EverLearning wrote:
mttran, thank you for posting the actual image here. Clearly I am doing something wrong when I try to do so. Can you please tell me exactly what you did to post it. I have two crops of noise I would like to post for others to see and would like to get it right this time. Thanks!
I had yours uploaded to flickr, get its properties then cut and paste on FM reply msg. Thanks for sharing this issue.
mttran, I understand that you cut and pasted the properties. I was trying to understand the process you used for posting the picture, which can't be cut and pasted. Could you please clarify how you got the picture up. Are you saying you put the picture to Flickr and then cut and pasted the URL from flickr?
If so, is there anybody out there who can tell me how to post a picture directly from Skydrive?
Here is 3200 ISO, and this is AFTER Canon had tried to correct the noise problem twice (and said all ISO was within specs):
I forgot to say in the last post, you can see that both images suffer from substantial amounts of chromatic noise and a fair bit of luminance noise and resultant loss of details. It would require a fair bit of NR to clean this up and it would soften the pictures even further.
This is why I am so upset with Canon (and my retailer for that matter). And now I am trying to fix the WB, which got messed up during the last Canon adjustment.
mttran, I understand that you cut and pasted the properties. I was trying to understand the process you used for posting the picture, which can't be cut and pasted. Could you please clarify how you got the picture up. Are you saying you put the picture to Flickr and then cut and pasted the URL from flickr?
If so, is there anybody out there who can tell me how to post a picture directly from Skydrive?
Here is 3200 ISO, and this is AFTER Canon had tried to correct the noise problem twice (and said all ISO was within specs):
EverLearning wrote:
When a camera offers 12800 ISO, one would certainly expect quite clean images at 1600 ISO. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect this or a completely clean image at 800 ISO.
Your expectations are unrealistic. Noise at ISO 800 and 1600 is dominated by photon shot noise, and is only dependent on the amount of light gathered, and the improvements bewteen camera generations are incremental at best, usually around zero. Quantum efficiency is around 50-80% and has been so for CCD sensors for the last 20 years, CMOS sensors a little less.
Introducing ISO 12800 is meaningful because they have managed to get the read noise down, and make photon shot noise dominating there as well. Earlier on, ISO 12800 was a total mess with a lot of banding.
You can get clean and sharp images at high ISO for small sizes, but not at actual pixels.
alundeb, I don't think my expectations are unrealistic at all. I would expect the 7D to provide better noise management than the 40D. I would expect to be able to produce and sell fine art images in large sizes when shot at 800 ISO without having to soften them first with NR s/w. Heck, I have a 16x24 image from my 40D that didn't need any NR.
The introduction of 12800 is not any more meaningful now than it was "earlier on" from a photographers' perspective. Unusable is unusable; whatever the ISO is. To say it is more meaningful now is akin to a manufacturer saying we have improved the safety of our car so that you die a more gentle death than previously. You're still dead. Dead is dead. Unusable is unusable. With or without all the scientific analysis/terminology.
Your expectations at least have a hard time facing reality. Your ISO 3200 and 6400 crops are better than what I got from my 40D.
Regarding usability of ISO 12800, it is only a question of size. Earlier, even small images were unusable. Now they can be nice at those same small sizes. I wouldn't call that Dead is Dead.
Keithreeder has tuned his workflow over a long time and, and found a noise reduction method that gives unusually pleasing results.
alundeb wrote:
Keithreeder has tuned his workflow over a long time and, and found a noise reduction method that gives unusually pleasing results.
It's not that long a time actually, and it's by no means a complicated or time-consuming workflow - and the NR methodology is based on common, easily available commercial solutions (initial NR in Lightroom 3, finishing off with a light dusting of Topaz DeNoise in Photoshop as required - hardly rocket science).
But the point is that I've sat down and figured out a process that works, rather than giving up at the first obstacle and wasting time complaining that could usefully be spent on finding a solution.
Clearly it's eminently possible to get excellent high ISO results, very easily, from the 7D, without any observable impact on detail or sharpness, despite what EverLearning asserts about the supposedly unavoidable necessity of heavy NR with its concomitant detail loss, in order to get half-useful high ISO results from the 7D.
But the solution won't find itself...
Oh, and although I don't usually print - as an enthusiast bird photographer it's not really something I do regularly - and although I rarely shoot anything in light that needs 6400 or 12800 ISO, I did print these two examples, and they look fantastic at A3 (about 17" by 12").
