• So after introducing myself in the proper forum, it is now time for my first question.

    I recently started taking pictures in RAW format (after some weeks of getting familliar with my Fuji S9500 in JPEG-mode and mostly auto-mode). The first thing I noticed was the huge amount of noise in almost every picture I took. Searching on this forum and the internet I found many discussions about noise in RAW pictures, so I guess it's just there, nothiong you can do about it.

    What I would really like to know is how to reduce the noise when taking the picture (and let Photoshop and some plugin take the remaining noise out later on the PC). I already saw a topic (http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47293) where Mohain explained the S9500 takes less noisy pictures when slightly overexposed. But I'm wondering how do I see how much I should overexpose, should I really look at the little line at the bottom of my screen and have the yellow marker a little to the right (how far?) to overexpose a little? Or should I just take loads of pictures with different pictures for every picture I want?

    So far I have experimented with changing the focus, aperture and shutter speed, without looking at the deeper settings in the menu. Besides lots of fun using my camera it also gave some frustration about not being able to get rid of the noise completely.

    I hope someone can help me.

    PS. I have my ISO set at 80.


  • On a prosumer using an EVF and reading the histogram the metering mode is largely incidental. Everything you need to know is in the histogram and you can see the effect the exposure compensation is having on the image in the EVF, as well as the histogram. Still, best not fall into bad habits :) Don't know that grey card but seems cheap enough. Go for it :)


  • Thanks for the advice. Neat image was something I already tried, however, I just wondered if there are any tips for reducing noise in the actual image. By now I think noise is just something I'll have to live with, but are there things I can do to minimize it so that the little noise that ends up in the image can be removed later?

    Or am I just too lazy to do some work in Photoshop and I just have to accept noise is there and I DO have to edit it out later?

    Thanks!


  • Just a quick mention on "in-camera" live histograms. They are a great tool & very helpful as a guide but are not 100% accurate - it's still possible to blow the highlights even though on the histogram the shot might appear o.k. Bracketing, manually or automatically is a good idea, as is using RAW which gives you that extra little "safety net"

    simon


  • I was looking through the WhiBal website and reall couldn't fin out how much it would cost for having it sent to Holland. I've also found this greycard on a Dutch website, do you know if it's any good?

    http://www.focusfx.nl/product_info.php?cPath=58&products_id=281&osCsid=d6f1a2a6af25e2f8f51167641c502067


  • Never thought of it that way, thnx for the advice!


  • By reading many articles on this forum, tutorials and websites it seems to me like knowing your way in Photoshop is maybe more important than taking the picture itself (probably not true).

    So I'll just keep reading the tutorials, websites and this website and continue asking questions, I think that works best.

    Thanks for the help guys!


  • In your example, the worst noise is in the shadow areas...which is typical. Your shot is exposed for the sky...not the buildings...so the buildings are severely underexposed...which brings out the noise.

    One way to deal with this...would be to mask off the sky area (in photoshop) and apply noise reduction to just the shadow areas. Or run it through Neat Image and then layer the resultant image back onto the original and mask off the sky on the new layer.


  • Noise is something that digital photographers have to deal/live with...just like grain was for film photographers...but at a low ISO setting with good exposure on a DSLR...noise shouldn't be a problem...at least not a big one. Is it possible that you are just zooming in too close and 'pixel peeping'?

    Maybe show us an example, along with the EXIF data.

    {edit} you beat me to it :D


  • THNX, I already only use manual modea for the past few weeks and ever since I got the camera and read about ISO it hasn't changed from ISO 80. The problem now is it's not really weather to get out and start shooting, so I'm waiting for the spring to come (or winter without rain/wind, whichever comes first) and just shoot what I can inside the house or from an open window quickly if it's not raining.

    I'll also put the meter on spot, I had it on multi all the time before. I just try to take multiple shots everytime, usually from a little underexposed to very overexposed just to be sure (I have a 2GB card which seems enough for now).


  • I think the histogram is not that helpfull since it's not really live (on my camera). Changing shutterspeed or aperture doesn't change anything to the 'live' histogram...


    Hmmm,

    are you sure - it should change constantly as you "move around" a scene or change the aperture / shutterspeed settings. Perhaps it needs a special menu selection ?? Sorry not fully familiar with the S9500, I own a KM A200 which is a very similiar camera - I use the "live" histogram all the time

    simon


  • Separate from noise, underexposure loses tonal resolution. Digital doesn't see light the way our eyes or film does. Most of the data is in the highlights. Underexposure of a single stop loses half of the total tonal range. 2 stops absolutely kills your tonal range. My suggestion is to expose for the highlights. Overexposure is much better than underexposure. The tricky part is making sure you don't blow out any highlights (have the area go to pure white).


