Frustration - noise and grain

ajmall · Jan 29, 2006

I've been shooting with my D70s for around 6 months now. When I first got the camera, I had:

18-70 kit lens
Sigma 24mm 2.8 macro
Sigma 15mm 2.8 Fisheye
Sigma 70-200 2.8 (Wish I hadn't bought this but it was cheap and i needed a 2.8 zoom)
Yesterday, I bought a nikon 50mm 1.8

My dilemma - more often than not I get very grainy and noisy images, which are so frustrating because a lot of the time are hard to fix. To be honest, I don't want to have to fix them!

Should I expect a lot of noise one 400 ISO? I get it on 200 but not as much and sometimes shooting on 400 is the only option. I've seen so so many crisp and perfect images shot with a D70 on the internet I wonder where I'm going wrong? For the most part I thought having cheap glass was it but shooting on my 50mm last night proved me wrong - even on multiple exposures at different settings I still got a lot of noise.

The examples below were taken last night but I have more with the same amount of noise in daylight. Both are unedited RAW (NEF) files, cropped and saved as level 12 JPEGs.

ISO 400
http://www.photodrew.co.uk/pics/noise01.jpg (Warning - 2.5mb)

ISO 200
http://www.photodrew.co.uk/pics/noise02.jpg (1.69mb)

I also have the cameras noise reduction feature turned on.

Please help as this is really frustrating for me as I end up just deleting photos I've spent hours taking. Thank you.

Big Mike · Jan 29, 2006

Maybe you are being too critical. From the example, the noisy areas are under exposed...becuase it's dark and there are those bight lights....tough scene to expose for.

Also, with digital images, we tend to zoom in really close and examine it. If you blew up a film image that much...you would see similar grain.

If you resized the images for web viewing, the noise would hardly be noticeable.

AIRIC · Jan 29, 2006

On the D-70 for long exposure night time shots there is also a long exposure noise reduction setting. Have you been using it as well. I have not really done to much low light work with the D-70

Eric

ajmall · Jan 29, 2006

Thanks for the feedback.

Ok maybe night scenes produce noise more easily but this happens with daylight photos as well. Would there be a significant difference if I shoot with 100 ISO on a D200?

Eric - I have the NR setting turned on

xion · Jan 30, 2006

Check out the DC Resource review on the Nikon. There are some test pictures at various ISO settings.

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/nikon/d70s-review/

The noise difference should not be much between ISO 200 and 400, but then you are doing night shots at low shutter speed.

Rob · Jan 30, 2006

What you've taken pictures of here is the kind of shot which will give noise issues, especially with digital. Lights of the bulb type which you've shot here give a gentle haze effect, and there isn't enough overall contrast in the shot to render the black areas black.

FWIW, I think you've done as well as it's possible to do under these circumstances. To improve the levels of noise, you should set the ISO to 100 and shoot something which is brighter, thus shortening the exposure and keeping the black properly black.

I don't percieve that image as having too much noise, you're just pushing the limits of what the camera is capable of capturing.

Rob

Digital Matt · Jan 30, 2006

Agreeing with what's been said about long exposures at night, my best advice is, bring a tripod, and shoot at ISO 100.

ajmall · Jan 30, 2006

thanks again for the feedback. one of the downers wtih the D70s is that it only goes down to ISO 200.

Lumix · Jan 30, 2006

I may be entirely wrong here but if you shot in RAW I thought the camera settings ie noise reduction were by passed. I'm fairly new to digital so I expect to be shot down in flames. Still worth a mention though. Perhaps noise reduction could be applied during conversion from RAW to what ever you use. Failing that there are some very good noise reduction proggys on the web with free trials.

ajmall · Jan 30, 2006

I've tried using noise reduction on CS2 on the RAW adjustments but it doesn't make a blind bit of a difference. The noise reduction filter is pretty pants too...

Big Mike · Jan 30, 2006

Neat Image and Noise Ninja are two good programs for dealing with noise. I believe you can D/L free versions of either. Or you can buy a version that integrates into PS.

NYY · Jan 30, 2006

i dont think noise is avoidable 100% when taking dark shots like those

Lumix · Jan 30, 2006

I tried Neat Image and got very good results. Never purchased it as I have no real need for it. Just tried it out of interest. I use a Panasonic FZ20 which reviewers claim has high noise levels, but as yet I have found image quality good enough for the size prints I produce.