And compeletely off topic, this guy right here rarely smiles. I have taken a ton of shots of him at the games, and even more when I thought I would but didn't. Larry doesn't smile much at games. I think his security contingent smiled more than he did, one of which I affectionately called Andre, because he was huge and had this squarish jaw thing going on.
AmbientMike wrote:
It sounds like I need to back off a bit to look at the noise. Which sounds good, actually, I may have been overdoing it.
What percentage do you like to zoom in?
Probably 50% to get a feel for the noise then 100% for fine details like eyes, but I often lower the opacity of the noise-filtered layer at the end.
Less is always more to me, plus it depends on the size of the final use
technic wrote:
On my 80D I use 1600 ISO if I have to, but prefer to stick to 800; 3200 ISO would be for must-have family shots etc. but that's really an emergency setting. High ISO IQ is a step up from the much older 450D, but nothing major IMHO (1/2-1 stop improvement?). Most of the time I use DPP plus some additional noise removal in Nick Denoise if I have to, especially with obtrusive noise in OOF areas of the picture. I usually set luminance NR lower than the standard value but not completely off. I find that chrominance NR in DPP can cause a strong reduction in color/vibrancy of details with High ISO images, so for important images I tone that down as much as possible.
What is acceptable really depends on the subject. I find that 1600 ISO can look great if there is plenty of detail in the subject. Problem is, High ISO is often used with action (fast movement) or low light where detail is compromised, and in such situations the noise and lack of DR can get ugly. There is lots of theory about input and output sharpening but I don't think there is a universal recipe for optimal results. I'm currently experimenting with 1600 ISO for my dragonfly shots because going from 1/4000 to 1/8000s exposure improves sharpness (because of the high speed) and sometimes the result (despite lower DR and more noise / more coarse details) is an improvement over 800 ISO (with a bit more motion blur); but again it really depends....Show more →
Yes, I've been using 1600 a lot for my dragonfly shots. It is pretty close to 100-800, imo, with a bit of pp. I'd really recommend it, one generally needs the higher ss. I definitely prefer 800 though, almost no loss going to 800.
I have thought about our conversation on high iso last winter quite a bit. It is an advantage to have the higher ISO settings on the new cameras, and the jpegs are nice, if you don't mind the lack of detail.
But the raws are maybe not as fabulous as the marketing material might suggest. Although there is some improvement.
Generally I can get the color back, imo, using saruration, etc, so I'll run chrominance NR up quite a bit. I'm not that big on color matching, though, mostly just want bright color.
TeamSpeed wrote:
What do you use for JPEG editing after DPP?
If you would like to share a raw, I can work through the steps I take (plus the Noiseware settings) and then share those back with you. My steps are all automated at this point for the 7D2 processing I do, but I can tear the process apart a bit if that helps.
I have done this with others, and also created a couple of "How to get the most of your XXXXX high ISO shots" threads on the POTN forum.
A word of warning, focus has to be spot on though for this all to work, with a good lens. If focus is off, the detail is then muddied by two factors, slightly OOF and then noise. The results never look very good when those two things come together....Show more →
Focus has to be spot on, in general, otherwise there isn't much point in that good lens
Yeah that's one of the things I like about Gimp, is that tutorials are often more manual, so feel free to tear it down. I'll see if I can get a raw posted, thanks! Do rattlenakes freak you out?
I actually like RAW Therapee for jpegs, it can remove purple fringing. It tends to give a lower iso, though, underexposes about 1/2-2/3 stop, on RAW, which is not good, for high iso, imo. Of course I use Gimp, as well, & a NR standalone.
But often I shoot JPEG, and put it in the phone, crop or resize using Resize Me, or maybe snapseed, for bird /insect ID shots, and avoid the computer.
Are you using default NR on DPP? I haven't found this to be a good idea, at all. Old or new versions.
BTW feel free to post photos of NBA hall of famers I was a Kareem & Magic fan, Lakers, though
dhphoto wrote:
Probably 50% to get a feel for the noise then 100% for fine details like eyes, but I often lower the opacity of the noise-filtered layer at the end.
