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Author Topic: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?  (Read 24138 times)

dwswager

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The answers I'm looking for do not involve buying a new camera, but I would like to help both myself and my friend.

Background
I shoot a lot of high school and club sports teams at night on very poorly lit fields. I have a friend that does the same and there are 2 other guys from local news organizations that I bump into regularly.  When shooting at a new field that was very poorly lit, I looked around to find I was the only one shooting.  When I asked my friend, he said that he could not get usable images in such light.  I shoot a D810 and though the images have high noise and I wouldn't want to print them big, they are usable.  I'm normally shooting Auto ISO up to 6400,  1/400th - 1/640th at f/2.8-f/4.  None of us have $7000 1Dx or D3x or D4 cameras.  My D810 is probably the most expensive one on the field and I'm the only Nikon shooter.  On my D810 I sometimes underexpose to keep the ISO lower and shutter speed higher.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2015, 02:04:36 pm »

Hi,

Playing around with noise reduction and sharpening…

My ISO is glued to 50, leaving base ISO you give up quality, period.

Leaving base ISO is painful, but I have made decent quality A3-prints at 6400 ISO on my Sony Alpha 99.

Best regards
Erik

The answers I'm looking for do not involve buying a new camera, but I would like to help both myself and my friend.

Background
I shoot a lot of high school and club sports teams at night on very poorly lit fields. I have a friend that does the same and there are 2 other guys from local news organizations that I bump into regularly.  When shooting at a new field that was very poorly lit, I looked around to find I was the only one shooting.  When I asked my friend, he said that he could not get usable images in such light.  I shoot a D810 and though the images have high noise and I wouldn't want to print them big, they are usable.  I'm normally shooting Auto ISO up to 6400,  1/400th - 1/640th at f/2.8-f/4.  None of us have $7000 1Dx or D3x or D4 cameras.  My D810 is probably the most expensive one on the field and I'm the only Nikon shooter.  On my D810 I sometimes underexpose to keep the ISO lower and shutter speed higher.
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Erik Kaffehr
 

John Nollendorfs

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2015, 03:10:25 pm »

It all depends on what  you grow up being used to, in terms of image quality at hi ISO's. I remember when. . .shooting tri-x and push processing to get ISO 3200. It gave you an image, which sometimes was even usable, with no shadow detail.

With the D800, you get quite "usable" stuff at 12,000! And of course you can even push it in post some too. Actually quite remarkable images to be had in the dark, which 10 years ago would never have happened.

There are things to be said, for not pushing ISO numbers, but if I had the choice of being tripod encumbered or not, I would chose leaving the tripod in the car, and pushing the ISO. Yep, sometimes in retrospect, I still kick myself for being lazy and not using the tripod on some shots. But my, how much quicker and easier it is to work without the tripod. I bet even Ansel would enjoy the convenience! ;-)
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AlterEgo

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2015, 03:11:29 pm »

None of us have $7000 1Dx or D3x or D4 cameras.

if I am not mistaken Df has the same sensor as D4(s) and does not cost $7000, no ?
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Jim Kasson

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2015, 03:21:14 pm »

The answers I'm looking for do not involve buying a new camera, but I would like to help both myself and my friend.

Background
I shoot a lot of high school and club sports teams at night on very poorly lit fields. I have a friend that does the same and there are 2 other guys from local news organizations that I bump into regularly.  When shooting at a new field that was very poorly lit, I looked around to find I was the only one shooting.  When I asked my friend, he said that he could not get usable images in such light.  I shoot a D810 and though the images have high noise and I wouldn't want to print them big, they are usable.  I'm normally shooting Auto ISO up to 6400,  1/400th - 1/640th at f/2.8-f/4.  None of us have $7000 1Dx or D3x or D4 cameras.  My D810 is probably the most expensive one on the field and I'm the only Nikon shooter.  On my D810 I sometimes underexpose to keep the ISO lower and shutter speed higher.

The D810 is not the hottest low light camera in the world, but it's no slouch, either.

http://blog.kasson.com/?p=8328

After you click on the link above, scroll down to the photographic dynamic range plot to comapre it to the a7II  and a7R.

Here's a comparison with the D4 and a7S, two low light champs.

http://blog.kasson.com/?p=8280

You can see that it doesn't do too badly.

I advise underexposing in low light with the D810 by two or three stops and pushing the raw files in post. In-camera ISOs of over 1000 are achieved partially through digital gain, and you can do digital gain better yourself in post. Then apply nonlinear noise reduction in Lr or ACR, and res the image down to average out noise.

