noise..me or my gear?

timmygcsc2308

timmygcsc2308

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Timmy
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Just looking at some stuff I took this morning, particularly this one:
8z4uo.jpg


it was taken at about 7.30am, ok so the ISO is 400 but thats not particularly disasterous I'm led to believe on a D90, the shutter speed is 1/640 and aperture f/9. Shot in RAW with a bit of PP sharpening (lvl 4), and a slight colour boost and exposure tweak

now here is a link to full size:
http://www.upload3r.com/serve/191010/1287488488.jpg

just looking at this image full size reveals very bad noise, look around the bridge towers for example.

Looking at these pics:
http://www.graemecampbell.net/?page=landscapes
they just look so 'clean' and sharp. (and if the photographer above is on this forum..I like your pics :thumbs:)

So the question is, is it:

a) my equipment vs his (from his flickr he's using a D700 therefore assume its a nice lens too). The D90 is supposedly good at noise handling and the 18-55mm lens is meant to be good for the money but am I expecting too much?

b) Something I've done wrong when shooting? or something on the camera I've not set properly? noise reduction in cam is turned off

c) something I've not done in PP? I've not reduced the noise at all, I always find I have to set sharpening to lv4 at least with my pics for them to look decent

for the record pics taken at ISO200 in sunny light look better:
http://imgur.com/lcZGX.jpg
(ISO200, f/11, 1/800sec, no PP done at all apart from a tiny crop and rotation)
but bearing in mind my focus point was central on the man in the alcove there seems to be quite a loss of fidelity
 
timmygcsc2308 said:
JShot in RAW with a bit of PP sharpening (lvl 4), and a slight colour boost and exposure tweak
Click to expand...

If it was brightening the shot up a little, then I'd say that's where noise would be introduced! A lot of the time incorrect exposure is the reason for noise being present, people try and pull detail out of the shadows and get a whole load of noise!

The full-frame D700 should be better an handling noise, but the D90 is pretty impressive too from what I hear! Some people prefer to over-expose slightly, then darken in the image in PP to get rid of noise, personally I reckon the best results come from just nailing the exposure :D (a skill I haven't acquired yet, but I'm working on it!)

For the record, I don't think the noise is particularly bad on that shot, a slight bit of noise reduction and it'd be spot on probably!

Chris
 
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Probably a bit of all :)

The D90 is a good camera, and 18-55 is an OK lens.. but probably not so good as a £1000 lens.

ISO could well be part the issue - why were you at 1/640s? There appears to be nothing overly fast moving in there, if you'd ~halved that you could've been at ISO200. The D90 does handle ISO well but it never hurts to be a bit lower!

I'd agree most of the noise is probably changing it post. Unfortunately with that sky without any sort of gradient filter things soemthing isn't going to be perfect exposure - not that it always needs to be, come to that!

But all that asides, that noise isn't at all bad!
 
Almost all the noise is in shadows. Like turning up an old crackly casette tape and hearing the noises get louder, dragging the exposure out of the shadows just exacerbates noise hugely.
 
to echo some of the above, fiddling with exposure post shot can affect noise levels quite drastically.

but to be honest that shot doesnt look too noisey at all to me.. but then ive been shooting at 6400 recently.
 
I can see some haloing around the towers as well. Doesn't look too noisy to me though. Not having a dig but I think people get too hung up on noise tbh - doesn't show up half as much when printed anyway.
 
looks not too bad but i'd be asking why you selected a higher ISO in the first place at 1/640
 
BandyQuill said:
i dont know if its my eyes/screen but the top of the 2 towers seem to have some Halo action around them...
Click to expand...

grum said:
I can see some haloing around the towers as well.
Click to expand...

That's actually a very very common thing with Tower Bridge. Take a look at a couple of the numerous half light (ie dawn/dusk) shots on Google and you'll see a similar effect.

It's mainly down to the gold finishing on the tops of the towers which are an absolute CA nightmare compared to the rest of the image, especially when trying to get the exposure right for the dark stone and roof slates.
It's much worse at dusk rather than dawn, however.
 
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Well if you're comparing your shot to the other photographer you're not comparing like to like.

Your original shot is full size whereas his is much smaller which will naturally reduce noise and increase apparent sharpness.

Comparing your small shot to his small shots there isn't any noticeable noise and you could easily increase the sharpness in your small shot.

.
 
The halo is from the sharpening, I bet you won't see it on the original.
Using a layer mask and painting out the high contrast areas to remove some of the sharpening helps. (especially if using less sharpening would undersharpen other parts of the image.)
 
Have you used the contrast masking technique? It would explain the halo around the towers and the high noise in the darkness as you've lightened them to pull out detail.
 
thanks for all the ideas, advice and opinions guys, taken all on board, there is too much to reply to individually but I was on ISO400 because the sun was rising fast and I didn't change it down (school boy error but I was really late for the conference already so was rushing ha!). I did indeed tweak the exposure up and the halo'ing..well..I don't know I think the monitor I'm using doesn't really reveal it :shrug: I think I can slight see it
here is a completely unedited one from a slightly different angle:
http://wimg.co.uk/k2r.jpg
 
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