Less is always more to me, plus it depends on the size of the final use
Yeah, resizing really cuts down on the noise. I'll try viewing at 50%. I should probably adjust opacity, more, on layers, too.
Talking about DPP and NR, I forgot to mention, on your last post, I ran around last year shooting jpegs because I thought my older body was sharper on JPEG than raw. Turns out, it was the default NR setting, at 2, on 3.15 version. Fun blasting away in JPEG mode though, hadn't done that much since the XT!!!
arbitrage wrote:
I always got nervous as my 7D2 got to 1600ISO...I surely shot it above that sometimes but trying to lower SS if possible is the better option. I ideally would like to be at ISO 800. That said, I've got better at NR over the years and I probably can handle 1600-2500 on the 7D2 these days.
With the Canon sensor you have to expose to the right....even if that means pushing ISO up further than you'd like to maintain the SS/Av you need/want, you will be better off than underexposing and trying to protect your ISO value. Canon sensors are not even close to ISO-less and therefore getting the exposure correct (pushed as far as possible without clipping important parts) is going to give you your best image.
On my D500 I shoot at 1600 more comfortably and will shoot that even up to 4000 when I need to...again I have to apply selective NR to get a pleasing result. The D500 sensor is ISO-less so I can shoot whatever I want (screw up) and I don't get penalized...that is a nice safety feature.......Show more →
Looking at the DPR image comparison tool, I was a bit surprised that the 7D2 was better than the 70D, I believe at 3200. Same mp. Looks like a good aps camera for noise. And the D500 was comparable to older ff canon, I think 5D2 or maybe 3? Very impressive.
Of course I'd definitely keep it at 800 if possible. Basically no iq difference from 100, imo. I guess for DR, but I don't really do a lot with that, at this point.
I hate ETTR, it is ugly. But I might have to break down, and do it.
The 7D2 should DEFINITELY handle 1600, no problem, imo. Imagemaster did a nice tutorial on that, I think in 2015 or 16.
I started shooting at 1600 more, after reading it. I think it was using the 7D.
TeamSpeed wrote:
The 5d4 is actually pretty iso-less for a big part of its range. So Canon had gotten better with at least the latest ff sensors. Not all of canon's sensors can be lumped into the same "bucket".
I was trying to get up to speed on isoless, in the last week or two, and ran across this:
I don't think I agree with the sentiment on that article. The only way to really test this is to do a test at any given ISO then also compare that to a a low ISO that is post processed. If the article is correct, then there is no difference in analog gain for ISO vs digital gain, and we just haven't seen that in the past, analog gain was always cleaner in the native ISO range than just raising the brightness slider after the fact.
5 Canon models seem to buck the trend of the other Canon models however: (6D, 7D2, 5D3, 1DX, and 1DX2).
The 80D/SL2/etc are close, but at high ISO the 7D2 eeks past those out as well.
Here is an example I just did to show that we just aren't yet at ISO-less, at least in the APS-C line.
This is ISO 800 underexposed by 3 stops (to help show the point) and then ISO 6400. If the camera was ISO-less, this would be much closer in appearance. The ISO 800 brought up in post is much noisier than ISO 6400.
AmbientMike wrote:
But often I shoot JPEG, and put it in the phone, crop or resize using Resize Me, or maybe snapseed, for bird /insect ID shots, and avoid the computer.
I have a similar "problem" because my computer is relatively old and slow, and I sometimes take a huge number of pictures per day to ID dragonflies (often to identify the individual, and not just the species), where some need to be posted online (often strong crops) to keep species records. For this jpegs are fine, RAW eats space and slows me down with file copying and processing. But in between those "work" shots I have some that are great pictures, so for those I do want the RAW so I can get maximum IQ - especially because lighting conditions like brightness, color and contrast change on the fly and exposure is almost never perfect ... and it's impossible to predict when conditions will present for great images.
