50D Noise - what is normal

[mikew09]

Hi,

The pics at 1600 are that bad... I would tend to agree that it may be the illusion of noise due to poor focus / exposure as much as anything else.

I learnt pretty quick (but longer than it ought to have taken) that a well focused / well exposed image will elimate as much noise as the best noise filter.

Try the kitchen shot again, only this time - make sure the focus is dead on and up the exposure a bit (use a tripod to ensure no blur).

You'll be amazed.

Scotty

Thanks Scotty, will do. Impressive example too - enforces your point very well.

Thanks

[Scotty72]

Thanks Scotty, will do. Impressive example too - enforces your point very well.

Thanks

The first sentence in my previous post (#18) should have read...

The pics at 1600 are NOT that bad...

[mikew09]

The first sentence in my previous post (#18) should have read...

The pics at 1600 are NOT that bad...

Yea - I assumed that was what you meany - ta

[mikew09]

Yea - I assumed that was what you meany - ta

Now I am doing it :-) . It should say meant not meany...

[Tannin]

Stop stressing out Mike!

The 50D (and many other cameras like it) produces a high resolution image. It is the nature of high resolution images that they include more noise. (Assuming any given lens and sensor area, that is.) If you have twice as many pixels, you have half as much signal per pixel, and something approaching twice as much noise. This is laws of pysics stuff, there is no way to avoid it.

But you CAN minimise it:

1: by having reasonable expectactions
2: by exposing well
3: by using the available noise reduction technology.

Note that (3) is NOT an option with today's high-res cameras. Now you can shoot in one of the dummy modes, in which case the camera will do it for you (and do a pretty decent job), or you can shoot in an "expert" mode and do your own NR processing as a routine part of your workflow. Up to you. But you cannot omit noise reduction if you want decent results. The camera is designed for it and requires it to produce the results it was built for. if it hadn't been designed that way it wouldn't be the very capable, detailed, versatile camera that it is.

Some other cameras, broadly similar in most respects, completely refuse to give you an image without NR processing, even if you convert your own raw file. (Nikons used to do this a few years ago, I'm not sure if they have stopped now.) Be thankful that the 50D does not: it gives you the choice whether you want NR, and if so, whether to use the in-camera system or roll your own.

Short answer: use the in-camera NR, or do it in your raw converter, or (best) use a specialist NR program such as Neat Image. You can get excellent results with any of those three methods. If you roll your own, be prepared to spend a little while learning what particular settings work best for you.

[hus]

Stop stressing out Mike!

The 50D (and many other cameras like it) produces a high resolution image. It is the nature of high resolution images that they include more noise. (Assuming any given lens and sensor area, that is.) If you have twice as many pixels, you have half as much signal per pixel, and something approaching twice as much noise. This is laws of pysics stuff, there is no way to avoid it.

What if I reduce the resolution on the camera to S Raw 1 on my 50D menu, would that reduce the noise or still give me the same noise as the full resolution?

[Tannin]

Well, yes, that will work for sure .... and I could lose weight for sure if I just cut a couple of my legs off at the thigh!

By reducing the resolution you are combining pixels and in doing that you average out the noise. But it's a terrible way to fight noise! As bad as cutting a leg off to lose some kilograms, and just as difficult to reverse if you change your mind.

A much, much better plan is to use software. This ain't cheating - the 50D was designed to be used in conjunction with noise reduction software - any of

• (a) the camera's built-in NR, or
• (b) the Canon raw converter software that came with the camera (which actually does exactly the same thing as the in-camera software, but being post processing is more flexible and can be tweaked, tuned, turned off, whatever you want
• (c) third-party raw converter software such as Adobe Camera Raw
• (d) third-party specialist noise reduction software such as Neat Image and Noise Ninja and various others.

You can get pretty much the same noise reduction, probably quite a lot more , and not sacrifice detail. (Depending on how aggressive you get with the noise reduction that is - you are free to select minimal NR for a more natural look (that's what I prefer) or heavy NR for a very clean but possibly rather plastic look, or anywhere in between.

Note that, in reality, you almost never view or print a finished image at 1:1 resolution - nearly always, it is downsized to fit on the screen or page. In other words, your brute-force noise-averaging technique with an sraw file is wasted as you were always going to shrink the file down before you used it anyway. All you have done is sacrifice detail that might (or might not) have come in handy.

Making sense?

[hus]

Just out of curiosity after reading this thread I tried the built in noise reduction, did 2 shots in jpeg nothing technical just a simple test and I was impressed with the amount of noise reduced, sorry forgot to take shot with built in noise reduction turned off but will do it monday night.

[mikew09]

Thanks Tannin,
The explanation makes sense and I can take on board your comment to stop stressing. Have spent a little time playing with suggestions and start more seriously at NR software now.

Thanks to all who have assisted in this thead. Really appreciated.

[mikew09]

Fair to say, as some had suggested I was fairly paranoid about noise. Thanks to all who helped with comments in this thread - the help has been extremely helpful, more so than trailing the web.
Proof to this great web site.
Oh Just an FYI - printed some images at A4 and no real noise as to what I see on the screen.

Thanks again team

[GTP 290]

A littl bit late but thought I'd add my little bit of info.

