Dealing with high ISO

Hey all,


Took a few photos over the weekend at a Christian Conference. Use an Olympus E-420 and a Canon 20D. Lighting was crap, so decided that high ISO was the way to go.


Sadly a lot of photos were so noisy that they were just unusable. However, I did notice that, even at the same ISO, some photos looked better than others. I noticed that the grain was only really noticeable on darker areas, and if I slowed my shutter speed a bit, it'd brighten the scene and the ISO wouldn't be as noticeable.

Of course, having to adjust your shutter speed so much is kind of eliminating the point in highering your ISO in the first place, as I got a lot of blur.


So I was wondering if anyone has any tips on high ISO usage? I've never really photographed indoors before, so I'm usually out in the daylight and try to keep my ISO at 100 at all times, as I generally like clean, crisp images, but I just thought I'd ask if there are any tips or anything for using high ISOs when taking photos in poorly lit places?


Someone on here posted photos before of UFC (I think), and they said they were using 1600 ISO in their photos, but you couldn't see a bit of noise (admittedly the images posted were fairly small), so I'm wondering, is the only real fix for such an issue to promote yourself to a better camera altogether? I assume it's the body itself (and not the lens) that would have most impact upon noise in photos?


Bit of an area that I'm clueless with.


Unrelatedly, also started using the back-button auto-focus on the 20D. T'is indeed a great little innovation. Highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already.

kensutz

Shot ISO 3200 on Saturday night and no problems.

Freddie59

kensutz wrote: »

Shot ISO 3200 on Saturday night and no problems.

Depends on the lens I suppose Ken?

kensutz

Not so much the lens but the way the body handles ISO too. Fast lenses are ideal for low light situations too.

AnimalRights

kensutz wrote: »

Shot ISO 3200 on Saturday night and no problems.

That's not very helpful, you've top of the range gear, the OP wouldn't have I'd imagine.

pixbyjohn

This might be worth looking at.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse420/page16.asp

CCSL

Its a filter add on for Photoshop and really helps reduce the noise on images.

Also converting your photos to B/W helps hide noise.

Borderfox

A lot of noise wont print, try a trial of Noise Ninja or Topaz Denoise. I shoot a lot at high iso and my strategy is to always have the camera overexposed by 2/3rds of a stop, you will notice a difference from shot to shot because of the cycling of whatever lights are being used. Halogen/Flourescent lights tend to cycle at 60 herz (shoot at 1/60th and below for a consistent result) Shoot raw+jpeg and try if you can to use a fast prime as these can control noise much better than the zooms.

Stick up a few shots and might be able to help more

Nforce

The Noise Reduction feature in Lightroom3 is nothing short of amazing...better than Noise Ninja,IMO. The highest that I'll comfortably shoot is 1600 using my D300...or 800 max using the D80.

Borderfox

One of the jobs I shoot is in Tattersalls Sales ring so no flash, I have a 5d shooting at iso 3200 with a Sigma 120-300 f2.8 @f28 and a 1dmk3 shooting a iso 1600-3200 with an 85mm f1.2 @f1.2-1.4. If you overexpose slightly you can get away with a lot

thomascullen

The grain is kinda unavoidable when you use very high iso, next time you are shooting in dark lighting conditions try set iso to 400 - 600 and use a wide aperature ( 2.8 ) to allow more light to enter the lens, and use a shutter speed of about 1/60 of a second.

Borderfox

thomascullen wrote: »

The grain is kinda unavoidable when you use very high iso, next time you are shooting in dark lighting conditions try set iso to 400 - 600 and use a wide aperature ( 2.8 ) to allow more light to enter the lens, and use a shutter speed of about 1/60 of a second.

If the light is there thats ok but most times when people use high iso is when you are borderline camera shake at iso 1600+ especially when things are moving.

Ballyman

Borderfox wrote: »

Halogen/Flourescent lights tend to cycle at 60 herz

It's 50!!

As Keith said, try to overexpose a little if you can as this helps eliminate noise when it's pulled back in PP. However in dark conditions you need a fast lens with a high iso performaing camera to get good results. There is a reason why a professional camera body costs thousands of euro!

There are times when you just have to use flash if you need a shutter speed that high ISO can't give you.

Hey all, just kinda skimming through the posts at the moment as I'm wrecked tired, but I appreciate all the comments. The overexpose one seems like a good idea, and I must try it some time just to see how it turns out.