I found that the embedded jpeg of the 80D RAW is almost always good enough for basic use like scaled-down crops and I can quickly extract those from the RAWs with my Faststone image viewer (way faster than the terrible slow DPP, at least on my computer). But when I expect to shoot many ID images I still fall back to jpeg.
Maybe I should invest some time this winter in creating workflows for the different cases like TeamSpeed does, and buy a new computer to handle all the batch processing. But I'm almost certainly buying a different camera (D500, A9/A7000?) and different lenses next year so it would probably be a waste of time. And I'm hoping that with a camera like the D500 I automatically get that better High ISO quality that now would require additional effort.
BTW, it's clear to me that the 7D2 has slightly better High ISO (above 800 or so) compared to 80D. Always difficult to compare different cameras ...
I didn't have to really use my 7D2 actions. I just used Noiseware to clean up the noise, and then a couple of USM steps for contrast and sharpening, some saturation, and then a final run of Noiseware to clean up a bit of the fine sharpened noise without destroying too much detail.
I have a 2 year old i7 laptop, as long as I don't have too much running, CS5 works pretty well, and DPP, although a bit slow, does decently as well.
When I first got my 7D2, I had to deal with noise, but I honestly believe I have seen that if you shoot a camera at high ISO for extended periods of time, it somehow gets a bit better with age. I have seen this with a couple of other models. I need to go back to some of my cat pictures from 2 years ago to see though. I don't know if there is some sort of "burn-in" with analog gain?
Here is the difference from the incamera JPG vs taking the raw through DPP, then through Photoshop with Noiseware and USM. Remember this is a full pixel crop view. Yes there is noise in the post processed version, but you don't want a buttery smooth image, that comes at a big loss to detail.
Having been spoilt by my A7s where I pretty much can use any lens at any hour or location, while it is broken I am having to use an old Canon 450D.
I have no issue with its max ISO 1600 but it is simply not anywhere near high enough for me for use at as much as half the time or more.
When I had a 7D alongside the A7s, I hated it at 3200 but right now I would take it if I could.
I am finding that with the A7s I mostly shoot jpegs and do not see a huge difference between out of camera jpegs and processed RAW files but with the 450D I see much bigger difference.
I had 4 different 7Ds. One was spectacular with high ISO, 2 were mediocre, and 1 was terrible. Again, remember that I spent countless hours working high ISO and do comparisons for folks, and action development. Copy variation was a big issue with the 7D. The other problem is that the 7D had Canon's old inferior JPEG generator. That changed with the Sl1 and 6D I believe, from that point forward the JPEG results were better out of camera.
This shows how a OOC JPEG compares to taking the raw and processing it correctly, there was a huge difference in color rendition and detail retention doing the processing yourself.
Same image, but bottom is JPG out of camera on the 7D on 6400, middle is the raw corrected and JPG generated, and the top is the post processed. The 7D was a tough animal to tame, that is certain.
Well, here's 6400 underexposed & brightened 0.67 stops, RAW processed in DPP. T6+75-300 III, 1/200, 5.6, 180mm. I didn't even mask anything, or I could have gotten rid of more. maybe I'll have to shoot at 6400 more.
I worked on a similar image, 10 frames or so later, but I don't remember it turning out this well. Also, I thought I was supposed to remove all noise, which apparently isn't even desirable. Which is good.
notherenow wrote:
I am finding that with the A7s I mostly shoot jpegs and do not see a huge difference between out of camera jpegs and processed RAW files but with the 450D I see much bigger difference.
OOC jpegs have significantly improved (maybe even several stops improvement at High ISO) going from 450D to 80D; RAW not so much. Said otherwise, most of the High ISO gains are not in the sensor but in the in-camera processing.
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TeamSpeed wrote:
I had 4 different 7Ds. One was spectacular with high ISO, 2 were mediocre, and 1 was terrible. Again, remember that I spent countless hours working high ISO and do comparisons for folks, and action development. Copy variation was a big issue with the 7D. The other problem is that the 7D had Canon's old inferior JPEG generator. That changed with the Sl1 and 6D I believe, from that point forward the JPEG results were better out of camera.
