noise on nikon bodies compared...

[jamesw]

i recall a discussion recently where we were talking about noise on nikon bodies,

im ridiculously bored as i am not allowed to do very much (due to recent dental surgery, see other thread somewhere with self portrait haha) so ive been trolling the web. i found this the other day while trolling through a forum...

i believe someone said that the d200 was the best for low noise at high iso levels. it may have been dan (cr8ve).

this inference does not appear to be correct according to the tests.

the fellow suggested that, out of the 10mp sensors

d40x is better than d80, and d80 is better than d200.

interestingly the 10mp d40x has less noise than the 6mp d40. and also better than the d50 which a lot of folk really like for its awesome saturation at high isos.

might i add that this is certainly one of the most thorough tests ive seen, and i tend to do a lot of pointless reading whilst im at work and bored. i had a skim through and most of the nikon digi bodies are there.

heres the link:

http://www.pbase.com/andrease/noisetest

my disclaimer: the tester only used one body. bodies can differ i guess, QC isnt perfect. take thhis all with a grain of salt. i just thought it may be of some interest to people...

[methd]

i was always aware the above stats to be true... the d200 is shocking for noise. some argue that you need to exposure the image perfectly, but even if u do, the noise is pretty bad.

[PiroStitch]

the noise is negligible when you print it out though. however i still love my 5D over the D2Xs for noise handling

The noise in the D2X and D2Xs is nicer than the D200...then again it's a bit relative to what your definition of nice noise is.

[radar]

James,

also note that these tests are done on the jpeg files out of the camera. Therefore these tests partly rely on the firmware. Therefore, it sort of makes sense that the newer cameras tend to have better high iso performance since the Nikon engineers should learn as they go.

So by shooting RAW and using something like Noise Ninja, ymmv. I agree it's not for everyone. For me, I almost never shoot at higher then 400iso, so it's a non-issue

cheers,

André

[Grev]

Newer generations of hardware and software for the sensors might yield better noise handling characteristics I guess.

I guess you can't deny that on the computer screen Nikons are worse than Canons, but as someone have said, the difference in prints is what would matter.

[jamesw]

some argue that you need to exposure the image perfectly

i love it when people say that.

how do you expose an image perfectly when half the image is shadow?

it will usually end up in mud no matter what your choice of exposure is.

hence i rely on artificial light at night. it doesnt bother me, the shots look better with flashes than they would at iso 3200. plus i can run really fast shutters.

[MCWB]

the difference in prints is what would matter.

... if the final destination is print! If it's for web display then it'll make more of a difference...

[methd]

That's right. During wedding receptions, Ihave little choice but to shoot at f/2.8, 1/30 and then raise ISO to whatever I need, usually 1200 or more. Anything above 800 there is marked noise which can't be helped, but that is the best exposure setting i can use for least noise. I'd then flash the subject to take the noise away from them, but it does little for the background noise from the ambient light.

[chrisk]

i was always aware the above stats to be true... the d200 is shocking for noise.

i agree. it's the d200 achillies heel.

[jamesw]

i do not believe the d200 is 'shocking' for noise.

i'd probably put it in the catagory of acceptable. for shadow noise it can be poor but it can definitely be worked around.

i think its just one of those things. if you NEED a lack of noise at high isos then you should probably be shooting canon.

and if you expect your camera to make your coffee too, you definitely need a canon.

[chrisk]

shocking is a relative term in this case. in a cam as good as the d200 it seems more shocking that it would lag so far behind its competition. nikon caught onto the iso war too late for the issue to be covered in the d200. imo what is concerning about it is that even at 800 is starts to get too noisy. canon sensors only really start looking a tad better than the newer nikon bodies from about 1600 and up, not as low as 800.

oh well, as i said in another thread, can't have everything...

[jamesw]

can't have everything...

yep exactly right

i guess half the problem is nikons reluctance to fix things with firmware updates, or perhaps that just is not possible.

after shooting with my d200 rigorously for the first time, i must say that it is worth its weight in gold. issues that worried me when i first picked it up (noise being the main issue) are no longer on my mind.

the autofocus is gold. i actually use it now. no more mf guesswork.

the ergonomics feel just right. i held it for a good few hours in some pretty awkward positions (balancing on slippery skatpeark banks particularly) and although weighty, it was not tiresome to hold. buttons for absolutely everything. admittedly, i generally use primes, which are pretty small/light...

the larger and higher res (than d70/d70s) lcd allowed me to make sure my shots were focused sharp as a tack.

and to top it off i havent even needed to touch the manual. i did study the d70 manual with attention. it's just intuitive from there.

sticking under iso 400 i can live with. heck, i can live with staying at 200.

cant wait for my batt grip + spare batts.... battery life issues will disapearrrr

[gstark]

some argue that you need to exposure the image perfectly

i love it when people say that.

how do you expose an image perfectly when half the image is shadow?

