Why is my 5D3 so noisy???

[drjlo]

ETTR explained:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

Sure, use ETTR if able to avoid blowing the highlights. If all fails, a really good noise reduction software like Neat Image or Noiseware Pro can save the day IME.

 

[rpt]

I'm not familiar with ETTR...what is that?

Expose to the right...

Do explain to him 'expose to the right', I am sure he does not understand that.

I am sure he googled it already.

Since you insist here are some links...
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-exposure-techniques.htm
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml
http://digital-photography-school.com/exposing-to-the-right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposing_to_the_right

 

[adhocphotographer]

I'm loving the low noise on my 5D mkIII, but when i don't nail the exposure or not using the right settings for a shot, i have seen some noise (still 10^6x better than my 450D)... I then have re-shot with better success... Try setting up a similar scenario and test your camera with different settings? Then if you are still unsatisfied, take it back to where you bought it?

For me anyway, i usual find it is me not using the tool properly, rather than the tool misbehaving!

Good luck

 

[rpt]

Just a quick example. I totally overexposed this shot, because it was so damn dark down there and midcourt was so damn bright. Much easier and cleaner to bring down in post vs. underexposing and lifting:

can you show the unedited shot for reference
also i'm guessing you shot with the 1Dx which will be even better than the 5dmk3

Well, shoot yeah, that's right I did. I will grab the RAW file anyways, if I've got it, let me look.

That would be great. BTW, how much do you push to the right in your indoor sports shots?

 

[sanj]

Cleaning up the OP's file was very easy.

If you shoot RAW you have to take the time to learn to process it, if you don't, can't or won't you are better off shooting a custom Picture Style jpeg.

Well done

 

[Dick]

Cleaning up the OP's file was very easy.

If you shoot RAW you have to take the time to learn to process it, if you don't, can't or won't you are better off shooting a custom Picture Style jpeg.

Just curious, what did you do to it? I have my own ways of getting some noise out, but I bet there are better methods.

 

[ishdakuteb]

in addition to ETTR, suggest not take an image with hands pointing to camera lens (especially when you are closing to subject), unless you mean to make a story out of it... with any camera, you will have noise even with iso of 100, no exception...

my 2 cents...

 

[GMCPhotographics]

F9 indoors?

My friend who used to photograph weddings once wondered why his flash couldn't keep up at f5.6 when inside. I have enough troubles at f2.8.

To be honest if your friend was wondering that, then I'm wondering what he was doing shooting weddings in the first place.

Lol....which says a lot about a large amount of the current crop of new wedding photographers....have camera...can click a button in Auto. After all, P is for Professional..right?

 

[privatebydesign]

Cleaning up the OP's file was very easy.

If you shoot RAW you have to take the time to learn to process it, if you don't, can't or won't you are better off shooting a custom Picture Style jpeg.

Just curious, what did you do to it? I have my own ways of getting some noise out, but I bet there are better methods.

Very quick global adjustments on the jpeg, so nothing fancy.

I opened it in ACR via Bridge, even though it is a jpeg, this gives you the RAW style noise reduction options that are in Lightroom, I really like ACR/Lightroom noise reduction and can't imagine why people buy NR plugins. I adjusted the luminance noise slider until I was happy (there is no colour noise so I didn't use that adjustment), this is normally much more than most people, I find I can reapply the detail, but you have to get rid of the noise first. I then did a little sharpening in ACR with a heavy mask, this is just with the slider but it allows you to target the detail, his hair and eyes, whilst not touching the noise prone smooth areas. I then opened it in PS and applied global Smart Sharpen and a curves adjustment to the bottom third of the histogram, this kept the highlight detail where it was but gave better general exposure.

It sounds like a lot but there are no selections or layers involved, everything is global, and it took under two minutes. If I had the RAW I could easily get rid of all the noise and retain 99% of the detail using a very similar workflow in a similar time. Indeed for this kind of shot, say an event shoot, if you had 1,000 images all with similar exposure (but not using auto ISO!!!!) you could batch process all the RAW files to output jpegs (or anything else) after recording a simple action.

I find Smart Sharpen in PS way way better than the sharpening options in Lightroom for files with any kind of issues.

Hope this helps.

 

[bdunbar79]

Just a quick example. I totally overexposed this shot, because it was so damn dark down there and midcourt was so damn bright. Much easier and cleaner to bring down in post vs. underexposing and lifting:

can you show the unedited shot for reference
also i'm guessing you shot with the 1Dx which will be even better than the 5dmk3

Well, shoot yeah, that's right I did. I will grab the RAW file anyways, if I've got it, let me look.

That would be great. BTW, how much do you push to the right in your indoor sports shots?

With a 1Dx, on CWA, my meter reading typically reads anywhere from +1/3 to +1 EV. I keep it in that window, or try to. I've gone up as high as +1 2/3 and it still came out fine in post-processing, but was pretty bright. With older cams, I kept changing the ISO to keep it around 2/3, but with the 1Dx this isn't necessary if you have time to post-process because the RAW files are just so nice.

 

[David Hull]

Do you have Highlight Tone Priority (User Manual page 146) and Auto Lighting Optimizer (User Manual Page 142) turned "OFF" in the menus? I didn't bother to read through the replies so perhaps this has been mentioned already but that is the first thing I did when I noticed that my 5D3 had more noise than I expected.