I'll try and get some photos up tomorrow that I think came out pretty crap due to noise.


Thanks again

charybdis

The appearance of noise in digital images depends upon a number of factors and is caused by the behaviour of the sensor and the amplification of the signal from it by the camera. Digital camera sensors work in such a way that they use the vast majority of their dynamic range to describe the brightest tones they can capture and only a small amount to describe the darkest tones. The result of this is that noise is far more evident in the darker parts of an image and attempting to brighten these areas in post-processing increases the appearance of that noise. With that in mind, it's generally a much better idea to get good exposure at a high ISO rather than underexposing at a low ISO and trying to recover shadow detail when post-processing.

You can somewhat mitigate the appearance of noise by slightly overexposing the image and then darkening the image in post-processing but when doing so you risk blown highlights and creating other problems for yourself. It's probably best to work on developing good exposure technique before trying to do this or other post-processing techniques like noise reduction.

Borderfox wrote: »

Halogen/Flourescent lights tend to cycle at 60 herz (shoot at 1/60th and below for a consistent result)

It's 50Hz in most of the world, 60Hz in the U.S.. The reason you want to shoot at 50/60Hz is that the colour of light coming from fluorescent sources changes over the course of each cycle so to get consistent colours from the lights you have to shoot at an integer multiple of their frequency, e.g.: for a 50Hz light, 1/50, 1/25, 1/12, 1/6, etc. (although this is only really necessary if you really want to avoid a very slight colour cast that can probably be easily corrected for most uses in post-processing).

kelly1

Here's a good technical article on sensor pixel size and noise:

http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/does.pixel.size.matter/

AnCatDubh

I would echo the comment which suggested that much noise doesn't print.

I say this having printed something that I "had to" and wasn't very pleased to do as I thought the digital noise had destroyed the image. But it printed fine - only slight evidence of what I thought destroyed the image, so screen display differs greatly. I don't know the technical explanation for it, but I presume it might be as simple as screen construction having bigger dots (72/96 screen dpi as opposed to 200 or 300 print dpi) and we can view an image 100% which you may never print at that size. Eitherways I have found that really noisey stuff on screen may not be such a problem when it comes to print.

Lightroom 3 does a good job but as with any noise reduction that i've had experience of, it does initiate some amount of effective 'blurring' of the image in its process. Again, it may not be noticeable in a print of the image, but worth considering.

The other option which people haven't mentioned (i don't think) is learn to love the noise. One of my personal favourite images is a noisey black and white conversion of a still lake, quite contrasty taken late on a winters afternoon with very low light with a fog setting in across the lake - a single gull is in flight. It's noisey as heck and I love it.

Its like anything in photography, you should learn to master the creative use of the particular outcome (in this case noise), rather than being stuck with situations where you are forced to up the ISO and thereafter curse the day being long for the noise that it creates. Successful noisey shots are different. You need to consider your composition differently - knowing the noise will be lurking in the darker areas, balancing your effective dynamic range, the highlights and the shadows.

I think the modern photographer misses a lot in that they no longer have to decide what type of film. Don't get me wrong; the present situation is without a doubt far more convenient - that which film can't equal. Without going into a retro film love mode, the type of film which a photographer choose to place in the chamber of the camera was/is significantly more intimate to the resulting image than the present day digital camera sensor. People did and do still choose film to instigate grain into their image - they effectively are doing the creative thing and envisioning the final outcome in a pre-visualisation sense. It has probably become second nature to them and they do it without thinking simply knowing the outcome of their choice.

magicbastarder

AnCatDubh wrote: »

The other option which people haven't mentioned (i don't think) is learn to love the noise.

+1. if life gives you lemons...

dinneenp

why would a camera have ISO of 6400 or higher?
surely picture would end up very noisy?

Does Photoshop 5 (or whatever the latest one is have noise reduction?

magicbastarder wrote: »

+1. if life gives you lemons...

funny comment I heard was-
if life gives you lemons start lubing up and thinking how many can you fit up your arse...' WFT but LOL...

Ghost Train

dinneenp wrote: »

why would a camera have ISO of 6400 or higher?
surely picture would end up very noisy

some cameras do better than others, I guess it's good to have it as an option even if noisy, plus it's something than will keep getting better as cameras improve

an underexposed high iso image won't look as good as a well exposed one

Ballyman

dinneenp wrote: »

why would a camera have ISO of 6400 or higher?
surely picture would end up very noisy?

