Canon 50D problem?

[tdodd]

Mr Dodd, your words are ones to live by. Fascinating reading in this thread which has lead me to read more and widen my understanding of noise, exposure, histograms, f stops, pixels, sensors and crop factors. Many thanks.

Ta, muchly. I do try to post useful information and I do try to explain the reasoning behind my beliefs and suggestions. Sometimes this falls on deaf ears or simply winds people up, but hopefully, once in a while, a nugget of wisdom emerges from my keyboard that does help people understand their equipment and their photography a little better. Of course, I'm far from expert in these things and just trying to improve my skills along with everyone else, but it can be enlightening to delve into the problems that others are facing as the research improves my own understanding of such things.

What lens did you use? I've been pleased even with the 50D's onboard noise reduction.

Who are you addressing? Squizza? Me? Someone else?

If me, all the birdy shots were with my 100-400. The wedding shots were with my 70-200/2.8IS. The theatre shots were with my 50/1.4 and the "ISO Test" shots were with my 85/1.8.

As a raw shooter, on board NR is irrelevant to my shooting. More often than not I do not even touch the default settings for NR in my raw processing software. When I use Lightroom, which is 99.9% of the time I leave NR at 0,25. In DPP I leave the software to choose its own defaults, which varies by camera body and ISO. I may intervene if I feel the need but usually I leave things alone. Once in a while a shot is in need of a much bigger dose of NR and then I will turn to Neat Image, but that is very rare. Since I don't use software with layers and masks I cannot apply NR selectively to the background or other troublesome areas but Neat Image can usually do a very nice job of cleaning up a messy background while leaving the subject not too badly bruised.

 

[theonemule]

Who are you addressing? Squizza? Me? Someone else?

If me, all the birdy shots were with my 100-400. The wedding shots were with my 70-200/2.8IS. The theatre shots were with my 50/1.4 and the "ISO Test" shots were with my 85/1.8.

As a raw shooter, on board NR is irrelevant to my shooting. More often than not I do not even touch the default settings for NR in my raw processing software. When I use Lightroom, which is 99.9% of the time I leave NR at 0,25. In DPP I leave the software to choose its own defaults, which varies by camera body and ISO. I may intervene if I feel the need but usually I leave things alone. Once in a while a shot is in need of a much bigger dose of NR and then I will turn to Neat Image, but that is very rare. Since I don't use software with layers and masks I cannot apply NR selectively to the background or other troublesome areas but Neat Image can usually do a very nice job of cleaning up a messy background while leaving the subject not too badly bruised.

I didn't know. I use the NR for snapshots and the like when I don't care to do much post processing. I use lightroom otherwise for RAW stuff. Never used Meat Image before....Is that a plugin, feature, separate program...? I otherwise take it into photoshop and do layered noise reductions. But it is time consuming, and I'm always looking for a way to speed things up.

 

[u8myufo]

Ta, muchly. I do try to post useful information and I do try to explain the reasoning behind my beliefs and suggestions. Sometimes this falls on deaf ears or simply winds people up, but hopefully, once in a while, a nugget of wisdom emerges from my keyboard that does help people understand their equipment and their photography a little better. Of course, I'm far from expert in these things and just trying to improve my skills along with everyone else, but it can be enlightening to delve into the problems that others are facing as the research improves my own understanding of such things.
.

Well said Tim. This discussion made me think back to when I used film, to me being a complete newbie at the time noise did not come into the equation it was grain. I would use what I thought was the best suited film for the occassion ASA wise, and would snap away happily. When viewed I would class my shots as either good or bad. After throwing away so many duff shots this automaticaly taught me to stop placing the blame with anything but myself and to start understanding my camera more and controlling the varied situations I was shooting under.

I just stumbled across this site http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/ which has a lot of useful stuff on it, some being over my head mind it I have not added the link for a film v digital debate but for the fact that there is a lot of information and diagrams for those that want to read up. The guy summed up my thoughts, are we expecting too much as manufacturers push the boundaries? We can only answer that as individuals imo. If those images you have presented us with were mine, then I would be more than happy with them. I certainly dont see noise in the example of the lady in your shot as my eye is drawn to those attractive eyes and lovely smile

 

[Dogfish_magnet]

looking thought some images from the D300 & the 50D its not so much the noise levels but how the noise appears -looking at the images now I'm not even sure if its noise or something else - Here's a couple of images one from a D300 and one from a 50D the images have just been re-sized and sharpenend - click for full size images which have just been converted from raw to jpeg nothing else. warning they are big files.


