In camera settings?

[SuzukiGS750EZ]

I shoot RAW 99.8% of the time unless i'm taking a quick picture to show something on the internet or to a friend that doesn't need to be anything glamorous. In the camera i have a few settings which i've turned off. I'm wondering if they're really needed or if i can turn them on in DPP or Aftershot Pro 3 and if by having them off i give myself more of a chance of getting the best image possible in post. Also, if you know what these options are and can dumb it down for me a bit, i'd appreciate it!

-Auto Lighting Optimizer

-High ISO speed NR

-Long exp. noise reduction

Thanks!

 

[Scatterbrained]

long exposure noise reductions takes a second long exposure with the shutter closed to find and remove hot pixels in a long exposure shot. A nice feature, but I leave it off as well. I can't even remember if it applied the information to the raw file or not. I just know that when I'm running a series of 30 second exposures I don't want to be waiting for duplicate exposures to run. Doubly so if I'm shooting star trails.

Auto Lighting Optimizer is a sort of selective tone curve applied to the image to help lift the shadows. It only works on Jpeg images however. Here is a link with a bit of info.
Auto Lighting Optimizer - Canon Professional Network

 

[Ysarex]

I shoot RAW 99.8% of the time unless i'm taking a quick picture to show something on the internet or to a friend that doesn't need to be anything glamorous. In the camera i have a few settings which i've turned off. I'm wondering if they're really needed or if i can turn them on in DPP or Aftershot Pro 3 and if by having them off i give myself more of a chance of getting the best image possible in post. Also, if you know what these options are and can dumb it down for me a bit, i'd appreciate it!

-Auto Lighting Optimizer

-High ISO speed NR

-Long exp. noise reduction

Thanks!

They don't effect the image data in a raw file and you can turn them off and forget they exist. They are there as options applied to the JPEG files the camera creates. If used in conjunction with Canon's own raw converter DPP the Long exp. noise reduction option does save metadata in the raw file that can be applied.

Auto Lighting Optimizer is strictly a JPEG processing option that applies a different tone curve when creating the JPEG.

High ISO noise reduction is a noise filter plain and simple.

Long exp. noise reduction only engages when you use the camera for exposures greater than 1 second. It creates a dark frame for noise subtraction. It requires that you use either the camera software or DPP to convert the raw file and create the final JPEG. When you take a long exposure the camera automatically takes a 2nd exposure of the same length without opening the shutter (this can require that you wait) to produce a dark frame. The dark frame is then subtracted from the first exposure in an attempt to cancel noise.

To get the best possible image for post production exposure the sensor. period. Expose the sensor to full capacity. To whatever extent you do not expose the sensor to full capacity you have less data and with less you get less.

Joe