Problems with image noise...

T

terryfoster60

Messages
6
Name
Terence Foster
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi everyone my name is Terry and I am from Hull. (UK)
I have several questions but I'll try and keep this as a starter topic regarding noise on photographs.
I have had a discussion on FB regarding Mobile cameras versus Bridge and SLR, and people tell me SLR is the way to go.

I take pictures for reference in my art.
I have three cameras.
1. Canon E550d with main lens 18-200 but this is heavy and restricts my zoom to 200.
Pros it can process RAW but it is only 18mp

2. Panasonic FZ82 20-1200 zoom with 18mp again.
Pros - lightweight with great 64x zoom.
Cons - cannot edit Raw RW2 files on Windows 7 or 10.

3. Phone camera Samsung A13 with 50mp camera - always on hand.
Pros - clearer image with less noise
cons - point and shoot!

I had a discussion on fb with people saying my phone is inferior - however I proved otherwise with some sample photos and close ups.
The problem I have with the bridge and SLR is that the image has a lot of noise and I wondered why Panasonic had not at least considered upgrading its sensor to 50mp since its agvailable on phones!

I want to know how I can reduce noise on my camera images.

Id really love to improve on the panasonic FZ82 as it's features are amazing for the price.
I would not mind paying a bit more for an upgraded version but there has been no extension of the FZ82 for 3 years now to my knowledge.

I would attach images but it would appear I am unable to select and upload any at this moment.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Terry
 
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Hello and welcome Terry :D

You should be able to post pictures.

Make sure they meet the forum posting requirements, I keep mine slightly under at 1,000 pixels on the longest side and less than 500kb. I usually post using imgur (it's free) by copying and pasting the BBCode. You can also post direct by selecting the Insert Image icon above. You;ll see how to do it.

Other than that. Any decent camera should be a lot better than any phone camera but one thing the phone does is throw a lot of processing software at an image whereas the camera may not. oh, and 18mp is more than enough, and your camera sensors are vastly bigger than the sensor in the camera phone.
 
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Use a low ISO on the Canon and use a tripod if needed.

Also ensure the exposure is correct as an underexposed image will produce a lot of colour noise once you "bring it back" up to correct exposure.

All phones are inferior as a photographic device compared to a camera.

And ignore the megapixel count, that's used only to sell cameras / phones to the general populace.

The sensor size difference between a phone and a DSLR is huge.
 
The phone adds heavy noise removal to every image.. the cameras don’t.

Any camera from the last 10 years or more will destroy any phone in terms of quality.
Megapixels are a marketing gimmick that bares no relevancy to much Unless you are printing huge images or massively cropping into the image.
Phone sensors are tiny, a huge number of megapixels on a tiny sensor is far far worse than a small number of megapixels on a large sensor. It’s the size of the pixels that is important.. the more there are, the smaller they are.
Generally phones with these stupid high MP counts actually don’t produce images of that size, they pixel bin to about 12mp to make up for the fact the pixels are so small. Samsung phones have a special mode where you can use the full mp count, but it’s not used by default.
 
I attach following images.
Prefer to use lumix but mobile proving better res as detailed below
feedback welcome.
 

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terryfoster60 said:
I attach following images.
Prefer to use lumix but mobile proving better res as detailed below
feedback welcome.
Click to expand...
The phone image is clearly heavily processed and has the soft smearing associated with heavy noise reduction. The camera image has typical noise you’d see from a high iso shot. This could easily be cleaned up with a de noise tool and would provide a much cleaner file than the phone.
If you happy with the phone images, then use them, but to say it’s better than the camera just isn’t true.
 
terryfoster60 said:
feedback welcome.
Click to expand...

As already said, the phone image is smeary from heavy noise reduction. There's a lot more detail and information in the FZ image, and with correct processing will give a superior image to the phone picture. If you were using the Canon with a good lens (i.e. not the 18-200) then it would be superior again to the FZ.

You can consider the images from the 2 cameras to be a staring point for image development and processing. The pictures from the phone are what they are, and there's likely not much that can be done with them to make them perceptably better.

People have mentioned noise. This is a factor caused by using increased amplification from the camera sensor to make up for low light levels. The more amplification, the more background noise is amplified. If you take puctures at the lowest ISO value, you should see much less noise. Note that lens aperture and available light will also play a part. Correct use of cameras requires more than pointing it at the subject and leaving it to sort out the 'best' setting, however this is exactly the way the phone is designed to be used.
 
Thank you all for your feedback - never considered de-noising software.
Do you still get noise with RAW and RW2 files anyone?
Whats the best program for converting rw2 to raw files please.
Thank you everyone.
 
terryfoster60 said:
Do you still get noise with RAW and RW2 files anyone?
Click to expand...
RAW files are untouched by the camera and will contain noise, you can/should reduce this and enhance details with editing software.
Programs like Topaz etc will remove noise like your phone does but to a better level as the RAW file contains much greater info for the software to work with.

Sorry if I've covered anything you already know :)
 
Ive done photography for years but never got to grips with the digital stuff other than the basics.
Now Im nearing retirement - (which is a joke as I am an unemployed carer for dad!) - I shall have a little bit more time.
Thank you everyone for the feedback.
 
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It looks to me like you should be using a softer light source. Way too much glare in your photos, and some of what you are calling noise looks to me like glare.
Use a soft box, shoot through umbrella, or point the speedlite at an angle to reflect off a white wall or piece of white foam core to spread and soften the light before it hits your subject (statue).

Charley
 
All good advice the only thing I can add is that the main thing is just good light and get the exposure right
I’ve got shots from an older Canon than yours a 350D that I took years ago and still happy with them
As already said raw processing on a computer is key , I use DXO but most recent software is decent
 
A greater pixel density is more likely to contribute to noise, so sometimes less pixels are better. Generally newer sensors will be better at handling noise than old ones.

