Question regarding setting up a 5DM2

AndyHayball

AndyHayball

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Hey people,

Wonder if someone can help. I need some assistance setting up my 5D.

I think I've done a good job. But I've basically just turned off every "special feature" I could. Noise reduction, auto light ect.

Basically I shoot RAW and want to know what's good to turn on and what's good to turn off.

I also know a lot of the features are specific to JPEG only but please let me know with RAW setup in mind.

The reason I ask is I'm not really seing what people are talking about with regard to ISO performance. My old 600D was nearly as good 90% as good in my opinion. Which leads me to think I'm setting it up wrong.

Also the RAW files at 3200 look great and clean in RAW format but once you process the picture the noise jumps out real bad for me.

Maybe I'm expecting a D3S and it's not.

Sorry for long post and thanks anyone that helps me out
 
If they look clean as raw files without anything adjusted you must be over processing them and producing noise.
 
rjbell said:
If they look clean as raw files without anything adjusted you must be over processing them and producing noise.
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Yep my thoughts exactly

But also maybe it's not set up properly

It's more often the case user error and not the camera BUT maybe im missing a golden setting.

Any 5D uses want to chime in also?
 
AndyHayball said:
Also the RAW files at 3200 look great and clean in RAW format but once you process the picture the noise jumps out real bad for me.
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I'm not sure what you mean by this, you can't view a RAW file per se, it has to be processed to some degree to view at all. What software are you using?

What you may actually actually be viewing is the low resolution preview jpg that is embedded in the RAW file. This will look cleaner than a default processed RAW image as it has been down scaled and detail is lost. In Lightroom for instance, this is what you see when you first click on an image in the Library module before the Raw is decoded.

RAW at ISO 3200 from a mk2 will inevitably have visible noise (depending on how much light was available and your shutter speed) but it should respond well to NR.
 
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ISO 3200 will look noisy for sure; the way to control it is to expose the shot as far to the right as is practical and reasonable, and add a moderate NR in post. My first preference would be ISO 1600 and drop the aperture first
 
ChrisJ_SLH said:
I'm not sure what you mean by this, you can't view a RAW file per se, it has to be processed to some degree to view at all. What software are you using?

What you may actually actually be viewing is the low resolution preview jpg that is embedded in the RAW file. This will look cleaner than a default processed RAW image as it has been down scaled and detail is lost. In Lightroom for instance, this is what you see when you first click on an image in the Library module before the Raw is decoded.

RAW at ISO 3200 from a mk2 will inevitably have visible noise (depending on how much light was available and your shutter speed) but it should respond well to NR.
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Thanks for the reply, I use the windows picture viewer and it comes up fine? I downloaded the codec from canon to be able to view CR2 files.

As far as I'm aware this is the RAW file and not a preview? I could be wrong and I'm sure your correct on the mater.
 
daugirdas said:
ISO 3200 will look noisy for sure; the way to control it is to expose the shot as far to the right as is practical and reasonable, and add a moderate NR in post. My first preference would be ISO 1600 and drop the aperture first
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Thanks for the reply, indeed what I'm learning is expose to the right more and noise is less. Bring back shadow detail from underexposed pictures at 3200 isn't fun. But that's my user error and I need to learn to bump the exposure a little.

Thanks again for the reply
 
AndyHayball said:
Thanks for the reply, indeed what I'm learning is expose to the right more and noise is less. Bring back shadow detail from underexposed pictures at 3200 isn't fun. But that's my user error and I need to learn to bump the exposure a little.

Thanks again for the reply
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yes, I just have mine with +2/3 correction by default and adjust as necessary when in Av
 
daugirdas said:
yes, I just have mine with +2/3 correction by default and adjust as necessary when in Av
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Yep that's what I'm gonna start doing. Does help that canon are generally darker than Nikon counterpart shutter speeds. Maybe that's why they always appear better at ISO.
 
could you post an example? also what software were you using to do noise reduction?


i am very happy with 5D2's low light performance, i'd happily shoot at 6400 and even H1 12800 if required. i found 6400 is cleaner than D3100's (my previous camera) 3200.

i also did test print at 3200, 6400, 12800 and noise reduced 12800. all 6x4 photos look fantastic and unless you look at it with a magnifying glass, they all look great.

so have you tried printing them? don't pixel peep at 1:1, that's not photography, that's gear lust.
 
