High ISO issues

[Aimevous]

Wow..

Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate what everyone has said so far and I welcome more comments! There's always things to learn!

However, I hope I have not offended anyone with what I written. I didn't mean to say Sony cameras are inferior, because I knew even Nikon were using them. I just didnt really understood why I keep hearing that Nikon and Canon had better performances.

I sincerely apologize if I had offended anyone with my first post, I was a bit tired after a long day at the wedding...well, it was my real brother, had lots of preparation even a few days ago.

Firstly, perhaps as one of you guys have mentioned, I am a bit perfectionistic. I get a bit disappointed when I see coloured spots (noise) in my pictures when I zoomed into 100%. I often forget I'm shooting at 10mpx, compared to my previous cam which was a PnS at 3.2mpx. After thinking a bit, I realised, as many of you guys pointed out, it actually isnt so bad if you don't look at it at 100%.

I'm still learning about photography, having bought the A200 back in March.. I didn't exactly buy it on impulse, and I felt that it was the best buy at the time and I've so far not convinced myself otherwise But there's just so much to read.. heh..

I'm just curious, how do you guys de-noise? Do you all use specialised programs? I'm just started using lightroom.. is there a de-noise feature inside? It has so many features, I'm still trying to explore the full potential of it.

I'm learning some basic image processing in school and I kinda understand how much noise can be removed and at what cost..

Also, where can I read more about noise removal and perhaps post processing?

And yeah, I'm shooting mostly in RAW now too..

Lastly, THANKS A LOT AGAIN Seeing so many responses made my day:sweatsm:

 

[Aimevous]

Actually, I just reviewed a few of my photos yesterday, with some at ISO 400 and ISO 800...
Hmm...they really look pretty good..

I particularly like this one I took of my granny at ISO 800 with a minolta 28-105mm at F/5.6

 

[godzilla60]

Wow..

Thanks for all the responses. I really appreciate what everyone has said so far and I welcome more comments! There's always things to learn!

However, I hope I have not offended anyone with what I written. I didn't mean to say Sony cameras are inferior, because I knew even Nikon were using them. I just didnt really understood why I keep hearing that Nikon and Canon had better performances.

I sincerely apologize if I had offended anyone with my first post, I was a bit tired after a long day at the wedding...well, it was my real brother, had lots of preparation even a few days ago.

Firstly, perhaps as one of you guys have mentioned, I am a bit perfectionistic. I get a bit disappointed when I see coloured spots (noise) in my pictures when I zoomed into 100%. I often forget I'm shooting at 10mpx, compared to my previous cam which was a PnS at 3.2mpx. After thinking a bit, I realised, as many of you guys pointed out, it actually isnt so bad if you don't look at it at 100%.

I'm still learning about photography, having bought the A200 back in March.. I didn't exactly buy it on impulse, and I felt that it was the best buy at the time and I've so far not convinced myself otherwise But there's just so much to read.. heh..

I'm just curious, how do you guys de-noise? Do you all use specialised programs? I'm just started using lightroom.. is there a de-noise feature inside? It has so many features, I'm still trying to explore the full potential of it.

I'm learning some basic image processing in school and I kinda understand how much noise can be removed and at what cost..

Also, where can I read more about noise removal and perhaps post processing?

And yeah, I'm shooting mostly in RAW now too..

Lastly, THANKS A LOT AGAIN Seeing so many responses made my day:sweatsm:

if u want to keep your current body and see improvement, try the following:

1) set your metering to spot metering and only meter the part of interest to you where the light falls.

2) over expose by 1/3 - 1 stop. i realised noise don't really appear except in dark areas.

3) open up your aperture to maximise the shutter speed.

For me, i shoot frequently at ISO 1600 without flash during concert-like situations with 2.8 lens and the noise are acceptable when overexposed. I have tried even ISO6400 and noise only occur in the shadows.

I shoot M most of the time if lighting is almost constant and always RAW.

hope this helps.

 

[boombox]

You can use Noise Ninja or Noiseware to remove noise from your photos.

 

[XkaOnslaught]

You can use Noise Ninja or Noiseware to remove noise from your photos.

personally i find noise ninja smears too much. NeatImage is a better tool.