As already mentioned, the easiest way to lower noise is to lower the ISO and expose correctly. If what you are photographing doesn't move (which appears to be the case), you can put your ISO at 100 or 200, and leave the shutter open for longer to let enough light in to expose the shot properly. This probably means using a tripod so the camera is held still during the exposure.
 
The latest version of Lightroom classic has very good ai noise reduction built in now. It’s on par with Topaz denoise ai. If you already have LR, saves buying something else aswell.
 
I suppose; not to put too fine a point on it, it’s all about standards.

The DSLR will produce a higher quality image, than the compact, and worst will be the phone.

As @Bebop says, the crucial factors are pixel density, but then weigh against technology advances.

However, if the phone image is ‘good enough’ for your use, there’s no point in chasing better.

Also, as @LCPete posted, if you really want to produce ‘higher quality’ pics, the key is framing and lighting, not the camera.

So; if you want to really improve your output, get some decent lighting, pick up @Garry Edwards book, shoot with the dslr with a decent lens and process carefully.

But that’s an awful lot of effort, if you honestly can’t see the awful image processing that the phone is producing.
 
To everyone - thank you. All your points are valid.
I am an artist and often need to zoom into fine details of a photograph to identify what I am seeing.
That's why I am critical about detail.
Now I need to get right into the digital age and understand what all this peaking and histogram stuff is and how to use the technology.
I get pretty decent results normally but nothing like the outstanding sharp photographs I see elsewhere.
I've seen photographs of birds - feathered variety - which are crisp and beautiful with an oldr camera.
However by the time I get everything set up the bird is often in the next county!
Thanks everyone again.
 
terryfoster60 said:
To everyone - thank you. All your points are valid.
I am an artist and often need to zoom into fine details of a photograph to identify what I am seeing.
That's why I am critical about detail.
Now I need to get right into the digital age and understand what all this peaking and histogram stuff is and how to use the technology.
I get pretty decent results normally but nothing like the outstanding sharp photographs I see elsewhere.
I've seen photographs of birds - feathered variety - which are crisp and beautiful with an oldr camera.
However by the time I get everything set up the bird is often in the next county!
Thanks everyone again.
Click to expand...
Don't get hung up on noise. Hardly anyon cares. In fact it's normal to add a little during the output sharpening step, especially if you're going to print.

Extreme noise is a problem in so far as it can affect sharpness and colour accuracy. But even sharpness is a movable feast. I suspect that what you're seeing as sharpness is actually more to do with lighting, composition and contrast.
 
terryfoster60 said:
I've seen photographs of birds - feathered variety - which are crisp and beautiful with an oldr camera.
Click to expand...

Birding is THE most demanding form of photography for kit performance. While older DSLR bodies can give good results, the key part is the lens, often costing several thousands. There are lower cost alternatives (like Micro 43 cameras and lenses) but even those aren't cheap.
 
juggler said:
Don't get hung up on noise. Hardly anyon cares. In fact it's normal to add a little during the output sharpening step, especially if you're going to print.

Extreme noise is a problem in so far as it can affect sharpness and colour accuracy. But even sharpness is a movable feast. I suspect that what you're seeing as sharpness is actually more to do with lighting, composition and contrast.
Click to expand...
But the OP cares because the nose he is getting is hiding the details he wants to include in his paintings.
 
Bristolian said:
But the OP cares because the nose he is getting is hiding the details he wants to include in his paintings.
Click to expand...
And yet he hasn’t noticed that the camera phone is destroying all that detail?
Not to mention the damage done by the specular highlights.
 
A few things to clear up here which may help.

The sensors in your Panasonic and Canon cameras are much, much larger than the one in your phone. Megapixel count is nothing to do with sensor size, the phone sensor is absolutely tiny. To get around this, all smartphone cameras will take several images and stack them together and apply processing to improve the limited resolution and dynamic range of the tiny sensor. The phone is making all the decisions for you, and the images look good on a small phone screen. View them on a larger monitor and the issues will quickly become apparent. All other things being equal, the larger your sensor the better the image quality. There's a reason absolutely top spec professional cameras like the Canon R3 are only 24 megapixels, because more MP does not equal better images.

You will often see it said that shooting Raw is higher quality, but this needs a few caveats. A Raw file is just that, raw data from the image sensor with no processing applied. Put an unprocessed Raw image next to a phone photo, which has all of the above mentioned processing automatically applied and the Raw will absolutely look worse. You must process a Raw image file in image editing software such as Lightroom. The Raw is higher quality because it contains more data, but it is up to you to process the file and make use of that data. Straight out of camera a Raw will generally look washed out and soft compared to a processed jpeg, particularly from a phone.

As has been said above, the phone is automatically applying fairly aggressive noise reduction, which smears away fine detail, and then whacking a load of saturation, contrast and sharpening onto the image which makes it look good until you start pixel peeping. The fine detail is gone and there's no way of getting it back. All of the data is there in your Raw file you just need to make the processing decisions to bring it out. You also have the option on the Canon and Panasonic cameras of slowing your shutter speed, which will allow you to drop your ISO and make the noise go away.
 
juggler said:
No - he thinks it's hiding the details. It isn't. The painting details aren't at the pixel level of shot noise.
Click to expand...
Generally, you are quite correct, of course, but it's his perception.

I have a friend who uses photographs of people to create very lifelike portraits. He copies the photographs so finely that the end product looks like a photograph. His hair brushes have just one bristle and he paint one hair at a time ... which is partly why he takes months to complete a portrait :)
 
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