Unexplained noise in my photographs!! PLEASE HELP!!!

[tkisling]

Hi all!

Tonight I went out to capture an amazing sunset only to find all of my photos have some bad, unexplained noise in them. I attached 3 photos I took tonight for some examples. I see that these photos appear to be reduced through here so the noise may appear even worse. Here is what I'm shooting with:

Canon 60D
Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
Quantaray Circular Polarizer (Ritz camera brand)
SanDisk EXTREME 32GB SDHC I memory card

Now some detail on each picture:
IMG_6747.jpg
Large Fine JPEG (16MP)
ISO 100
1/500 sec
f/3.2

IMG_6742.jpg
Large Fine JPEG (16MP)
ISO 100
1/500 sec
f/3.2

IMG_6788.jpg
Large Fine JPEG (16MP)
ISO 320
1/50 sec
f/14

I expect this kind of noise to appear when shooting at ISO 1600+, but at ISOs 100 & 320??? I expect that it has only to do with the sensor and nothing to do with the lens or cheap filter. Anyone have this happen to them or know what is going on? Your help is much appreciated!

-Tyler

 

[Garbz]

Wow you expect that noise at ISO1600? What have you got a Nikon D4 ?

On a more serious note the ISO320 one looks about on par with what I'd expect, however the ISO100 ones do look a bit bad. Can you post them without clobbering the ExIF data so we can have a look?

 

[tkisling]

Thanks for the reply, here are the originals...
View attachment 6156View attachment 6157View attachment 6158

Not sure if this is what you are looking for...I'm still trying to figure out this forum...

 

[Desi]

Doesn't look bad to me. I think the noise you have is due to underexposure of clouds/foreground while compensating for the sun.

 

[tkisling]

Doesn't look bad to me. I think the noise you have is due to underexposure of clouds/foreground while compensating for the sun.

Any way to combat this negative effect? HDR?

Thanks

 

[1000_Islander]

"PLEASE HELP!!!"................

I'm not sure what your expectations are? You have an excellent camera and lens combo here costing about $1500. and I personally can't see that there is much of an 'issue'. Any photographic media, whether sensors or film or papers require quality light to yield what we consider good images, and as the quality of light falls off the media is less capable of delivering what we expect. Using a camera/lens outfit costing 4 times yours may deliver a slightly better result, but the a camera and lens costing about half of yours would almost have the same result.
While 'noise' can be attributed to the particular sensor (design and size, etc) it is still possible that some noise attenuation is required. The camera onboard JPG engines do quite a good job, but sometimes some noise removal may be needed in the editing process. Shooting RAW may give a little more tolerance with editing.
Years ago, shooting with high ISO films yielded lots of 'noise' in the form of graininess. But even shooting low-ISO film for sunsets or night exposures would result in what we have now with sensors and low light.
I hope that realizing that your concerns are not all that serious will help you enjoy your excellent camera to its fullest.

 

[KmH]

Every digital image has image noise. How visible the noise is is dependent on the accuracy of the exposure.

Under exposure makes image noise more visible. So when a scene has a large dynamic range and the bright part is exposed to the right, noise will be visible in the dark parts.

Here is some information that may help you understand the issue; http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf

 

[analog.universe]

I think the problem here has to do with how the camera is doing the in camera JPG processing. Because of the intense dynamic range of the scene, my guess is that the software is boosting the shadow regions but not applying the necessary noise reduction.

Your best bet is to shoot in RAW, so that you can adjust curves as you see fit, and then take care of any noise you don't want if and when it appears. Shooting JPG in camera means you don't really know what's happening, and you don't have any power to change it afterwards.

 

[tkisling]

"PLEASE HELP!!!"................

I'm not sure what your expectations are? You have an excellent camera and lens combo here costing about $1500. and I personally can't see that there is much of an 'issue'...Shooting RAW may give a little more tolerance with editing...I hope that realizing that your concerns are not all that serious will help you enjoy your excellent camera to its fullest.

@1000_Islander: Yeah, I don't really know what my expectations are either! I guess I was hoping that there was something wrong to attribute this noise to. I did however switch to my camera to capture only in RAW after I saw the results of these photos. And yes, I have been and am still enjoying my camera to its fullest; 60D is the bes thing that happened to me since my digital rebel in 2004!

 

[tkisling]

@KmH: Thank you for the link, I see now what is going on!! Now I'm going to try to either shoot shots such as these using HDR or a graduated ND filter to hopefully turn out better results!

@analog.universe: RAW is is from here forward (or until HD space requires me to try something else)!

 

[Garbz]

Still no exif data in the images you posted. No matter. In any case pictures like the ones you posted (smooth gradient, few fine contrasty details) lead themselves to very good results with noise reduction software.