 

[Yinfinity]

Hm... I feel sorry for jumping straight to tell you that it's time to upgrade. I didn't know your a200 was just a recent investment. People don't just throw away things they just brought because something new come out. Technology improves faster than we age.

However, you don't have to compromise to use limited iso range only.
When I got my A100 I found out the iso noise to be annoying when I really needed to use high iso. This is the general truth. People miss things when they need them the most. But I didn't just give up like that. One thing about photography or any other forms of art is creativity. I looked for other ways to improve on the quality of my photos. The previous posts have mentioned most of them.

Another way is through Noise Ninja. This marvelous piece of software can make your ISO800 photos noise free and most ISO1600 usable. It's safe to say the noise from Sony's previous cameras are not just due to the sensors but also the old noise reduction algorithm. I believe this is true because the new Sony a550 not just have a new sensor but a much better algorithm which focuses more on chroma noise than luminance noise. The result is less blotches of colors and more details.

You can use softwares that have their own noise reduction algorithms such as Noise Ninja on your computer to compensate the old noise reduction implementation on A200. As far as I can tell noise on high ISO should no longer be of a concern.
This is the link to Noise Ninja's website-- http://www.picturecode.com/

This is a comparison of the different noise reduction softwares out there in the market http://www.michaelalmond.com/Articles/noise.htm

Good luck and happy shooting

 

[boombox]

Paiseh a bit OT - Quite weird to say, I do appreciate that the A100 is the only camera in the whole line up that offers ISO80 (something lower than ISO100) - (very good for strobists who want to open up their aperture in the sun, but still keep their sync speed low enough for the X-sync...)

As someone who works with studio lighting indoors and outdoors, ISO performance has never quite been of an issue to me because I've almost always been shooting at base iso, though when needed, I can still print large size and still have acceptable grain performance with my current machines, the a700 and a100 - for the a700, I can comfortably use up to ISO1600 on V4 confidently - for the a100 - at iso 1600, the saturation visibly drops and it's indeed noisy - so iso800 is my limit technically.

last time did wedding work at iso800 on my a100, photos still can pass - so it's good for me I guess.

 

[Jed]

I think different people have different thresholds for how much noise is acceptable. Personally I find the photographs posted by marcusy to be extremely objectionable in terms of noise. If I'm honest they vaguely remind me of the original D1.

But then I'm looking at the images as a professional, not an amateur. Which is to say I evaluate quality by whether I would be happy to present something as my work, either to represent me, or to a paying client. So maybe the threshold is higher as a result.

In response to dormy who said "who looks at the walls rather than the subject"... in all honesty looking at the first two of marcusy's images, I can't help not looking at the walls because the noise is bad enough to be extremely distracting. Which ruins the image even if the image quality is overall possibly acceptable.

In response to teodesson who has trained himself to shoot at 1/10th of a second... that's all well and good but what happens if your subjects move at 1/10th of a second? That's a very slow shutter speed for shooting people.

I do agree that the user could have shot lower than ISO 800 with better technique, but there will be instances when this simply isn't possible.

In response to navlem, and others who said those pictures are definitely acceptable, as I've said above there are different thresholds. For me, that type of noise appears to me to be similar to the D1, which was bad for its time in 2000. I wouldn't supply those images to my clients and be happy about it.

For those of you that think well okay but it'll only be 4R or 600 pixels wide and they don't look too bad... well then honestly you could also be shooting with a 2mp camera or less, you really don't need the extra pixels as well. But I'll bet you've upgraded once or twice.

 

[teodesson]

In response to teodesson who has trained himself to shoot at 1/10th of a second... that's all well and good but what happens if your subjects move at 1/10th of a second? That's a very slow shutter speed for shooting people.

I commented based on 3 pics posted by marcusy: pic #1 and #2 are staged, so it's fine to try 1/10. pic #3 is candid, so sure you must compensate with faster shutter speed. So, depend on situation.

 

[Jed]

I commented based on 3 pics posted by marcusy: pic #1 and #2 are staged, so it's fine to try 1/10.