Do you mean like this?




Original thread here

it will usually end up in mud no matter what your choice of exposure is.

I think I could see how there might be mud in this image, but that has nothing to do with the exposure.

The bottom line is that you need to decide - that's YOU, not the camera - what the correct exposure for any given scene will be, and it's also for you to decide what, if any, extra lighting you might wish to add (or subtract) to better illuminate the subject of your photo.

Artificial light may, or may not, be acceptable - again, that's a decision for you to make, as is the quantity of that light, and whether to balance it, or to just blast your subject with it.

[chrisk]

i agree with that, sometimes you want the shadows to be shadows. and if you don;t ...well, there's always HDR...or for str8 out of cam improved DR there's always...dare is say it....fuji s5.

[jamesw]

ok hmmm. im not sure how to answer that and whether to read in between the lines or not.

basically i find images turning to mud at nighttime, no natural light at all. there may be ambient but there is no sunlight. and the ambient light that is there is pretty average. try it yourself, go out tonight and just take a few shots of random things in the street, push your shutter speed to the limit of handholding handhold, shoot iso 1600, and tell me that you believe there is:

a. enough detail
b. a nice BLACK sky

i personally could not get it to work. and yes i've seen it done on a canon.

im lucky, with bmx and skateboarding flashes are basically considered tools of the trade. if they werent, or i actually enjoyed running around at gigs with a camera around my neck, i would probably be shooting canon. but i guess it all comes down to the fact that since i was a young boy my father always had a nikon and made sure i knew how to use it.

and because of that, nikons feel like home, i'd hate to move to canon.

and i did some pretty interesting reading on painting with light in the early hours of the morning...

[methd]

That picture above is more an example of dynamic range rather than high ISO, little ambient light, fast shutter, low noise. I agree with jamesw and I think we shoot in similar conditions to recognise this fact.

I'm not saying Nikon bodies are bad.. hey I have 2 x D200s. There's also no denying that the D200 has bad noise when there's very minimal ambient light and HIGH ISO has to be used.

Try taking your camera to a dim nightclub and meter the camera in manual mode for ambient light, then use the flash to light the subject. Depending on the conditions and your gear, the settings will be around f/1.8-2.8, 1/50-80, ISO 800-1200. The flash WILL expose the subject correctly but look at the background and it will be a mess of noise. Sure it's not the subject, but anything over ISO 800 and noise is a real concern. Now compare it to a Canon and there's a rather large difference in background noise.

I can shoot during the day with natural lighting and have no issues... that's not the problem.

In any case, I'm still sticking with Nikon until they release this fabled D3 and see what happens from there. Otherwise, my photography requires me to shoot in low light (fast shutter), high ISO which means I will otherwise make the migration to Canon land if the D3 doesn't come good.

Maybe I have higher expectations of low noise at high ISO... but that's what I need so it's what I want.

This image was shot at ISO640 (f/2.8, 1/50). Direct flash with diffuser - no bouncing as there's nothing to bounce it off. It's just acceptable for background noise.



This is at ISO 800 and you can visibly see the background noise, which I dont find acceptable, but maybe I'm more picky than others.



Start venturing above ISO 1200 in dim lighting.. and it gets a lot worse !

[jamesw]

i think both of those shots are acceptable, but if you did not have the luxury of working with such shallow DOF it would be a different story. the noise also looks very grainy which also helps. flash use has definitely saved those shots, and for people who shoot in say a auditorium or whatever doing concert performances... well there is only one choice at the moment... canon

noise is just one of those things i guess. definitely a want rather than a need. i'd love to be able to pump the iso with confidence, run less power in the flashes and crank some longer sequences. that would definitely be nice.

and this is coming from someone who is bordering on nikon 'fanboy'.

[MATT]

methd,

Looking at the the 2 images I tend to agree.

However how do they print up?? and How would this compare to a print from a film at 800iso.

Sometimes I think we pixelpeep a little to much.

But I will say I am considering a switch to Canon for the noise reason and I feel some of the images are just look better. I have no special Nikon lenses so it wont be missing anything there. I would like a 5d but would miss the pop up flash that the d200 has, sometimes available light just doesn't do it but I don't want to always carry a flash..

Cheers
MATT

[methd]

At ISO800 it prints up not too badly (but can forget about it at 1250ish plus). I usually stay away from 800 plus for this reason and would rather a darker ambient lit background!