Oh, forgot to mention, no noise reduction set in the the camera settings either.

1: I have a 50D and I've got long exposure noise reduction setting in the menu. I'm not sure what shutter speed yiou are using but if it's anything that you can't shoot by hand I find this helps.

2: A really odd thing I have noticed with my 50D is that if I shoot in RAW and convert to JPEG the image has ALOT of noise no matter what ISO so I just shoot JPEG. Maybe you could shoot the same image twice, 1 in JPEG and 1 in RAW then convert and compare the 2 images?

[Tannin]

A really odd thing I have noticed with my 50D is that if I shoot in RAW and convert to JPEG the image has ALOT of noise no matter what ISO so I just shoot JPEG.

This is because the JPG has had noise reduction applied to it by the in-camera firmware.

You can apply the exact same noise reduction to the raw by using Canon's DPP to develop it instead of whatever other raw conversion software you have. (You may have to change a setting somewhere in DPP.)

OR you can apply rather similar (but probably slightly inferior) noise reduction is most other raw converters. Adobe Camera Raw (comes with Photoshop and Lightroom), for example, has a noise reduction function. (not as good as DPP in my opinion, but good enough.)

OR you can use third-party specialist noise reduction for the best result of all. http://neatimage.com for my favourite one, Neat Imagge, but there are several other good ones as well.

[mikew09]

Thanks for the comments GTP 290 and Tannin. I have spent a little time practicing with my 50D based on advise in the thread. It has highlighted a lack of attention to detail on behalf and also that noise is un-avoidable at times and noise reduction is a mandatory part of the process when shooting at higher ISO. When I say attention to detail I mean my attention to the camera settings when take a shot and how important the right setting are to the end result.

Had a a koala visit the other day, very poor lighting and not much choice with back ground lighting to a point but I am pretty happy with the end result considering the ISO. Anyway, I will post a couple of shots at high ISO as example.

[mikew09]

I should mention - no NR PP has been done and no in camera NR.

Examples:

ISO 800



ISO 1600

[fairy bombs]

No worries. This is the double edged sword of internet forums. They are very informative, but also cause you to become higly paranoid and can turn you to viewing your images at 100% looking for possible flaws.

So true-I think many people get hung up looking for flaws,rather than getting out and enjoying using their gear.

[pmack]

Shooting in raw and not applying any noise reduction, you're definetely going to notice noise when viewing at 1:1
i'm a little concerened about this pic here though, i can see your sensor, notice the vertical banding?
I can definetley follow vertical lines for half the height of the photo. If that is an untouched photo, I wouldn't be all that impressed

39 mm (Tamron SP 17-50 f2.8), 1/50 sec @ f7.1, ISO 100

[Roosta]

Hi Mike, I'll get those spec's/settings for you when I get home, sorry been of line for quite some time. One big thing I found with low light and landscapes particulary, was to find the sweat spot where my lens works best, for my Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 at low light/night, it's F5 and it is spot on, if I close it up a touch, I need to lengthen the shutter duration quite a bit, but in saying that, I haven't really had a need to go any longer than 5 - 10 seconds, except on some of the light painting shot I took in Kings Park, they worked with no NR on and at F5, MF is also a must I believe for getting the right exp, do you use MF or Auto for your lowlight/landscape shots?

I tend to stay around the 200 ISO, seems to be pretty sweat on my 50D, The shots I took whilst down south of the Milky way where upto 800 + ISO, but the exp time was up to 500 Seconds and several stacked images (All be it on LOUSHA'S Telescope tracking a specific star) which helped greatly, then I had long Exp NR on, same length of time to apply NR as shot taken, so it make for a long series of shots. That was the only time i've needed to use that function.

Hope this is of some help.

[mikew09]

Hi pmack and thanks for commenting. I am looking at this shot both on the forum and the raw shot in DPP and I cannot see the vertical banding you mention. Are you maybe using some valution tool. I of course be very concerned about this if I could see it and would have the cmaera in asap but I don't see it in any shots - I am interested if anyone is seeing the banding?

Hmmm - not sure what to make of this now.

[mikew09]

Hi Mike, I'll get those spec's/settings for you when I get home, sorry been of line for quite some time. One big thing I found with low light and landscapes particulary, was to find the sweat spot where my lens works best, for my Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 at low light/night, it's F5 and it is spot on, if I close it up a touch, I need to lengthen the shutter duration quite a bit, but in saying that, I haven't really had a need to go any longer than 5 - 10 seconds, except on some of the light painting shot I took in Kings Park, they worked with no NR on and at F5, MF is also a must I believe for getting the right exp, do you use MF or Auto for your lowlight/landscape shots?

I tend to stay around the 200 ISO, seems to be pretty sweat on my 50D, The shots I took whilst down south of the Milky way where upto 800 + ISO, but the exp time was up to 500 Seconds and several stacked images (All be it on LOUSHA'S Telescope tracking a specific star) which helped greatly, then I had long Exp NR on, same length of time to apply NR as shot taken, so it make for a long series of shots. That was the only time i've needed to use that function.

Hope this is of some help.

Thanks Roosta - all info is helpful.

[Roosta]

Not on either of my work monitors. But these probally not calibrated to be the best/most effective.