Jim



dwswager

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2015, 03:51:18 pm »

The D810 is not the hottest low light camera in the world, but it's no slouch, either.

http://blog.kasson.com/?p=8328

I advise underexposing in low light with the D810 by two or three stops and pushing the raw files in post. In-camera ISOs of over 1000 are achieved partially through digital gain, and you can do digital gain better yourself in post. Then apply nonlinear noise reduction in Lr or ACR, and res the image down to average out noise.

Thanks.  Never tried under exposing that much. Usually just a stop.  Will have to give it a try.  I am still learning my way around Noiseware and ACR does OK.  And while the controls are crude, the results for noise reduction from Allentechs Perfectly Clear 2 is actually pretty decent for down-sampled web images.

I actually get usable images without too much issue with the D810.  It may not be the best low light camera on the market, but it is still very capable.  And yes, leaving base ISO means giving up DR and low noise to get something else.  This is the 1st camera I've been happy actually shooting at higher ISOs which is how I ended up shooting in Gyms and Night games in addition to outdoor day games.

My question was to help me, but more my friend who is using a Canon 7D and does not have the ability to buy something new.  He has a wife!  So I wanted to help him out if I could.  While we both get paid from time to time for various endeavors, it is more a hobby and I still classify us as amateurs!
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Borgefjell

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2015, 03:53:46 pm »

@Erik: Your cameras base iso is 100, setting it to Iso50 will cost you quite a bit of image quality, mainly dynamic range.

@dwswager: Your setup is almost the best money can buy, even changing to a D4s would only give you slightly more dynamic range but no improved noise. Guess you just have to accept the noise
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Hans Kruse

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2015, 04:06:22 pm »

Thanks.  Never tried under exposing that much. Usually just a stop.  Will have to give it a try.  I am still learning my way around Noiseware and ACR does OK.  And while the controls are crude, the results for noise reduction from Allentechs Perfectly Clear 2 is actually pretty decent for down-sampled web images.

I actually get usable images without too much issue with the D810.  It may not be the best low light camera on the market, but it is still very capable.  And yes, leaving base ISO means giving up DR and low noise to get something else.  This is the 1st camera I've been happy actually shooting at higher ISOs which is how I ended up shooting in Gyms and Night games in addition to outdoor day games.

My question was to help me, but more my friend who is using a Canon 7D and does not have the ability to buy something new.  He has a wife!  So I wanted to help him out if I could.  While we both get paid from time to time for various endeavors, it is more a hobby and I still classify us as amateurs!

The Canon 7D would not react well to underexposure. I believe that a combination of auto ISO and being observant on what ISO is chosen and shooting in manual setting shutter speed and aperture carefully with an eye on ISO is the way to go. Give up some DOF helps a lot. You don't mention his lenses. If they are f/5.6 he is already loosing two stops compared to an f/2.8 lens which I think should be default in light like you describe. Well you know this, of course :)

bjanes

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2015, 04:31:45 pm »

I advise underexposing in low light with the D810 by two or three stops and pushing the raw files in post. In-camera ISOs of over 1000 are achieved partially through digital gain, and you can do digital gain better yourself in post. Then apply nonlinear noise reduction in Lr or ACR, and res the image down to average out noise.

Jim, since the 810 is essentially isoless (I know you dislike the term) above ISO 800 or so, exposure can be achieved in the camera or in post with no penalty, except that the in camera method can result in blown highlights. What do you mean by underexposing by 2 or 3 stops and how would you go about achieving this? My own take would be that one would want to collect as many photons as possible, but would be limited by f/stop and shutter speed considerations for depth of field and freezing action. In this situation, one could use manual exposure and set the camera for the required shutter speed and f/stop and select the ISO such that the metered exposure value would be 2-3 stops underexposed according to the meter reading. One would then adjust exposure in post. Chimping would be dark under these conditions.

How would one use autoexposure under these conditions?

Regards,

Bill
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Jim Kasson

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2015, 05:31:39 pm »

Jim, since the 810 is essentially isoless (I know you dislike the term) above ISO 800 or so, exposure can be achieved in the camera or in post with no penalty, except that the in camera method can result in blown highlights. What do you mean by underexposing by 2 or 3 stops and how would you go about achieving this? My own take would be that one would want to collect as many photons as possible, but would be limited by f/stop and shutter speed considerations for depth of field and freezing action. In this situation, one could use manual exposure and set the camera for the required shutter speed and f/stop and select the ISO such that the metered exposure value would be 2-3 stops underexposed according to the meter reading. One would then adjust exposure in post. Chimping would be dark under these conditions.