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wuyanxu said:
could you post an example? also what software were you using to do noise reduction?

i am very happy with 5D2's low light performance, i'd happily shoot at 6400 and even H1 12800 if required. i found 6400 is cleaner than D3100's (my previous camera) 3200.

i also did test print at 3200, 6400, 12800 and noise reduced 12800. all 6x4 photos look fantastic and unless you look at it with a magnifying glass, they all look great.
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I posted a picture at 3200 of a band the other day.

I think the noise was bad as it may have been underexposed and brought back up hence the noise. Also sharpening brings out the noise I'm finding out.

The picture I posted was noise reduced at 3200 as without it there was a snow storm
 
url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/83778129@N04/7965131630/]
7965131630_00d333e03f_b.jpg
[/url]
Saffire by AndyHayball, on Flickr
 
AndyHayball said:
I posted a picture at 3200 of a band the other day.

I think the noise was bad as it may have been underexposed and brought back up hence the noise. Also sharpening brings out the noise I'm finding out.

The picture I posted was noise reduced at 3200 as without it there was a snow storm
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yes, turning up brightness WILL produce noise. so try to avoid that.

for sharpening, use masking to only sharpen larger details, use it to avoid sharpen noise flakes.

that picture looks good, doesn't seem noisy at all to my eyes. :thinking:
 
wuyanxu said:
yes, turning up brightness WILL produce noise. so try to avoid that.

for sharpening, use masking to only sharpen larger details, use it to avoid sharpen noise flakes.

that picture looks good, doesn't seem noisy at all to my eyes. :thinking:
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Yea I used noise reduction but to me it's always a double edged sword as you always loose sharpness when noise reducing the image.

Also I'm a big fan of masking sharpness and very low radius and detail slider in Lightroom.

The clarity slider in Lightroom really adds noise which I don't like. I love clarity but not when the image is 3200 ISO.

Totally user error with that shot. I could have used ISO 1600 and a shutter of 30 and it would have been good.

The image is saved and a good image in my estimation because of the post processing. Without it the image wouldn't look half as good.

I'm trying to get it correct at source much more now and less processing in post
 
AndyHayball said:
Thanks for the reply, I use the windows picture viewer and it comes up fine? I downloaded the codec from canon to be able to view CR2 files.

As far as I'm aware this is the RAW file and not a preview? I could be wrong and I'm sure your correct on the mater.
Click to expand...

As I said the RAW is just that, RAW, and must be decoded before being viewed at all by anything. The Canon RAW codec that you have installed is doing just that to display your image in Windows Explorer. It will also be applying a default amount of noise reduction which is likely why your files look cleaner when viewed in explorer than they do without any NR when you do a default conversion in your RAW processing software (whatever you are using).

Turning NR on in camera when shooting RAW does nothing different to the RAW file itself. It merely embeds data in the RAW file which tells the conversion program to apply the appropriate processing. This is the same for things like Highlight Tone Priority, Peripheral Illumination Correction, picture styles, even Black & White (google bayer filtering for an explanation). The conversion programme picks up that you have them set and applies them during conversion, the RAW image data is same regardless. As you have turned everything off in camera then the conversion programme will likely be picking this up and giving you a warts and all conversion. Not a problem though, just apply some NR manually.

This is the beauty of shooting RAW, it enables an element of automation but allows you to go back after the fact and have a good fiddle. Try converting a B&W jpg to colour....
 
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ChrisJ_SLH said:
As I said the RAW is just that, RAW, and must be decoded before being viewed at all by anything. The Canon RAW codec that you have installed is doing just that to display your image in Windows Explorer. It will also be applying a default amount of noise reduction which is likely why your files look cleaner when viewed in explorer than they do without any NR when you do a default conversion in your RAW processing software (whatever you are using).

Turning NR on in camera when shooting RAW does nothing different to the RAW file itself. It merely embeds data in the RAW file which tells the conversion program to apply the appropriate processing. This is the same for things like Highlight Tone Priority, Peripheral Illumination Correction, picture styles, even Black & White (google bayer filtering for an explanation). The conversion programme picks up that you have them set and applies them during conversion, the RAW image data is same regardless. As you have turned everything off in camera then the conversion programme will likely be picking this up and giving you a warts and all conversion. Not a problem though, just apply some NR manually.

This is the beauty of shooting RAW, it enables an element of automation but allows you to go back after the fact and have a good fiddle. Try converting a B&W jpg to colour....
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the explanation. I wasn't aware about that.

That's the great thing about RAW. I can fix and edit with a better degree of fidelity.

I can honestly say I've never even shot a JPEG to try it. Always been RAW since day 1.

