Liquidstone Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
Your excellent samples and insights didn't disappoint, TS..... that ISO 12.8K shot is insane!
I see that your workflow is DPP-based. I personally favor ACR conversions because my experience shows ACR can extract more detail than DPP at similar noise levels. Alternatively, ACR is less noisy at the same level of details.
This just shows that regardless of one's preferred workflow, 7D files can be useable at high ISOs if captured and "cooked" right.
TeamSpeed wrote:
Sure Romy, I will bite!
Here are my thoughts on the answer to the question posed, and this is based on 3 years of threads of "the 7D is noisy", and my own workflow developed during this time.
The reason for variances isn't so much camera variance (I have had 3 through the years with very slight differences, if any) but rather because of a combination of the following 3 things.
- Underexposure of the image by 2/3 stop or more
- The software tools utilized to process the raw and jpg files
- The skills of or the techniques utilized by the person using these tools
These 3 factors play the largest part of all the variances found. For those that have changed what they do or use in regards to these 3 things have found that their keeper rates increase by at least one more stop.
My recipe in a nutshell is this:
1) Shoot in raw (no other way to get the most detail out of your image)
2) Shoot with subdued picture styles (neutral, sharpness turned almost all the way down), and high ISO NR set to standard and lighting optimizer/highlight priority turned off
3) Shoot to the right, what you see in the histogram edges on the camera is not the extremes, you still have a stop or two at either end once you work with the raw
3) Process raw with DPP, bring the color NR slider down a few notches, sharpness on the 2nd tab turned up a bit
4) Take the resulting JPG and run an action that uses Noiseware on each color channel along with some other techniques to pull out noise, and sharpen the image at the same time.
Here is an ISO 2500 shot where I show a crop of of the OOC JPG vs the resulting JPG after taking the raw and doing what I outline. It is a great shot, nor is it super detailed as I was using my Sigma 50-500 as a macro lens.
http://teamspeed.smugmug.com/Electronics/CS3-7D-High-ISO-Denoiser/i-SLJKR7Q/0/O/7D17245oocjpgcrop.jpg
Here is an OOC JPG at ISO 4000 from my 7D (which, as of last night, I no longer own, as I have traded it to my brother for a lens). Then after that is a link where I processed the raw and JPG.
ISO 4000 7D OOC
ISO 4000 7D Processed
As to ISO 6400, I shot this entire game with a 7D at ISO 6400 to proove a point to someone, some shots are at 12800 as well. Some are good, others not so much, but that would be because of my lack of skills as a photog, and not the 7D.
http://teamspeed.smugmug.com/Sports/Mad-Ants-Mar-3-2012
Here is one 12800 shot, if you are curious.
http://teamspeed.smugmug.com/Sports/Mad-Ants-Mar-3-2012/i-wH3mQbn/0/X3/IMG7374dpp-X3.jpg
...Show more →
|