Obviously there will be some noise noticeable but for a working professional who needs to get a shot for whatever reason then the noise is only a minor issue to them. It can be cleaned up perfectly afterwards if required and a noisy shot is better than no shot as no shot means no paypacket!

The latest canon 1d and nikon d3 have outstanding noise control and can have useable shots much higher than ISO6400. Like I said, there is a reason why the price is multiples of the likes of a 500d etc.

Borderfox

Do a google for pixel pitch, most of the newer camera bodies are putting the pixels closer together and using micro-lenses and software to control the noise whereas with something like the original 5d the gap between the pixels (less electronic interference) is quite big compared to other cameras.

As said above, noise is not a problem just part of the digital age. I dont worry about noise in shots just whether they are sharp.

bullpost

I shoot with an Olympus also.
Its an E-300 which is older than yours at over 5 years old and due to the Four-Thirds sensor has a lot of noise in the moderate to high ISO's.

I use the standalone version of Noise Ninja and find it makes a big difference. I've taken acceptable indoor shots at ISO 1600 which is the max for my camera. So maybe check out the trial version. It comes with profiles for Olympus cameras .

Borderfox

Just for example heres a shot from a really dark arena, shot with a 1dmk3 and a 135 f2L Exif below. This had one run through noise ninja and was shot in jpeg, click on the picture for the full size version

EXIF DataCamera Make Canon
Camera Model Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Exposure 0.002 sec (1/500)
F-Number f2
Focal Length 135 mm
Exposure Bias 0
Orientation 1
X Resolution 72 dpi
Y Resolution 72 dpi
Date and Time (Original) 2009:12:06 17:51:50
Date and Time (Digitized) 2009:12:06 17:51:50
Metering Mode CenterWeightedAverage
ColorSpace sRGB
Flash Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
Image Height 2592 pixels
Image Width 3888 pixels
YCbCr Positioning 2
Date Time 2009:12:07 20:46:07
Software Used Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows
Aperture 2
Shutter Speed 9
ISO Speed ISO-6400

kensutz

ISO2000


ISO3200

kelly1

Nice but how much did the camera cost! Did you use noise reduction s/w?

kensutz

The camera is a 1D MKIII and no time to use any sort of editing. Captioning and that's it.

kelly1

kensutz wrote: »

The camera is a 1D MKIII and no time to use any sort of editing. Captioning and that's it.

Impressive! As is 6400 on Borderfox's show-jumping shot.

bullpost

I would hope they should be - both of those cameras cost at least 7 times the price of the OP's.

kelly1 wrote: »

Impressive! As is 6400 on Borderfox's show-jumping shot.

Borderfox

I have gotten equally good results out of a 5d with a 50mm f1.4, I started with a 20d and a 50mm f1.8 for the main reason of iso handling. Any prime lens will control or limit noise in a shot as will overexposure, the technique remains the same regardless of the equipment

jpb1974

What would a 100% crop from those un-treated photos look like?

kelly1

Any 7D owners who could comment on the noise performance? I currently have a 500D and am wondering would I see a big difference compared to the 7D?

Borderfox

jpb1974 wrote: »

What would a 100% crop from those un-treated photos look like?

You can click on my picture and go through to the full size original, lots more on www.pix.ie/keithjack/album/334308

jpb1974

Sorry.. I meant the ones without any treatment (such as Noise Ninja) posted by kensutz.

Pics reduced to 500px can often hide a lot of discrepancies.

Borderfox

The shots from the album above have nothing done to them

Ballyman

jpb1974 wrote: »

What would a 100% crop from those un-treated photos look like?

Pretty bad.

But what would you want a 100% crop for? If you need a 100% crop of anything then you should have gotten closer in the first place

There isn't a camera or lens combination that would be able to produce perfect noise free 100% crops at that kind of ISO.

You have to accept that there are occasions that you cannot get an image you want due to light/lens/camera or a variety of other factors so you might have to use a tripod, flash or just plain get over it and accept that it's going to be noisy.

Or don't press the shutter button at all. Options for everyone!

jpb1974

But what would you want a 100% crop for?

In my case just to have a closer look... you can't accurately judge the quality of a 500 pixel post.