First up D300
Sigma 105mm Macro
1/320
f16
ISO 200 (the D300 does not have 100 as a native setting)
Flash - Nikon R1 macro twin light




2nd up the 50D - you can see the effect that annoys me and shows as a noisy liney blocky type thing (tech term )

Canon MP-E65
f11
1/160
ISO 100
Flash - MT24-Ex







if you avoid shooting anything with dark areas the quality is spot on

 

[u8myufo]

Well sorry to dampen your spirit Paul but I can see nowt wrong with what are imo fantastic images :shrug:

 

[tdodd]

Never used Meat Image before....Is that a plugin, feature, separate program...?

Neat Image can be used as a standalone program or as a plugin to Photoshop. Since I don't use Photoshop I use it as a standalone app, but Lightroom can interact with it quite well. While editing an image in Lightroom I can at any time right click the image and then choose "Edit in" and then pick "Neat Image", which I have set up earlier as an external editing application. I complete my noise work in Neat Image, save the file, close Neat Image and I am returned to Lightroom with the noise processed file open in the Develop Module to finish off sharpening and export.

If those images you have presented us with were mine, then I would be more than happy with them. I certainly dont see noise in the example of the lady in your shot as my eye is drawn to those attractive eyes and lovely smile

Thanks. The shot of the lady as shown is already a crop from 3:2 so quite a bit of the file has been chucked, and I certainly find the noise acceptable for 3200 ISO. Here is the full frame prior to cropping, and with only default NR as offered by DPP. This has not been through Neat Image and editing is minimal - change picture style, adjust WB and sharpen to my standard value of 3....

Well sorry to dampen your spirit Paul but I can see nowt wrong with what are imo fantastic images :shrug:

I agree. I don't see a problem in either one. Perhaps there's a problem with my 47 year old eyes.

 

[jockwav]

Thanks for a really good read,that was really interesting tdodd.

 

[Nifkin]

Thanks for a really good read,that was really interesting tdodd.

+1 to that. Have susbscribed to this thread because I've found it so useful. Mr Dodd, your explanations have been delivered with an erudition and a clarity that would put many a "how-to" user guide to shame. I'll look forward to further installments.. please!

 

[tdodd]

I know it's been a while but I just uploaded an album to show comparative IQ from my 40D and 50D when used under the same conditions of lighting, processing(Lightroom defaults), subject, lens, exposure etc.. I originally showed an example from the album back in post #50. Here are all the results from both cameras at ISOs from 100-3200....

http://picasaweb.google.com/EezyTiger/40D50DISO?authkey=Gv1sRgCOTJjLOY6JOhyAE#

I output the images at dimensions large enough to fit a full HD TV/monitor with a resolution of 1920x1080. However, the website will resize them as necessary to fit whatever monitor you are using. If you view as a slideshow and press F11 to make your browser display in fullscreen mode they should be displayed as large as possible for your screen.

 

[Byker28i]

"This user has no public albums"

No pictures. Cheers

 

[tdodd]

I don't have any public albums, that's true, but the link I posted should allow people to view that one specific album because the "authkey" is supplied in the link. I logged out of my own Picasaweb account and the link still worked for me, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I tried it on another browser as well, in which I have not logged on to my Picasaweb account, and it worked perfectly well there too.

Can anyone else confirm whether or not the link works?

 

[CT]

Can anyone else confirm whether or not the link works?

Works just fine for me.

 

[tdodd]

Cheers, CT.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

Works for me too.

Vert informative contributions to the thread tdodd

 

[MatBin]

looking thought some images from the D300 & the 50D its not so much the noise levels but how the noise appears -looking at the images now I'm not even sure if its noise or something else - Here's a couple of images one from a D300 and one from a 50D the images have just been re-sized and sharpenend - click for full size images which have just been converted from raw to jpeg nothing else. warning they are big files.


First up D300
Sigma 105mm Macro
1/320
f16
ISO 200 (the D300 does not have 100 as a native setting)
Flash - Nikon R1 macro twin light



2nd up the 50D - you can see the effect that annoys me and shows as a noisy liney blocky type thing (tech term )

Canon MP-E65
f11
1/160
ISO 100
Flash - MT24-Ex



if you avoid shooting anything with dark areas the quality is spot on

Looked just fine to me too.

Excellent Thread, a good read, very informative.

Perhaps we are all just getting caught up in what modern DSLR are capable of. I used film at Iso 1000 years ago in 35mm format, now that was 'noisy'.

Matt