the scene in one

exposure with no significant clipping. The other end of the exposures should capture the ground so that

it doesn't look dark. Combine the different exposures using layers and masks that determine which part

of the scene comes from which exposure. It takes some effort and practice but can be rewarding.

[mike_halliwell]

<p>+1 Ilkka. </p>

<p>Using an 18-300mm super-zoom wide open (@ 5.6), as in the water tower shot, is not going to help matters much as it's pretty soft in the middle and very soft at the edges. There's also a fair bit of lateral chromatic abhoration which I would have though the software either in camera, or in RAW processing, should have removed.</p>

<p>As this shot was taken @ ~ 82mm, I'd suspect an inexpensive 85mm 1.8g @ f8 @ ISO 100 and whatever Aperture the camera chose would be a good start for a 3 shot bracket. Maybe -3 EV under (for the highlights), one at what what the camera thinks, and +3EV for the moody clouds. Tripod needed!</p>

<p>The metering shows Matrix was used which would provide a good mid-point for the planned HDR.</p>

 

[ian_reed]

<p>Noise is a result of underexposure and over processing. Some RAW converters are better, in terms of voice, and some are not so good. You need to try different RAW converters to see which one suits you better, because how much noise you tolerate is highly subjective, and also depends on the presentation. Printers to tend to smear noise, while LCD displays are not so forgiving.<br>

To avoid aperture being stopped down too much, I can suggest the following focusing procedure; I always focus on the far most highly detailed object, and then start to stop aperture down, until I have everything I need in focus. You can check the results on the computer using the Focus Peaking feature of FastRawViewer.<br>

As Ilkka already mentioned, for landscape work, and especially with D7100, it’s better to stay at base ISO, use a stable tripod, remote release, and deep hood on the lens. To control the camera during a shoot, I take my laptop with me whenever I can, so I can use it as a remote. This also lets me check the results on the screen for proper exposure and focusing.<br>

My exposure strategy is like this; I spot-meter from the highlights I want to keep (obviously not from the sun), and add 2.5 to 3 stops to spotmeter recommendations. I load the photo into FastRawViewer to check that my highlights are correctly exposed (on the edge of being blown out). After determining the correct exposure for the highlights and checking that it is indeed correct, I add another 4 stops from that exposure and make another exposure, this time for shadows. This strategy pretty much uses the full dynamic range of the camera, and allows for very simple post-processing with hard masks. This technique is pretty much an imitation of Fuji S5Pro 400% dynamic range expansion.<br>

The whole point is to take just 2 shots – one exposed to just take the highlights, and another one exposed 4 EV higher, that is, for shadows. You can try substituting 4 EV with 5 or 6, but you will see that the image starts to look unnatural, and doesn’t really provide any improvement. But you should still experiment, because as Wehrner von Braun said, “1 good test result is better than 100 expert opinions.” </p>