However, and this is a rather big however, most clients are now opting for image-only packages with full internet hosting. So they (+ friends and family) will be looking at the image on the screen and not printing it out. As a photographer, I need to consider this above everything else.

Sure 'we' or 'I' am more critical and quite possibly pixel peeping, but again, I feel that it's my job to do this... is it not? If there's something out there that's better than what you have, it's in you and your client's best interest to at least give it thought and change over if deemed necessary and within reason.

[chrisk]

i have shots at iso 1600/ 2000. printable as 5x7. i also print 8x10's @ iso800 pretty comfortabley. (depending on blacks and shadows).

there is no PP NR here, just in-cam NR set to high.

here is an iso2000

[img]<a%20href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10435080@N00/804794377/"%20title="Photo%20Sharing"><img%20src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1085/804794377_064466c2a0.jpg"%20width="500"%20height="346"%20alt="DSC_5297%20copy"%20/></a>[/img]

this one is a 60% crop..
[img]<a%20href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10435080@N00/605910608/"%20title="Photo%20Sharing"><img%20src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1242/605910608_c71f196052.jpg"%20width="500"%20height="334"%20alt=""%20/></a>[/img]

these are all iso800 aswell. 1.7x TC aswell here cos the bird flew right next to me and i had no time to take it off.
[img]<a%20href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10435080@N00/804085480/"%20title="Photo%20Sharing"><img%20src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1358/804085480_cb5ef731bf.jpg"%20width="500"%20height="366"%20alt=""%20/></a>[/img]

[img]<a%20href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10435080@N00/574782002/"%20title="Photo%20Sharing"><img%20src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1373/574782002_11c2153478.jpg"%20width="500"%20height="323"%20alt="Rainbow%20Lorikeet"%20/></a>[/img]

[methd]

Hi Rooz,

Thanks for posting your pics up, but the conditions of high noise/little to no ambient light we are discussing is not relevant to the pictures you have posted.

I have many relatively clean pictures where there is plenty of available light at high ISO although I always try to avoid higher ISO during the day. I also see no real reason to shoot still subjects at faster than 1/100 and sacrifice higher ISO for that reason.

[chrisk]

i agree the bird ones are pretty irrelevant, that was actually a mistake from me to set the iso that high cos i was aiming for them in flight @ 340mm so i needed a high iso to keep my shutter up...that bird just kinda flew into me.

but the 2 shots of my little boy are in very little light. both are shot at f2.8, 1/30s. the iso in both circumstances was bumped up to the level i needed to give me a minimum shutter speed of 1/30s with the lens wide open to take advantage of whatever available light there was.

if there was more available ambient light at those iso's my shutter speed would have been well over 1/100s.

[methd]

Sure, but I think the light wasn't low enough as you could still get away without a flash (or you used one?).

This following image is taken at ISO1000 and there's not that much noise as there's still enough ambient light, so all is not lost. A flash was used though, for fill at 1/64.



The problem I believe is when the D200 is used at say f/2.8, 1/50, ISO800 and the picture is STILL at least 1-2 stops underexposed (pretty much at the limits of getting as much light as you can in). So a flash is required to light the subject. If there was no flash the entire picture would be so underexposed that the entire image would be unusable. In those circumstances, I think the background noise factor really comes into play and the camera fails miserably.

[rooboy]

The other problem with high ISOs which is more relevant for me is the loss of fine detail, and the colour going mushy & ugly. My D200 is probably worse than the D70 in retaining fine detail, it really isn't a 10MP camera above ISO800. Plus, the colour desaturates & colour shifts occur (and of course, and post processing which attempts to correct this problem brings out more noise).

This probably isn't a problem for those using high ISOs during daylight, such as sports shooters & bug chasers. Noise is never going to be a problem when there's a high signal/noise ratio.

Can't wait for the 5D successor to jump ship

[chrisk]

Sure, but I think the light wasn't low enough as you could still get away without a flash (or you used one?).

i'm confused...what would u consider low light then ??? if the cam is set at f2.8 in Ap and i need iso2000 to get me to 1/30s, i'd say thats pretty low light. so i'm a little unclear what u mean.

there is no flash used in the photos, but thats entirely the point of high iso capability isnt it ? the ability to take advantage of ambient light by increasing the sensors sensitivity to whatever shreds of light there are so you don;t need to use a flash. if you're gonna use a flash it defeats the purpose and basically renders the whole high iso debate fairly redundant.

