Noise Reduction -Get 2 more Stops out of your Camera

Kirk is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and a Technical Trainer. He is also a Professional Wedding Photographer in Windsor Ontario   Note: If you would be so kind as to give us a G+ and a Face Book Like- link here (for KW Masters Photography) if you like our posts.  You only have to do this once and add your likes and G+ per post. Thanks for dropping by.

Introduction:

About 5 years ago, shooting at high ISO's above 1600 ISO was a tricky business.  In an earlier post, I told you that you could add two more stops to your images if your camera was say limited to 1600 or 3200 ISO.  Let us look at an example recently taken at a wedding.

Example:  Flash Didn't Fire

Before - flash didn't fire

Discussion:

In years past, I would look at this histogram and photo and say, delete, the flash didn't fire and the image will have way too much noise and loss of detail to use.   Now let us apply a little noise reduction- say 80% on the slider and bring up the exposure compensation to the proper position.

After Noise Reduction and Exposure Compensation- Raw image

A perfect Canon Histogram Just into the 4th quadrant

Exposure Compensation

Discussion:

The exposure could even be pulled back a tiny bit.  The skin tones look very good.  How about the noise on the walls?  What noise?  I am using a 24" calibrated monitor and I just don't see any noise.  You will notice that I was using 800 ISO which is in the Green or good zone for this camera.  What did I use to do this?  If you are a reader of this post, then you will know the answer.  DXO 7.5.5.  We will be upgrading to version 8 today as it has just come available.  You can also try it for free for 30 days.  The exposure compensation bar show + 3.4 or 3.4 stops improvement.  That is a whole lot less than under exposing by -1 EV and getting two more stops.  The image is now very usable.  It could make a 5x7 or 8x10 print with no problem. I pulled this image after DXO processing into Photoshop Camera raw, expecting to apply a small amount of noise reduction.  None was applied or needed.

I also have two other noise reduction programs at my disposal.

Nik Define 2.0, and

Noise Ware Professional which I also love and use for sharpening the image if needed.

The camera was Canon 5D Mark II in case you were wondering.

Now what if I had exposed this properly at 6400 ISO with out a flash?  Doesn't look to me that the high ISO of the Canon 5 D Mark III is needed.  The Mark II will work just fine.  If we add 3.4 stops to 800 ISO we get about 8000 ISO. (1 stop 1600, 2 stops-3200, 3 stop- 6400, 0.4 - say 8000  ISO).

Now if you have some old RAW images that you would like to improve upon, you can go back and do it.

We bought DXO for lens corrections and we are now getting all kinds of extras included.

Masters-Tip:  Try out DXO noise reduction. Enjoy, I am giving away my secrets.

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