Freddie
Posts: 371 Joined: Oct. 2009
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Quote (OgreMkV @ Mar. 19 2012,15:56) | Quote (Robin @ Mar. 19 2012,15:24) | Quote (OgreMkV @ Mar. 19 2012,13:37) | Quote (Robin @ Mar. 19 2012,13:16) | Quote (midwifetoad @ Mar. 19 2012,12:51) | Noise is an inevitable result of a high ISO. Anything above 400 will have noise if you blow it up enough. the guys who do nature photography professionally use heavy tripods or Steadicams.
Noise reduction software helps, but at the cost of sharpness and detail. |
A succinct summary of the number one cause of noise in photography Midwife. However, that brings up the question - since I don't shoot anything over 400 ISO (and the shot of the Kestrel was at 200 ISO), what's the main issue creating all the noise in my pics? Is it that I'm not getting close enough or using a big enough lens (300mm) and thus I'm enlarging my shots beyond what my camera can really grab? A possibility, but I would think if that were the case, my closer shots - like the one of the female Cardinal - wouldn't be so noisy, but they seem like they are just as noisy to me. I think I enlarged the female Cardinal shot by .25X...maybe .5X, but not that much. OTOH, I think I enlarged the Kestrel by 4X, which can be quite a bit on a 200 ISO shot.
I really don't know. It could just be the D3100's sensor is particularly sensitive to direct full sun, though I've not read anything to indicate that such is the case. All the reviewers and tester articles I've read indicate that the D3100 has one of the better noise compensation algorithms built into it.
Bottom line, while I know that noise is one of the big factors reducing the quality of my shots, I don't know where it is coming from. |
This is probably something you're aware of, so feel free to ignore..
Are you shooting the images in RAW mode? |
No. Fine JPEG.
ETA: removed extra letter |
OK, try shooting in RAW mode. Even fine jpg is a lossy compression.
With RAW you don't get as many shots in the memory, but they are not compressed in any way and you can avoid that noise due to compression. |
Right ... but as soon as you turn them into JPGs for viewing you re-introduce compression artifacts!
I think the point is that when you shoot RAW you can control what happens in the compression stage to get the optimal result/filesize you are looking for, whereas if you use the camera's compression algorithm you have a fixed compression algorithm that can't be undone through post-processing. I shoot RAW+JPG as its easier to see which images are which once I get them onto the PC to play with.
To me, the Kestrel picture looks over-sharpened slightly, you can see a slight halo around the bird as well as the noise in the blue areas. But some of the others are great! It's getting towards Spring here in the UK so hopefully I'll have the chance to get out and shoot some birds other than the bloody wood pigeons, crows and magpies that seem to infest my neck of the woods at the moment.
-------------- Joe: Most criticisims of ID stem from ignorance and jealousy. Joe: As for the authors of the books in the Bible, well the OT was authored by Moses and the NT was authored by various people. Byers: The eskimo would not need hairy hair growth as hair, I say, is for keeping people dry. Not warm.
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