[methd]

I'm saying the lighting conditions is not low enough that you need to use a flash. The picture you posted showed less noise as the light from the room lights shone directly on the baby's face thereby exposing the baby's face properly. Also is there a reason why only the ISO is stripped from the EXIF data when nothing else is?

Another thing of interest is you are using a D80 - and unless you're shooting RAW, the D80 has much much better noise control than the D200.

Try shooting with those settings with a few of candles behind the subject and see what sort of noise you get. In many shots that I take, I don't have the luxury of placing the subject under a light source (which will always expose the subject better).

Keep in mind I don't use any noise reduction software. I'm looking for ways of faster out-of-camera shots with the least amount of processing.

[chrisk]

I'm saying the lighting conditions is not low enough that you need to use a flash. The picture you posted showed less noise as the light from the room lights shone directly on the baby's face thereby exposing the baby's face properly. Also is there a reason why only the ISO is stripped from the EXIF data when nothing else is?

Another thing of interest is you are using a D80 - and unless you're shooting RAW, the D80 has much much better noise control than the D200.

Try shooting with those settings with a few of candles behind the subject and see what sort of noise you get. In many shots that I take, I don't have the luxury of placing the subject under a light source (which will always expose the subject better).

Keep in mind I don't use any noise reduction software. I'm looking for ways of faster out-of-camera shots with the least amount of processing.

i know i'm using a d80 lol, this thread was about noise in nikon bodies and as i stated earlier in the thread, the models that came after the d200 are far more comparable with canon's iso performance. that was the whole point of me posting some high iso images. most of the guys i shoot with are canon guys and the canon iso performance is only a poofteenth better than the newer nikons and even then it is noticeable only after iso1600, not before.

you will also find that the canon's normally have more noise per se at higher iso's than the nikons however they maintain greater detail and truer colour rendition. which is a much better way to handle noise becasue it reproduces a better image. you can tone down noise grain in PP but you can never revive lost detail or innacurate colour casts.

as for the exif data. the d80 only numerically goes to iso 1600. the settings after that HI0.3, HI0.7; HI1.0 which is the equivalanet range from iso2000 to iso3200. flickr is unable to register these values so it does not display them so the shot must have been between iso2000 and iso3200 or the iso would have been displayed in flickr details. happy for you to think i was lying about the iso2000 but that means that it could only have been a higher iso value equivalent . lol

still dont get where your going with the flash and iso...anyhow...nevermind. regarding the exposure of the face. you will notice that the expsosures in both instances are set to expose for the lightest part of the face where the light was coming from. if i had exposed for the shadows then this would have blown the highlights from the lighter part of the baby's face to buggery. this again shows how dim the lighting was. if i had used a flash i would have gotten a much cleaner image of course but again...the point of high iso is to avoid having to use one.

i see what your saying about the background shadows/ darkness but most people don't use or need high iso for that purpose. most people will use high iso in order to AVOID using the flash to capture their subject. use of iso to highlight detail in the background will always render a noisier image, particualrly if the foreground is illuminated by a flash. btw, i only shoot RAW and i don't use any NR PP. i may just try your "candle test" to see how we go.

[methd]

Yep. Right at the beginning we all agreed that the D40x>D80>D200 for noise at high ISO, but we somehow shifted the topic to the D200 only. I'm confident that at ISO2000 on a D200 would spell total disaster under low lighting and no flash. I don't agree with detail in the Nikons though. You lose it totally when noise starts coming on

I also mentioned I'm anticipating the release of this D3 in the coming 12 months or so as I've invested a fair bit in lenses which I don't really want to sell. If Nikon can catch up here, which I think they may do, then I will be VERY happy (and only need to sell the 17-55).

I'm only bagging the D200 because I really really want them to fix it in the newer models and it appears they're slowly doing it.

[chrisk]

I don't agree with detail in the Nikons though. You lose it totally when noise starts coming on.

i meant that the canon retains detail and colour better, this is especially noticeable >iso1600. (for the d80 anyway, probably >iso800 in the d200).

i can't wait for the D3 either IF it ever comes out. either people will be really happy and upgrade or be really pissed and move to canon. either way there's likely to be a firesale on d200's or even d2X's and i'm hopin to bag me some bargains.

[MATT]

If there's something out there that's better than what you have, it's in you and your client's best interest to at least give it thought and change over if deemed necessary and within reason.

Couldn't agree more.

Very interesting about the clients and internet access. I guess its a way to share with everyone in your family.

Cheers
MATT

[jamesw]

either do a candle test or go out on a street and shoot stuff with only the ambient light from a street light. you will soon discover the iso limitations of your d200... but i doubt its that big a deal for anyone.