 

[RLPhoto]

ETTR, and Process noise in LR. Easily making great ISO 12,800 shots.

 

[RLPhoto]

Better examples: Photo 1 is the unedited RAW file converted straight to jpg. I've then included two versions of edited photos. You can edit it them any way you'd want, I just applied two presets I happened to have to illustrate the point. This shot is at ISO 5000 and shot about +2/3 at this end of the court.

Wow, That's pretty good and cropped on top of that.

 

[rpt]

Just a quick example. I totally overexposed this shot, because it was so damn dark down there and midcourt was so damn bright. Much easier and cleaner to bring down in post vs. underexposing and lifting:

can you show the unedited shot for reference
also i'm guessing you shot with the 1Dx which will be even better than the 5dmk3

Well, shoot yeah, that's right I did. I will grab the RAW file anyways, if I've got it, let me look.

That would be great. BTW, how much do you push to the right in your indoor sports shots?

With a 1Dx, on CWA, my meter reading typically reads anywhere from +1/3 to +1 EV. I keep it in that window, or try to. I've gone up as high as +1 2/3 and it still came out fine in post-processing, but was pretty bright. With older cams, I kept changing the ISO to keep it around 2/3, but with the 1Dx this isn't necessary if you have time to post-process because the RAW files are just so nice.

Thanks! I was guessing +1 EV. Was not sure about that. While shooting film on my AE1 I was "told" that EC needed to be -1/3 and that had to be compensated by setting the ISO appropriately - well I did, and magically most prints came out fine.

Little did I comprehend that "print" needs a whole second level of "adjustment"...

Hopefully tomorrow or the day after I will do a non-Einsteinian experiment...

Don't even attempt to ask...

 

[distant.star]

F9 indoors?

My friend who used to photograph weddings once wondered why his flash couldn't keep up at f5.6 when inside. I have enough troubles at f2.8.

To be honest if your friend was wondering that, then I'm wondering what he was doing shooting weddings in the first place.

Lol....which says a lot about a large amount of the current crop of new wedding photographers....have camera...can click a button in Auto. After all, P is for Professional..right?

Do you think this is really true? It's disheartening for me to think that any professional photographers are shooting this way. Most of the young folks I talk with who are getting into the business have some decent training and really understand theory and their equipment. I can't see any of them working that way.

 

[PhotographAdventure]

F9 indoors?

My friend who used to photograph weddings once wondered why his flash couldn't keep up at f5.6 when inside. I have enough troubles at f2.8.

To be honest if your friend was wondering that, then I'm wondering what he was doing shooting weddings in the first place.

Lol....which says a lot about a large amount of the current crop of new wedding photographers....have camera...can click a button in Auto. After all, P is for Professional..right?

Do you think this is really true? It's disheartening for me to think that any professional photographers are shooting this way. Most of the young folks I talk with who are getting into the business have some decent training and really understand theory and their equipment. I can't see any of them working that way.

But don't bash P mode too bad. If done correctly, there is a 'Professional' technique to using it. I saw it on Creative Live. I forget the photographers name doing the session, but he was definitely a high end wedding photographer using P mode to get an initial exposure, locking it, recomposing, and capturing the photo. He said it allowed him to dial into the proper exposure quickly to capture those instant moments. This versus using manual or av mode, which he said slowed him down and he would often miss the moment.

 

[bdunbar79]

Thanks guys.

I do not have the RAW file anymore from the first shot. They go quickly, sorry.

@rpt, when I print 8x10's I do have to add exposure in post, it seems no matter how much I ETTR. So I hear you on the printing part!

 

[bdunbar79]

This is is at ISO4000, and I've seen others post at this high with no problems like I'm seeing.

ISO 4000 is not a "real" ISO.

The "real" ISO settings are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, (maybe) 6400.

The "inbetweeners" (320, 640, 1250, 5000, 4000, etc) are all one of the above underexposed and then pulled up.

According to a paper I have, the +1/3's are pulled up and +2/3's are pulled down (from the next real ISO).

 

[bdunbar79]

Better examples: Photo 1 is the unedited RAW file converted straight to jpg. I've then included two versions of edited photos. You can edit it them any way you'd want, I just applied two presets I happened to have to illustrate the point. This shot is at ISO 5000 and shot about +2/3 at this end of the court.

At ISO 5000 with +2/3, you've introduced more noise due to the drop in IQ as a result of amplification than you have compensated for with overexposure.

Wrong.

 

[bdunbar79]

Better examples: Photo 1 is the unedited RAW file converted straight to jpg. I've then included two versions of edited photos. You can edit it them any way you'd want, I just applied two presets I happened to have to illustrate the point. This shot is at ISO 5000 and shot about +2/3 at this end of the court.

At ISO 5000 with +2/3, you've introduced more noise due to the drop in IQ as a result of amplification than you have compensated for with overexposure.

Wrong.

What makes you believe that my comment is wrong?

Because you said ISO 5000 is 3200 amplified by 2/3 stops. Did you, or did you not, imply that? When in fact, according to my paper, it is not.