  • Nothing beats an ideal exposure but it is true that underexposing can increase noise when the exposure is corrected in post processing.

    For ftops: I'm running around trying to correct your misinformation on the forums but you're running pretty far ahead of me. Blur and noise have nothing to do with each other. Suggesting that he introduce camera shake and blur into an image to improve noise is simply senseless. If you like your images blurry that's fine. Preferences are a personal thing. But let's try to keep advice to a certain level of accuracy and usefulness.

    For Libeco: It is hard to understand why you suffer from noise in a raw image. Could you mean that you see noise in the post process in some situations. If you are talking about noise in the unedited RAW file, then it must be invisible unless you enlarge things severely. Am I wrong?

    Well, in some images it is unvisible untill zooming in to 100%, but for instance this image here I took (although it was more of a snapshot to just do some testing with raw images) shows a lot of noise.

    Resized to full view
    http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/2696/fullnoiseai8.th.jpg (http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fullnoiseai8.jpg)

    100%

    http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5564/100percentnoiseng1.th.jpg (http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=100percentnoiseng1.jpg)


  • Thanks for your answer, but now I'm a little confused, you say you are slightly underexposing, but like I said before I saw a reply by Mohain in that topic where he said about the S9500:

    It's usually best to slightly over expose (without blowing out your highlights) and adjust the exposure down in ACR


    Do you use a S9500, or is this a general tip?

    Thanks!


  • I think the histogram is not that helpfull since it's not really live (on my camera). Changing shutterspeed or aperture doesn't change anything to the 'live' histogram...


  • THNX for that info!

    Actually when I looked through your gallery I was somewhat relieved to find out what beautiful photos were taken with a S9500. After taking RAW photos and not getting any nice results I was afraid I might have bought the wrong camera (although now I know how much I like playing around with my camera I should've gotten myself a dSLR instead of the S9500).

    I'll keep trying, the book I bought about RAW also mentions exposing to the right, so I'll try to do this better.

    I do have some questions for you, do you do your landscapes from a tripod, or from your hand? Do you use a greycard? (I tried finding one in a local photography shop, but they didn't have anything!)

    THNX!


  • What's the AV and TV-mode, can't find them on the wheel. When taking my time to take a picture from a tripod I always shoot several pictures with different exposures to make sure there's one right. But when shooting from hand or something like that it's usually just getting exposure as right as I think I can get and shoot.

    I'm going to a car show by the end of march, I hope I'll be able to get some nice pictures there, in other words, I need to be prepared than, all the shinyness of the cars with spotlight on them, often too far away to use a flash, it will be tricky... :mrgreen:


  • typically, my comfort zone is 2 clicks under-exposed. as for the noise problem, i was initially going to suggest lowering the ISO, but youre already fairly low.

    try closing down the aperture, but not too much. if the shutter is open just a tad longer, but the picture isnt coming out overexposed, it should soften the image a little bit. whenever i have a problem with film grain, i just add a very slight gaussian blur and the picture is greatly enhanced.

    its really a toss up between how sharp you want the picture to be and how blurry youll allow it to get.


  • By reading many articles on this forum, tutorials and websites it seems to me like knowing your way in Photoshop is maybe more important than taking the picture itself (probably not true).

    It's certainly not more important...but it surely helps. Shooting RAW images with a DSLR...can be compared to people 80 years ago...who shot black and white film and developed & printed their photos in a dark room. The exposure is just one step in the process. It seems to have been overlooked, over the last 30 years, that photo labs have been doing a lot of the work for us. Color negative film doesn't go from exposed film to prints...all by it's self. Now with digital...we cut out the middle man and take control of the process ourselves...and knowing how to use the tools (photoshop) really does help.


  • I'm sure, when moving around the histogram changes, but changing aperture from F2.8 to F11 doesn't make any difference, so doesn't changing shutterspeed from 1/4000 to 30".

    BTW, I like the pictures on your site!


  • Hi,

    I see you've received quite a lot of advice already so will try not to repeat it.