I love editing so it's no problem for me
 
ChrisJ_SLH said:
As I said the RAW is just that, RAW, and must be decoded before being viewed at all by anything. The Canon RAW codec that you have installed is doing just that to display your image in Windows Explorer. It will also be applying a default amount of noise reduction which is likely why your files look cleaner when viewed in explorer than they do without any NR when you do a default conversion in your RAW processing software (whatever you are using).

Turning NR on in camera when shooting RAW does nothing different to the RAW file itself. It merely embeds data in the RAW file which tells the conversion program to apply the appropriate processing. This is the same for things like Highlight Tone Priority, Peripheral Illumination Correction, picture styles, even Black & White (google bayer filtering for an explanation). The conversion programme picks up that you have them set and applies them during conversion, the RAW image data is same regardless. As you have turned everything off in camera then the conversion programme will likely be picking this up and giving you a warts and all conversion. Not a problem though, just apply some NR manually.

This is the beauty of shooting RAW, it enables an element of automation but allows you to go back after the fact and have a good fiddle. Try converting a B&W jpg to colour....
Click to expand...

Also do you suggest turning everything off as I do? If I will edit in post
 
AndyHayball said:
Also do you suggest turning everything off as I do? If I will edit in post
Click to expand...

To be honest, it doesn't really matter.

I personally have Peripheral Illumination Correction enabled as it deals with the vignetting quite well and High ISO NR at standard. The mk3 also has a CA correction facility which I enable.

It just saves a bit of time in post processing. As I said, you can always override them if you want. The RAW data is always there for the messing about with.
 
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ChrisJ_SLH said:
To be honest, it doesn't really matter.

I personally have Peripheral Illumination Correction enabled as it deals with the vignetting quite well and High ISO NR at standard. The mk3 also has a CA correction facility which I enable.

It just saves a bit of time in post processing. As I said, you can always override them if you want. The RAW data is always there for the messing about with.
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Ok great. If I enable the above features are they affecting the Raw file?

Also I only shoot raw. Not Jpeg and raw so I'm only left with raw
 
AndyHayball said:
Ok great. If I enable the above features are they affecting the Raw file?

Also I only shoot raw. Not Jpeg and raw so I'm only left with raw
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The only effect they should have on the RAW file should be what the RAW file tells the conversion software to do. The RAW image image should be unchanged.

The only slight exception to this is HTP lowers the selected ISO by one stop the tells the conversion software to push it a stop later in conversion, shooting to the left effectively to emphasize highlight tones over shadow tones (compared to shooting to the right). So the RAW isn't really altered, just the ISO settings are overridden by a stop.
 
ChrisJ_SLH said:
The only effect they should have on the RAW file should be what the RAW file tells the conversion software to do. The RAW image image should be unchanged.

The only slight exception to this is HTP lowers the selected ISO by one stop the tells the conversion software to push it a stop later in conversion, shooting to the left effectively to emphasize highlight tones over shadow tones (compared to shooting to the right). So the RAW isn't really altered, just the ISO settings are overridden by a stop.
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Thanks again for the schooling. I was aware about the RAW information but good to know about HTP. I have it off as I want to have the "true" exposure.
 
Soda Farl said:
You have way over abused the clarity slider in lightroom.

Was the original really soft?
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Not really, original was fine. At F11 it was all great. Just noisy. I actually have clarity slider about 25 (not too much at all) as it just made stuff more noisy any higher.
 
AndyHayball said:
Not really, original was fine. At F11 it was all great. Just noisy. I actually have clarity slider about 25 (not too much at all) as it just made stuff more noisy any higher.
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MMm thats odd the image looks like it is much higher than that.
 
AndyHayball said:
Not really, original was fine. At F11 it was all great. Just noisy. I actually have clarity slider about 25 (not too much at all) as it just made stuff more noisy any higher.
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Could I ask why you chose f/11?

You would have probably been fine a couple of stops lower at that sort of distance and still maintained depth of focus for shot. That way you could slashed your ISO from 3200 to 800.
 
ChrisJ_SLH said:
Could I ask why you chose f/11?

You would have probably been fine a couple of stops lower at that sort of distance and still maintained depth of focus for shot. That way you could slashed your ISO from 3200 to 800.
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That's what I've learned now haha

I wanted 11 so everything was sharp. The tree leaves were actually about 10 meters behind the band.

If I was to shoot again it would be ISO 1250 and shutter 40/50 and f8 for sure.

My 24-105 has IS so 50 at 24mm would have been fine.

Every day is a school day eh
 
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