Same question. What happens if people move in pic 1 and 2? 1/10 is a *long* exposure for people photos.

In all honesty I wasn't thinking about pic 3 at all because that is a complete non-starter to shoot at 1/10th and I didn't think you would contemplate it either.

 

[rawshooter]

It's takes a lot of courage to shoot at 1/10 or 1/20 even with SS. Handshake will be worst when using longer focal length. During such 'wedding/dinner' photography, you do not want to take a snap shot, check for blur (found image blur), snap again, check...repeat.

I have seen pros doing like 1/50s or so without flash...and they still they use the machine gun mode to make sure that one of the 5 shots have the focus nailed.

 

[teodesson]

Same question. What happens if people move in pic 1 and 2? 1/10 is a *long* exposure for people photos.

In all honesty I wasn't thinking about pic 3 at all because that is a complete non-starter to shoot at 1/10th and I didn't think you would contemplate it either.

well, I think you already know the answer
Try again, or use flash, or compensate with higher ISO.

 

[navlem]

actually ah, i find the colors on the ISO3200 output to be more 'correct' ~_~

the hair is actually a shade of purple than blue >_>

its cos of the higher dynamic range.

 

[navlem]

I think different people have different thresholds for how much noise is acceptable. Personally I find the photographs posted by marcusy to be extremely objectionable in terms of noise. If I'm honest they vaguely remind me of the original D1.

But then I'm looking at the images as a professional, not an amateur. Which is to say I evaluate quality by whether I would be happy to present something as my work, either to represent me, or to a paying client. So maybe the threshold is higher as a result.

In response to dormy who said "who looks at the walls rather than the subject"... in all honesty looking at the first two of marcusy's images, I can't help not looking at the walls because the noise is bad enough to be extremely distracting. Which ruins the image even if the image quality is overall possibly acceptable.

In response to teodesson who has trained himself to shoot at 1/10th of a second... that's all well and good but what happens if your subjects move at 1/10th of a second? That's a very slow shutter speed for shooting people.

I do agree that the user could have shot lower than ISO 800 with better technique, but there will be instances when this simply isn't possible.

In response to navlem, and others who said those pictures are definitely acceptable, as I've said above there are different thresholds. For me, that type of noise appears to me to be similar to the D1, which was bad for its time in 2000. I wouldn't supply those images to my clients and be happy about it.

For those of you that think well okay but it'll only be 4R or 600 pixels wide and they don't look too bad... well then honestly you could also be shooting with a 2mp camera or less, you really don't need the extra pixels as well. But I'll bet you've upgraded once or twice.

I think its just my opinion. Afterall, A200 is still a entry level body, so dun expect D3's standard.

 

[Jed]

I think its just my opinion. Afterall, A200 is still a entry level body, so dun expect D3's standard.

Absolutely. Most of my comments were prefaced with "for me" or "personally". Thresholds are different and there's nothing to say that your threshold is wrong.

And I didn't mention the D3 anywhere, although I did mention the D1 and comparing the two from the images posted by marcusy, I would say they are not much better than a camera that was criticised for being very noise nine years ago.

 

[marcusy]

hi jed dont say tat we are here to share ....so we have to take comment given as to improve ourself guess is time to change body liao wahaha

 

[Jed]

hi jed dont say tat we are here to share ....

Erm, don't say what?

I was saying he was perfectly entitled to his opinion ^.^

 

[MontoyaSG]

As i mentioned earlier in other high iso threads shoot with 1 to 2 step overexposure & recover in PP. You'll end up with a 'cleaner' shot.

Try to work within the system's limit instead of simply knocking it for poor output.

 

[Jed]

As i mentioned earlier in other high iso threads shoot with 1 to 2 step overexposure & recover in PP. You'll end up with a 'cleaner' shot.

Try to work within the system's limit instead of simply knocking it for poor output.

I think you'll end up with a cleaner shot by exposing properly and using an ISO 1 to 2 stops lower.

 

[MontoyaSG]

I think you'll end up with a cleaner shot by exposing properly and using an ISO 1 to 2 stops lower.

And battle low shutter speeds at the same time?

In the end it's up to personal preference.