    One of the great advantages of digital is that you can take as many shots as you like & it costs you nothing. I would recommend learning how to use "manual" mode. My own personal "workflow" for taking landscapes is:

    Set iso to lowest,
    small aperture (I own a prosumer too so F5.6 on mine)
    set "spot metering" - sometimes in high contrast shots the "evaluative / average" metering modes can cause underexposure
    in "aperture priority" mode I meter the different areas of the shot & make a mental note
    change to "manual" mode, make sure apertures at F5.6 and then I take a series of shots, all at different shutter speeds.

    when you get back to the PC you'll pretty much always find that the shot with the least noise is the one longest exposure.

    hope this helps

    simon


  • I think the histogram is not that helpfull since it's not really live (on my camera). Changing shutterspeed or aperture doesn't change anything to the 'live' histogram...

    It doesn't when your in manual mode but will when your in Av or Tv mode.

    The s9500 histogram is a brightness only one so it is possible to over expose certain colours. Simonkit's suggestion of bracketing is a very good one :)


  • Nothing beats an ideal exposure but it is true that underexposing can increase noise when the exposure is corrected in post processing.

    For ftops: I'm running around trying to correct your misinformation on the forums but you're running pretty far ahead of me. Blur and noise have nothing to do with each other. Suggesting that he introduce camera shake and blur into an image to improve noise is simply senseless. If you like your images blurry that's fine. Preferences are a personal thing. But let's try to keep advice to a certain level of accuracy and usefulness.

    For Libeco: It is hard to understand why you suffer from noise in a raw image. Could you mean that you see noise in the post process in some situations. If you are talking about noise in the unedited RAW file, then it must be invisible unless you enlarge things severely. Am I wrong?


  • When taking my time to take a picture from a tripod I always shoot several pictures with different exposures to make sure there's one right. But when shooting from hand or something like that it's usually just getting exposure as right as I think I can get and shoot.

    If you are shooting landscapes or in situations where you have some time you really should use to the same technique as on the tripod - if you rely on one perfectly exposed shot you may be often disappointed.

    It's obviously more difficult (or impossible) to do this when shooting sports/moving objects etc particularly if using RAW as it's one of the downsides of these "prosumers", the buffer fills quickly & it's a few seconds wait for the next shot. This is one of the occasions when shooting JPG in combination with "automatic bracketing" is probably a better choice

    simon


  • Hi lieco,

    I used to suffer badly from noise on lots of my images on my s9500 when i started using it and I relied on Noiseware pro (Photoshop plug-in) quite a lot to get rid of it.

    I found the best way to deal with the s9500 noise is to correctly expose and when you can expose to the right (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml). You can turn on your histogram when you're taking pics and see it in the viewfinder and use the exposure compensation slider to bunch up the historgram to the right and then correct exposure in ACR in Photoshop. More on reading histograms here (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml).

    Other tips is to keep the ISO as low as possible 80 or 100 if you can. However I can get very usable images even using ISO 800, with a decent exposure and a bit of help from Noiseware (this (http://www.poijoy.com/mohain/gtbphotography/website/port/images/portrait_05.jpg) image was taken at 800ISO). when using photoshop turn off any sharpening in ACR and just do it right at the end of your PS process, after any resizing. Extensive levels work in PS can also add noise, so it's best to try to get it as right as possible in camera.

    When taking landscapes with the s9500 I set the camera colour to Chrome, iso80, F8 and use AV and the exposure compensation slider, whilst checking the Histogram. Polarizer filters and ND grads help with skys so you don't have to muck around too much in PS.

    Most of the images in my gallery (in my sig) are taken with my s9500, although I have now got a DSLR :D

    Sorry for the waffle! Good luck and happy shootin'

    Mohain :mrgreen:

    EDIT: I don't think the noise in that image you posted is that bad. Always seems to be worse in blues, too!


  • Always on a tripod when taking landscape. And yes, I do use a grey card all the time (except sunset & sunrise, then I leave it on auto). I find the grey card invaluable. I got mine free with a photography magazine but it's getting a bit tatty now, so I'm going to order one of these (http://www.rawworkflow.com/products/whibal/index.html). Do your grey balance with all the filters on. In Chrome mode, with my polariser on grey look bluish if left on auto.


  • I have also noticed that sometimes, my RAW images have noticeably more noise than a JPEG shot...and I'm shooting with a Canon.

    I later realized that I was at a higher ISO setting than I would have liked...but still, the JPEG was smoother. I think this is because the camera applies some noise reduction as part of it's process of saving the JPEG image. Now that I use RAW Shooter Essentials to convert my RAW files...I check the noise reduction level. If shooting at higher ISO levels, or with subjects that show more noise...then I just move the slider up.

    Try adjusting the noise suppression when you are converting the RAW image...or run the image through a noise reduction program like Neat Image.







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