For one thing, we aren't seeing her skin at 100% crop. I have a D7200 and shot it for 2 seasons. I normally apply a very, very light touch of NR. The sensor on the D7200 is probably the best if not the second best in the entire Nikon body line-up. I have a D500 and but I normally prefer to use the D7200 for landscape shots.
I got a D7200 a while ago, where I was shooting a D7000. Yeah, I notice a lot of noise too. I ran into other people shooting wildlife that said the same thing.
I have a 7200. I am not impressed with the noise performance. I can't tell if it's because I'm used to full frame or it just sucks. My little Fuji xa3 performs better.
My 7200 (which I love) is not great in the noise dept either when compared to my 810. I suspect that is part of the reason that the newer DX's are a touch lower resolution.
Jun 13, 2019 at 08:33 AM
Steve Spencer Online • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
A couple of questions. First, I don't understand why you are shooting at ISO 640 when you have 1/8000 shutter speed. It seems to me this would be a case where either you or auto ISO should be shooting at the lowest native ISO (is that 100 or 64 on the D7200?). That would fix it. I also wonder if at that super fast shutter speed the camera isn't underexposing the shot a bit especially for the face and you had to bring it up a bit in post effectively making the ISO higher than 640. Finally, I have learned not to care about noise at 1:1, what I really care about is noise in the image size I want to make. This shot I am pretty sure would make a lovely 8 X 10 with no visible noise. The web size you presented first looks great too. Who cares if there is noise at 1:1 if no one is going to view it at that size or print large enough to see it. All that said, I think this shot is the way it is because of the back lighting and too fast of a shutter speed for optimum exposure. It really isn't that bad and in my book is totally useable even if you don't apply noise reduction up to pretty big presentation sizes and if you need bigger sizes you just need to use some judicious noise reduction.
I'm a bit surprised at the amount of noise in the photo for being only at ISO 640.
Especially when zoomed in while I was editing her skin a bit.
Thoughts?
Suggestions?
Am I concerned over nothing?
Yeah, I think this looks like I would expect 1:1. Your best bet is using more optimal settings next time. Keep the camera at base ISO whenever you can and it will pay off.
Shooting flash with HSS @ 1/8000s is an, err, interesting approach. Pulling down to base ISO will save you 2 2/3 stops, bringing your shutter down to 1/1250. Stopping down your aperture (or a mild 2-3 stop ND filter, if you're concerned about keeping your DOF thin) could get you to base ISO and below the 1/250 sync speed while keeping the same ambient exposure. Less drain on your batteries, quicker recycle, easier on the strobes as a whole.
Steve Spencer wrote:
A couple of questions. First, I don't understand why you are shooting at ISO 640 when you have 1/8000 shutter speed. It seems to me this would be a case where either you or auto ISO should be shooting at the lowest native ISO (is that 100 or 64 on the D7200?). That would fix it. I also wonder if at that super fast shutter speed the camera isn't underexposing the shot a bit especially for the face and you had to bring it up a bit in post effectively making the ISO higher than 640. Finally, I have learned not to care about noise at 1:1, what I really care about is noise in the image size I want to make. This shot I am pretty sure would make a lovely 8 X 10 with no visible noise. The web size you presented first looks great too. Who cares if there is noise at 1:1 if no one is going to view it at that size or print large enough to see it. All that said, I think this shot is the way it is because of the back lighting and too fast of a shutter speed for optimum exposure. It really isn't that bad and in my book is totally useable even if you don't apply noise reduction up to pretty big presentation sizes and if you need bigger sizes you just need to use some judicious noise reduction. ...Show more →
Thanks for the detailed reply Steve.
I'm kind of new to OCF & especially HSS. I had already opened up my lens as wide as it would go and felt like I needed more from my strobes which is why I increased my ISO.
I guess I was trying to hard to bring back some of the detail in the sky/clouds that day.
And, I probably didn't have the light close enough.
Trying to learn & get better
BSPhotog wrote:
Yeah, I think this looks like I would expect 1:1. Your best bet is using more optimal settings next time. Keep the camera at base ISO whenever you can and it will pay off.
Shooting flash with HSS @ 1/8000s is an, err, interesting approach. Pulling down to base ISO will save you 2 2/3 stops, bringing your shutter down to 1/1250. Stopping down your aperture (or a mild 2-3 stop ND filter, if you're concerned about keeping your DOF thin) could get you to base ISO and below the 1/250 sync speed while keeping the same ambient exposure. Less drain on your batteries, quicker recycle, easier on the strobes as a whole. ...Show more →
Thanks for the reply.