How would one use autoexposure under these conditions?

Bill, I was trying to simplify without going into the whole ISOLess (and yes, I've knuckled under) exposure strategy thing. By underexposing two or three stops, I meant letting the histogram slide that far to the left from a conventional highlights just short of the right boundary histogram.

You're right. If you can't do ETTR at base ISO, you basically decide what f-stop and shutter speed you can live with, and that's what you set the camera at. But what do you do about ISO? My own most often used strategy is to set it to where I'll have to push it two or three stops in post. Why not more? Chimping, as you mentioned. Dark viewfinder, in mirrorless cameras. Twists in Lr developing. Things like that.

I often use autoexposure, too. Once I'm above base ISO, I set the mode to A, exposure compensation to -2 or -3, watch what shutter speeds the camera picks, and shoot away. This is my preferable way to do handheld panos, so that the camera can compensate for light level changes throughout the sequence, and AutoPano with do its exposure compensation thing when it stitches.

Jim

dwswager

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2015, 11:05:03 pm »

Thanks for the advice.  Got my friend out tonight for a high school soccer game. 

The guy with the 7D shoots at f/2.8 with a 70-200mm Canon lens.  And the 7D has a 1.6x crop factor as an APS-C camera.  I shot tonight with the D810 at f/2.8-f/3.5 with a AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII w/ the camera set to a 1.2x crop (25MP).

Question:  With 2 or 3 stops under exposure, are there some standard adjustments that are called for?  Will the vibrance or saturation generally need bumped?
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Jim Kasson

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #11 on: March 17, 2015, 11:36:44 pm »


Question:  With 2 or 3 stops under exposure, are there some standard adjustments that are called for?  Will the vibrance or saturation generally need bumped?


No. See here: http://blog.kasson.com/?p=6574

And here http://blog.kasson.com/?p=6590

Jim

langier

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2015, 12:26:31 am »

I did some night parade stuff with my D800s during Christmas and simply cranked up the ISO to 6400 and 12800. During pixel-peeping, they seem marginal, but with good processing of the raw files with ACR and certain images with Nik Define, I have a usable edit. When I travel to Serbia and the Balkans, I'm in a similar situation regarding dark monasteries, slow lenses and marginal conditions.

Normally for low light and this kind of work, I prefer shooting with my D3s which is nice, even at 12,800 and 25,000. I've gone higher when I've needed to do it.

I've been pushing the ISO for my kind of shooting now for several years.

The D700/D3 are fine up to 6400. The D3s gives me nice images at 12,000 and useable at 25,000. It's a matter of an image vs. no image in some cases. When I went with the D800 three years ago, at similar sizes (down-rezzed) to the D3s, it makes the grade. Pegged at 25,000 the D800 is a better image quality than the D700 by far.

For the most part, most images made pegging the ISO on the D800 are not necessarily useable at the full resolution for most images. However, up to say 11x17, all these cameras from the past several years are just phenomenal.

With good capture technique, good craft and good post processing, you can get good results. Part of it requires practice, part choosing just the best of the bad lighting situation.

I come from years of film where color above ISO 64 was hit-and-miss and Tri-X at 1600 was the state of the art. With the D800, I am fairly happy up to ISO 6400. Higher simply takes more post and the quality starts to suffer but is still doable.

Since the D800D810 has pixels to burn and most likely you are not doing 16x24 and larger images, simply keep pushing your camera and your craft and see how far you can go. I can tell you that of my last couple of museum shows, no one was the wiser on the photos shot at ISO 6400 nor even the 16x20s printed from an iPhone.

It all boils down to choosing the best images and then using good craft to make them shine!
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hjulenissen

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2015, 08:17:46 am »

... and res the image down to average out noise.
I don't think that down rezing is a preferred method to reduce visibility of noise. The "noise-supressing" properties of scaling can be had by using a plain linear filter (typically lowpass) without the aliasing-introducing sample-dropping inherent to image scaling. Using noise reduction software should be preferreable to both.

The noise-reducing properties of bilinear scaling should be well approximated by a "tent" lowpass filter of appropriate width. Lanczos2/3 kernels (and variations) might approximate more high-end scalers, but in the end I think it is about doing some smoothing of the upper band and managing the transition band without making the effective kernel so wide as to cause visible ringing.

If you have a high-rez image that you want to print (or display) on a high-rez medium, doing a "down-rez" operation actually means doing a "down-rez->up-rez" operation before the final image is rendered.