Interesting observation, although there might be some observer bias involved with the improving High ISO (better exposure and PP etc. after one gains experience with the camera?). Also the type of use can have a huge influence (like warmer environment, using Liveview etc.). But your experience indeed suggests differences between cameras, which is possible given the partly analog electronics. In the old days I used to check AD converters for one of our products for individual performance, some were way better than average.
However, on a longer timescale I'm sure the IQ of the sensor deteriorates, although it might show as less noise (and less details) instead of more noise. One of the changes over time that I could see - at least in my 450D, about same generation as 7D - was defective pixels (often not one but a few pixels) that can be mapped out with a "sensor cleaning operation", which of course means you lose some detail if this happens frequently. In some other cameras I have seen IQ deterioration over time due to increased heat or electronic interference from other components like the LCD panel (which is often close to the sensor); some of the shielding can move or connection to the "heat shield" can get loose over time.
Yeah, I am not sure if there is anything to my findings, but I have not had the ISO noise issues with models that others have, but I shoot primarily at ISOs 3200 or higher like 80% of the time. So I run thousands of images through any given week of NBA at those ISOs. My images today are better than they were just a year or two ago, JPEG from the camera. So it cannot be settings, and it cannot anything to do with my skill, nor has the lighting changed at the venue I shoot at. This leaves me with the only conclusion I can come up with, the camera gets a bit better at ISO management at higher ISOs, the more I use it.
ISO 25600 was tough to deal with in the beginning with the 5D4, I even did a mini-review on POTN on this camera when I first got it with some tests/samples. The images don't look that grainy any longer. Same lens too, so it cannot be that either.
Maybe I just got used to them, like clutter around the house becomes part of the decor.... It would be an interesting test though, take a new camera, shoot it for 25K shots at the same settings over and over, and compare the 25000th shot to the #1 shot in raw to see if there is anything to it.
AmbientMike wrote:
How high is everyone going on APS? What results are you getting?
I semi-recently got a Canon T6. I've been a little disappointed, because I don't really feel comfortable with 3200 even, and I thought 1600 was good even on the much older 30D.
Although I've used 12800 and been happy with it, considering.
Am I doing something wrong in pp? What iso's are everyone using on APS? And what techniques & software are you using for pp?
I use DPP, but luminanace NR has never been its strength, from what I've seen. So I turn it off. I wind up sharpening before NR, which is probably not ideal. Chrominance NR seems fine, though. I do use masking, at times, with layers in gimp, which is probably a bit harder, but I don't really do volume.
Like to get some inks to good videos, websites, etc on high iso pp etc....Show more →
TeamSpeed wrote:
I had 4 different 7Ds. One was spectacular with high ISO, 2 were mediocre, and 1 was terrible. Again, remember that I spent countless hours working high ISO and do comparisons for folks, and action development. Copy variation was a big issue with the 7D. The other problem is that the 7D had Canon's old inferior JPEG generator. That changed with the Sl1 and 6D I believe, from that point forward the JPEG results were better out of camera.
This shows how a OOC JPEG compares to taking the raw and processing it correctly, there was a huge difference in color rendition and detail retention doing the processing yourself.
Same image, but bottom is JPG out of camera on the 7D on 6400, middle is the raw corrected and JPG generated, and the top is the post processed. The 7D was a tough animal to tame, that is certain.
Oh, man, so many variables. The adjustments in the picture styles menu can have a MASSIVE effect on jpegs. I think I got better jpegs vs raw on older cameras.
Jpegs seemed sharper than raw on my xt. I could get the jpegs very sharp on a 5d, if I really cranked up the sharpening. Or it threw out loads of detail, if I left sharpening on default.
I thought 30d had sharper jpegs, it was just a DPP NR default setting on raws, though. Turned it off, and raw was sharper.
My new T6 seems to have DPP default NR and sharpening. Not good. So I think I'm losing detail, compared to raw.