I didn't have a ND filter at my disposal that day.
Wouldn't lowering my ISO not just reduce the amount of sensitivity to the ambient light but also effectively lower the output of my flash? I felt that I was already at the limits of my strobes in other shots which is why I upped my ISO.
Trying to learn & get better!
Here's a 100% crop from an earlier shot when I had a slightly lower ISO.
Still seems like it might be a bit much on the noise for this body. It seems more like a D200 amount of noise than a D7200.
Agree with above comments. Use base ISO, slow the shutter speed to compensate for lower ISO . On my monitor it looks diffused. What post corrections did you use, if any? Hope that helps, good luck, Mike
I just noticed the masking setting on sharpness is set to 0. I usually set that above 60. Maybe you are sharpening the existing noise, making it more noticeable?? Also radius is too high IMO. I usually use .9 instead of 1.5. Again, hope that helps, Mike
sjms wrote:
other noisy D7200 images
Pianos make lots of noise. Mom taught piano and auditioned for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Then the war ended and she got told,"Go home and make babies.
Is the horn WWII surplus? Hey, I lived at the Army surplus store as a kid.
BugLightGeek wrote:
Thanks for the reply.
I didn't have a ND filter at my disposal that day.
Wouldn't lowering my ISO not just reduce the amount of sensitivity to the ambient light but also effectively lower the output of my flash? I felt that I was already at the limits of my strobes in other shots which is why I upped my ISO.
Trying to learn & get better!
Here's a 100% crop from an earlier shot when I had a slightly lower ISO.
Still seems like it might be a bit much on the noise for this body. It seems more like a D200 amount of noise than a D7200.
Lowering the ISO will decrease the ambient and flash exposure equally. Of course the ambient can be made brighter again by reducing the shutter speed. HSS is hugely inefficient, so whenever we can avoid it, we actually get more output from the flash/strobe. That isn't to say that using HSS is bad, just that it is a tool with limits.
A good approach for getting an exposure when working with flash outdoors would be to find the ambient exposure that you want with the lowest ISO available. If using manual flash settings, then set flash power to taste. Your ISO 640 1/8000 f/2.8 (?) could instead have been ISO 100 1/1250 f/2.8, or ISO 100 1/250 F/6.3.
Jun 13, 2019 at 09:31 PM
Andre Labonte Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
BugLightGeek wrote:
Thanks for the detailed reply Steve.
I'm kind of new to OCF & especially HSS. I had already opened up my lens as wide as it would go and felt like I needed more from my strobes which is why I increased my ISO.
I guess I was trying to hard to bring back some of the detail in the sky/clouds that day.
And, I probably didn't have the light close enough.
Trying to learn & get better
Thanks for the reply.
I didn't have a ND filter at my disposal that day.
Wouldn't lowering my ISO not just reduce the amount of sensitivity to the ambient light but also effectively lower the output of my flash? I felt that I was already at the limits of my strobes in other shots which is why I upped my ISO.
Trying to learn & get better!
Here's a 100% crop from an earlier shot when I had a slightly lower ISO.
Still seems like it might be a bit much on the noise for this body. It seems more like a D200 amount of noise than a D7200.
Upping the ISO and increasing shutter speed won't help with exposure of the background or get you more flash. It will just get you more noise with no benefit. With this much light you want to shoot at base ISO. You still would have had good exposure of the background with ISO 100 and a shutter speed of 1/1250. That would have reduced the noise greatly. Still the bride's face, IMO, could use some fill flash as it is darker than I would like for this image. Here is where flash on or off camera could help. You need the flash to be synchronized with your exposure but your shutter speed makes that hard. One approach would be using an ND filter to slow the shutter speed to 1/250 so that it is easy to synchronize the flash with the exposure. That would be my preferred strategy, but you could use HSS as well and since you don't need a lot of power with this shot it would probably work fine. Ok, now that you have the flash synchronized how do you decide how much flash to use? Personally in this situation I would use manual and get about another stop of light on the bride's face. The flash needs to be fairly directed but I would like it to be a bit diffused in this situation as well. I would use a small soft box and off camera flash if I could. But I am sure others would have better ideas of how to light the bride's face. There are a lot of approaches and my flash abilities are pretty rudimentary.
