Camera noise, lens or what?

[farmerj]

I have been frustrated lately in what I think is noise. Not sure what is causing it.

Today I went and took some pictures of an old spreader out at my parents place.

I have three lenses All Nikkor. 50mm f/1.8, 16-85 VR f/3.5 and the 70-300 VR f/4.5

All pictures taken on the tripod, VR off. ISO 200 f/9, 1/800 EV -1

I changed nothing other than the lens. Both of those were set at 70mm for the telephotos and the fixed 50mm.

Trigger was set to the infra-red remote. WB was custom set in the camera against a WhiBal grey card.

All images are 100% crops and zero post processing.

Actual image time was taken at or about 8:09 AM central. Sun was to my back.

Cropped images are from the spreader rear wheels. The gear in the lower front


16-85mm lens


70-300mm lens


50 mm lens



Is it something I am seeing? or am I being too critical?

 

[Garbz]

It's a combination of being to critical and having too much sharpening. Sharpening will enhance the details on the edge of the noise, and in this case looking at the grass you have pushed it so hard that it is just starting to halo slightly.

Is ISO200 the native low point of the camera? Try ISO100 as well, but over all I don't see any real noise at all.

 

[TwoRails]

I'm going to have to do some comparisons myself, as I'm a little skeptical with the 70-300 myself. Just not anywhere near as sharp as I thought it would be, or so it seems. I'll have to do a controlled test as you did. (larger examples would be nice, BTW)

 

[farmerj]

It's a combination of being to critical and having too much sharpening. Sharpening will enhance the details on the edge of the noise, and in this case looking at the grass you have pushed it so hard that it is just starting to halo slightly.

Is ISO200 the native low point of the camera? Try ISO100 as well, but over all I don't see any real noise at all.

All images are 100% crops and zero post processing.

ISO200 is the Native low ISO.

I haven't touched the image other than cropping it out.

 

[KmH]

Were the images shot as JPEGs? Or RAW?

 

[farmerj]

yes, images shot as jpgs.

With the advice here and on another forum.

I use a Nikon D90.

Picture controls include Standard, Vivid, and I modified Vivid with Sharpening +1, Saturation +2.

I took pictures today in Standard. Going back to more default settings on everything.

For the local Memorial day parade, my daughter was in it for their debut performance

I took a picture of my daughter with the 70-300 mm lens, VR on.

I was able to make out the Yamaha logo on the clarinet she was carrying with the Zoom at 300 MM.

What did I do differently?

I turned off the Active D-Lighting.


I verified that all of my Picture controls (Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape etc) were reset to Default Settings.

I shot the picture in Standard Picture control.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtWDS1va_Dk[/ame]

 

[Garbz]

Well the sharpening comment still stands. Just because it was at camera default doesn't mean that the JPEGs will not have sharpening. This happens automatically in camera. The lower end cameras have more sharpening than higher end so they appeal more to the P&S "Look how bright and sharp and saturated my images are" crowd they are trying to capture.

The opposite example is the D200. Sharpening sucks in that camera too, but it's way too low. Defaults for Lightroom are about on part with the D200 with sharpening set to +1.

But yeah Active-D lighting could do it too, after all there's a lot of processing that gets done on photos in camera these days.

 

[farmerj]

Results with reduced sharpening and saturation in the camera settings. Comments and suggestions welcome on them.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/nature-wildlife/167127-black-iris-more.html

 

[Sachphotography]

I would shoot in RAW for one. I have found that JPGS seem to show noise more than RAW Idk but they do. Noise in of itself is not a bad thing. Some pictures will have noise and unless a fare amount of money is spent on the latest DSLR setup, you will have noise. Also you may be a little to critical. the crop level you have zoomed to will not stick out on a normal sized print.

Daniel Sach
www.sachphotography.us