I can say much the same about the banding "issue" that I say about high ISO noise. As it happens I've had (slight) observable banding in precisely one image at proper exposure in the 20+k images I've taken with my 7D, but I can provoke banding by excessive dicking around with EC and fill sliders in conversion/PP.
By judicious use of the excellent line noise filter developed by Emil Martinec, as found in Raw Therapee 3, I can deal effectively at conversion with any banding, no matter how nasty, that I've dragged out of my images.
But - I swear - banding hasn't been an issue in any image I've ever taken. I've got to torture my files to generate it.
keithreeder wrote:
But the point is that I've sat down and figured out a process that works, rather than giving up at the first obstacle and wasting time complaining that could usefully be spent on finding a solution.
Yep, I just don't see myself cast in the role of "victim", G Dan - I take responsibility for my decisions and deal with them rather than wasting time looking for someone else to blame.
Mind you, from the day I bought it (in December '09), the 7D has felt to me like a great decision, and I feel the same way now. I was a bit unsure about the images from it after my very first shoot (comparing them to the 40D that came before) but as soon as I worked out how to compare them properly, I've never looked back.
Clearly it's eminently possible to get excellent high ISO results, very easily, from the 7D, without any observable impact on detail or sharpness, despite what EverLearning asserts
and
Best crop camera on the market, even now.
This commercial brought to by the letters A and C, for Arrogance and Canon shill.
Keithreeder also bought a car that catches fire whenever he starts it, but gosh, just carry a fire extinguisher and no problem. No reason to complain. And the new home he bought has bad drafts around a door, but just seal that door and go around to the other door for as long as he owns the house. No reason to complain. And the restaurant that claims to have the best steak in the city (and costs a fortune), but burnt his to a crisp while his friend's was perfect? Nothing that an entire bottle of steak sauce won't fix. No reason to complain.
Yeah, right! It's easy to apply a work flow to pictures from any camera that is a reasonably functioning copy. That is what I did with my 40D with very good results. But it takes a pair to suggest that it is unproductive complaining when dealing with a defective copy. And to even SUGGEST that post processing should be applied to fix an issue from an improperly configured sensor rather than expecting Canon to fix it is beyond belief.
Here is something for you to think about. Next time you go to use your 7D, you find out the only ISO that can be set is 12800. Now, rather than complain about it or send it to Canon to fix, you will simply shoot 12800 ISO and apply your great workflow to it. For as long as you own the camera. And never, ever complain. Heck, you don't need your camera to fail. Just use 12800 all the time, even when the rest of the world would take a given picture at a nice, clean 100.
Given that I have provided a picture that shows the banding, and pictures that show high noise at mid ISO settings, I don't feel any further need to justify anything to the likes of you. Most people eminently understand there are bad copies. Most people eminently expect when this happens that the manufacturer will address the problem.
Daan B, I responded to this thread to provide you some things to consider. You have to consider what is critical to you and what is a 'nice to have'. And if you proceed with purchasing the 7D, you may want to consider thoroughly testing it during the retailer's return 'window' so that if you have a bad copy you simply return it for another camera or get a full refund. There may indeed be ways to compensate in pp for a defective camera, but clearly you should NOT have to.
Wouldn't it make sense to just load up a CR2 file on mediaupload or some other service, and let others have at it where you have issues? It completely eliminates the post processing workflow from the equation.
Go out and do a complete ISO sweep in fact from 100 to 12800, and post the series for others to download. It would get your point across better to show how one 7D is defective vs what others have seen with their copy.
I shot at ISO 3200 or greater probably around 70% of all shots on my 7D for over a year, band events, sporting events, etc. My copy didn't have these issues, but that's not to say that there is something wrong with your copy or others'.
Heck, I had access to 3 5D2s, and 2 of them would exhibit horrible pink blotches at high ISOs with the lens cap on in a room with no light, the sensors were that varied. The 3rd copy was fine, it had a hint of this at the same ISOs, but the others were just obnoxious.
Back to the 7D issue, I posted many, many examples of my 7D results and workflow on POTN. When I first got mine, which was one of the first batches, received in the first week of release, I posted an OOC JPG sweep from the 7D, no post processing, just what the camera results were. I went from that to creating a custom action that would clean up the noise quite handily over the next month or so.
