How do you bring down noise without losing much of sharpness even at ISO of 1600?

[zombiesniper]

Thank you.

 

[k.udhay]

ISO 1,600 is VERY usable on better full-frame cameras. At least as far as in people photography, where expression and emotion are paramount. No, it is not as "clean: as ISO 100 or 125 or 160, but it is not "terrible". If the exposures are generous, not wayyyy under-exposed, then ISO 1,600 is going to create decent images, especially if there is ample light present.

Many,many times, people resort to ISO 1,600 and then under-expose, at say an effective Exposure Index level of say 3,200 or 6,400 or worse, and it looks likerubbish! But if you have the ISO set high, AND you expose adequately and there is actually LIGHT present, 1,600 on a 5D Mark III is very useable.

I dunno...cleaning up noise and removing detail is also sort of subjective; what one person calls good, or acceptable, or bad--that all depends on the individual! to ME, agai, to ME, sharpness is accentuated with the noise left IN the image!!! I would rather see more high-frequency detail along with noise,m than no noise, and a loss of high-frequency detail! I am not a big fan of killing noise to the point that more than 15 to 20 percent of detail is lost; to me, again, I prefer to see the noise and to see more detail, to less noise and less fine detail!

I think this exactly is the point I was missing in a 5D mark III borrowed.

"But if you have the ISO set high, AND you expose adequately and there is actually LIGHT present, 1,600 on a 5D Mark III is very useable."

My exposure was less and I had cranked ISO high. When I looked the image on my computer, I was so disappointed by the noise. Now I know the key, I will practice this!

Thanks a ton, Derrel!

Good that you caught this: "Many,many times, people resort to ISO 1,600 and then under-expose, at say an effective Exposure Index level of say 3,200 or 6,400 or worse, and it looks like rubbish! But if you have the ISO set high, AND you expose adequately and there is actually LIGHT present, 1,600 on a 5D Mark III is very useable." I'm going to re-emphasize what Derrel said here. This is the key! If you're going to raise the ISO then raise it as far as needed. The worst thing you can do is be afraid to raise the ISO and so hold back and as a result underexpose at the lower ISO -- huge, huge, HUGE mistake.

Here's ISO 12,800 with an APS class sensor (Fuji X-T2). By the time the image is down-sampled (2048 pixels in this case) and filtered (lightly using Neat Image) it's completely serviceable. To illustrate the filtering issue I inset a box over the image with the unfiltered version inside the box. Noise filtering for the overall image is light because detail is more important.

Joe

View attachment 147053

Thank you for the details!

 

[Braineack]

I have come across this message that 5D mark iii behaves extremely well in low light conditions. But doesn't ISO 1600 sound too high? A

no. lol. not even for a Canon.