my husband (and ?? about high iso noise)

[Ajay]

All I keep reading is that noise management at high ISOs with a dslr is very manageable. It was pretty dark and dreary when I took these photos of my husband so I had my ISO at 800. I was shooting in aperture priority - a range from about f/3.2-f/4 so my shutter speed at the lowest was 80 but for the most part it was above 100. I was using my 50mm 1.8. I used the noise reduction filter in CS2 but it didn't make much difference. Other than getting noise ninja, any suggestions? I don't understand why they are still so noisy and I see photos other people take on here at high ISO that have very little noise at all.

Here are the shots. My husband was just home for a few days before having to go back to Ft. Benning. I dragged him out of the house for a photoshoot and he humoured me fairly well. Critique as harsh as you like - I don't get offended easily.


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4- Is it just me or does this one have a weird color cast?

Ok, after uploading these here they don't look as noisy as they did when I had them open in PS.

 

[JimmyO]

They really dont look noisy at all
Nice shots

 

[Ajay]

Thanks Jimmy.

Here are some larger versions of a couple of them...more noticeable?

 

[Doug]

I have to agree with Jimmy, I also don't see any noise. I'm looking at them on a 24" sony CRT and they look very good to me.

 

[Ajay]

Thanks for the feedback Doug. Maybe I'm being too critical. Ok, here's one more try. Here's a close in crop at 100%. You can definitely see it now. Shouldn't the image still be somewhat clear when viewed at 100% or am I just expecting too much? Is a high ISO shot always going to look like this when magnified?

 

[RKW3]

That much noise at 100% is definitely manageable, and fixable in photoshop or noise ninja.

Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise>Strength 10, Preserve details 4% in photoshop
Then I did some selective sharpening.

Not to mention Noise Ninja or Neat Image can do a better job.

 

[Ajay]

Wow, RK! That looks a lot better. I never seem to get that good of a result using the photoshop filter. I'll have to try those settings. Did you just sharpen the eyes?

Just looked at my settings and I had preserve details way too high. Thanks for the help RK!

 

[TCimages]

Its not that noticable but it's expected at ISO 800 (especially when viewed at 100%) . Looks like you under exposed by -.33 which means if you had to brighten them it would make the noise worse.

I think they're great shots.

 

[Ajay]

Thanks TC!

 

[RKW3]

Wow, RK! That looks a lot better. I never seem to get that good of a result using the photoshop filter. I'll have to try those settings. Did you just sharpen the eyes?

Just looked at my settings and I had preserve details way too high. Thanks for the help RK!

Yeah pretty much I just sharpened the eyes.

I did it by duplicating the layer, applying a smart sharpen until I think the eyes look good (ignoring everything else). Then I made a layer mask and painted over the entire picture in black so it looks like the original layer, and then with white I painted over the eyes that I wanted to be sharpened. Make sense?