Does anyone else 'not' mind noise?

[bhop]

I think noise gets a bad rap.. everyone's trying to get their photos as smooth as possible, which is fine of course, but sometimes I see people comment about how a photo is ruined because it's got a little grain/noise in it, a photo that to me, looks perfectly acceptable, and in the film days would have been. Maybe it's the old film user in me, or the fact that I still shoot with high speed film for fun, but I don't really mind noise so much.

I still tone it down if it's too much, but I don't think it's a big deal to remove it completely. I actually like my b/w pics to be a little grainy, and if it's a digital conversion, then that grain is noise.

..just wondering if i'm alone and crazy or not..

 

[jstuedle]

Ya, we are spoiled. All through the 60's till the late 90's Tri-X 400 grain was the benchmark of what was max acceptable grain, or film "noise". Now few if any DSLR's show that much noise at there maximum boosted ISO. The D3 at 25,600 has less than vintage Tri-X. One day we will have such noise free cameras and super high ISO that noise will be considered an art form.

 

[Big Mike]

It can have it's place...but I'd prefer to have a clean image to start with...and I will add noise/grain if I want it.

Also, we notice and complain about noise, because it's easy to zoom into an image at 200%. If we only judged images by making prints and holding them at arm's length...noise wouldn't be an issue.

 

[bhop]

Also, we notice and complain about noise, because it's easy to zoom into an image at 200%. If we only judged images by making prints and holding them at arm's length...noise wouldn't be an issue.

That is true.. I noticed that when I printed some grainy images that the grain seemed to almost disappear on the paper.

 

[lifeafter2am]

I agree that noise has its place, and more often than not, I don't mind it.

 

[Puscas]

Noise to me is one of the variables. That's the fun of it, isn't it? It can really add a different feel to pictures.




pascal

 

[That One Guy]

i don't get too excited if i see noise in my photos and i rarely ever do anything to correct it. sometimes i even shoot @ a high ISO so i can add noise to the photo.

 

[Alex_B]

i still think that film grain looks more pleasing than digital noise ... the former often does not bother me much, but that latter often does

 

[Sideburns]

film grain is not so bad. Usually it's quite alright. Digital noise is not as attractive...and I use Noise Ninja to get rid of it most of the time.

 

[craig]

I agree that film grain and digi noise are two different things. For some reason film grain gives a feeling of grit and texture. Kind of a low light primitive approach. With digi noise there is not a lot of gradation of tones and the shadow areas are an absolute nightmare. To me noise leaves "artifacts" that look computer generated.

Love & Bass

 

[lifeafter2am]

Yeah that is a good point. Film grain is great, noise is not so great.

 

[frXnz kafka]

For black and white, film or digital, I don't mind some (or even a lot of) noise. Color noise in a digital medium is a bit more bothersome. It's just not as attractive as film grain.

That said, I almost always shoot at ISO 400 on my digital, and I never do noise reduction. I don't mind a little color noise. And I do agree that medium is a key factor. Noise on a print is far less annoying than noise on screen.

 

[bhop]

I just opened an 800iso Nikon d70 raw image, and a 400iso color negative scan I did yesterday at 4200dpi. I don't see much difference in the way the 'grain' looks on either on my monitor.

One of the reasons I went with Nikon when buying a dslr is because I had read that the 'noise' was more film-like in the way it looked. Can anyone else back me up on that? (that was at least 3 years ago)

 

[Garbz]

I find (back when I was looking anyway) that the Noise of the Nikon D200 vs 10D was more pleasing to look at because it presented in a more uniform luminance noise. The canon appeared to have more colour noise. Mind you the D200's colour noise went through the roof and into the clouds above ISO800-1250ish.

Mind you I've shot at ISO3200 before and I must say after running a single pass through some image cleaning software (neat image I think though it may have been something else), it looked perfectly good enough to print, and even made my portfolio of best images.

That said sometimes too noise is just the grunge an image needs. I hate the sterile crap I see plastered on this forum at times.

 

[Alex_B]

I just opened an 800iso Nikon d70 raw image, and a 400iso color negative scan I did yesterday at 4200dpi. I don't see much difference in the way the 'grain' looks on either on my monitor.

One of the reasons I went with Nikon when buying a dslr is because I had read that the 'noise' was more film-like in the way it looked. Can anyone else back me up on that? (that was at least 3 years ago)

normally what really annoys me, is the colour noise, which is more pronounced with noise than with film. I guess that is also there with the D70?