-h
« Last Edit: March 18, 2015, 08:20:44 am by hjulenissen »
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Jim Kasson

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #14 on: March 18, 2015, 10:26:27 am »

I don't think that down rezing is a preferred method to reduce visibility of noise. The "noise-supressing" properties of scaling can be had by using a plain linear filter (typically lowpass) without the aliasing-introducing sample-dropping inherent to image scaling. Using noise reduction software should be preferreable to both.

The noise-reducing properties of bilinear scaling should be well approximated by a "tent" lowpass filter of appropriate width. Lanczos2/3 kernels (and variations) might approximate more high-end scalers, but in the end I think it is about doing some smoothing of the upper band and managing the transition band without making the effective kernel so wide as to cause visible ringing.

If you have a high-rez image that you want to print (or display) on a high-rez medium, doing a "down-rez" operation actually means doing a "down-rez->up-rez" operation before the final image is rendered.

-h

I don't disagree with any of this. I recommended nonlinear noise reduction before downsizing, and -- I'm sorry that I wasn't clear on this originally -- I assumed that, since the OP said he couldn't afford a D4, that the desired output was D4 size or smaller.

The D810 at high ISO is clearly worse than the D4 at 1:1. It is still worse when the images are viewed at the same resolution with good downsizing, but not much worse.

Jim

dwswager

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2015, 03:05:31 pm »

What would be a good starting point settings in ACR for a noisy night sport shot?  I have never been able to do a whole lot in ACR to take care of the noise while not totally destroying detail.

I notice that when I use Noiseware, on a 16 bit image in Photoshop, it seems to do a much better job, but I'm looking for a good starting point to maximize the overall effectiveness.

Thanks for all the help guys!  Love learning new things.
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Iluvmycam

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2015, 05:08:32 pm »

Thanks for the advice.  Got my friend out tonight for a high school soccer game.  

The guy with the 7D shoots at f/2.8 with a 70-200mm Canon lens.  And the 7D has a 1.6x crop factor as an APS-C camera.  I shot tonight with the D810 at f/2.8-f/3.5 with a AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII w/ the camera set to a 1.2x crop (25MP).

Question:  With 2 or 3 stops under exposure, are there some standard adjustments that are called for?  Will the vibrance or saturation generally need bumped?

I have to underexpose 2 to 4 stops for my work. I'd luv to have your  D810 noise problem. Look what I have to deal with.

3 to 4+ stops underexposed.

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/image/111042181561

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/image/111041717491

This one is as good as it gets for night noise with me

2 - 3 stops underexposed.

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/image/109786759681

all from

nsfw

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/

It is like shooting in the wet darkroom lit by the safelight only. Of course you can't use your monster cams for this work. I use 12 to 16 mp. All my shots are candids. If you guys tried to get close like I do with your bloated mega pixel cams the girl will come out and throw bleach or ammonia on you. Or she will signal the pimp or enforcers to kick your ass and throw you cam in the canal. That is why most of what you see in the red light district are shot with a zoom from across the canal.

My advice is if you need to make bigger prints make a master prints and you can scan it and enlarge from the scan. PP only does so much before the image starts to fall apart. For my social doc work this noise level is acceptable. For everyday stuff this noise level would not be useable for my taste.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2015, 05:12:33 pm by Iluvmycam »
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victorhe2002

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2015, 07:29:55 pm »

in some situation, natural light really not giving you lots of options. Try to use off camera speedlight.
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dwswager

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2015, 09:47:49 pm »

I have to underexpose 2 to 4 stops for my work. I'd luv to have your  D810 noise problem. Look what I have to deal with.

3 to 4+ stops underexposed.

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/image/111042181561

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/image/111041717491

This one is as good as it gets for night noise with me

2 - 3 stops underexposed.

http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/image/109786759681

Nice!  If I was shooting this it would probably be with the 16-35mm f/4 VR and then instead of how to keep the shutter speed up, it would be how low can I go not to blur movement!
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Guillermo Luijk

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Re: Techniques for getting lower noise, more usable High ISO images?
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2015, 08:23:57 am »

On my D810 I sometimes underexpose to keep the ISO lower and shutter speed higher.

In your D810 doing this is not a bad thing, or at least it is not worse than pushing ISO to achieve higher RAW values. But if any of your friends have Canon cameras, or Nikon cameras with Nikon (not Sony) sensors, underexposing at low ISO is the worst they can do. They'll get better results by pushing ISO for the same exposure (aperture/shutter) because on Canon/Nikon sensors captured DR is improved a lot by pushing ISO (as long as there are no blown highlights of course, which is the case in the underexposure conditions you mention).

2 shots at the same exposure (aperture/shutter), just changing ISO on a Canon-type sensor:

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