Nikon D300s - High ISO noise reduction comparison

[gary71]

Afternoon,

Prior to being the official bloke with a camera at a colleague's leaving do Thursday night I thought I would experiment with the high end of the iso range on my D300s as I know it's going to be dark!

I shot RAW all the time as I like the level of control, but thought I would also capture a camera jpg of the same shot to see how it's own internal software handles things.

I then did the best I could in Lightroom to knock out the noise, and also tried the Imagenomic plug in for Photoshop.

The camera has made a good job of noise reduction for it's own jpg, but lost sharpness and contrast. Lightroom is OK, but no more than that. The Imagenomic plug in has done a cracking job!

I thought I'd share the results of this test at 2500iso. This is a 100% crop, so yes I'm pixel peeping, but hey

View it large to really see the difference.


Noise software test by Suggs, on Flickr

[Simpo Two]

gary71 said:

the official bloke with a camera

Franchises are available for purchase...




The Imagenomic one has lines all over it...

[GetCarter]

/\ I think he has leaded windows. (And no, that's not the one between XP and Vista)

Is it me are are they all unacceptably noisy?

Good test Gary... good to keep Nikon on their toes.

Edited by GetCarter on Tuesday 22 February 16:22

[dumbfunk]

Which version of LR are you using?

I ask because the noise reduction in the latest version is absolutely miles better than anything before and has led to Imagenomic becoming completely redundant for me.


df

[gary71]

No it's not just you

This is at 2500iso, I still don't want to go much over 800 unless I really have to. And of course if you don't stare too closely then it's good to know you can push it up a touch if needed.

[Simpo Two]

I think what Get means is 'I've got a D3'

[gary71]

dumbfunk said:

Which version of LR are you using?

I ask because the noise reduction in the latest version is absolutely miles better than anything before and has led to Imagenomic becoming completely redundant for me.


df

I'm using lightroom 2. 3 would be nice

[gary71]

Simpo Two said:

I think what Get means is 'I've got a D3'

if only the budget would stretch! Old 911 maintenance seems to be cleaning me out at the moment!

[Beardy10]

That's an interesting comparison and quite a difference between the three. I've bought a D7000 recently and have been shooting RAW and then using Aperture 3 as it's so much cheaper now it's int he App Store than LR3.....need to do some experimenting like this myself to find what is the best processing solution.

[K12beano]

Simpo Two said:

I think what Get means is 'I've got a D3'

...and the landscape that Nikon recommend goes with it - bar steward.

Do you know he even taunts the world on Twitterwebness these days too!!! Double bar steward!

Anyways, looks better than a "brick" from here!!!

[dumbfunk]

gary71 said:

I'm using lightroom 2. 3 would be nice

The noise reduction alone is a reason to upgrade.
You may be able to download the free one month trial and try it out.


df

[gary71]

dumbfunk said:

The noise reduction alone is a reason to upgrade.
You may be able to download the free one month trial and try it out.


df

Good idea. It will certainly cover the event I'm photographing tonight.
Cheers

[dumbfunk]

Go here and choose "Try":

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

Remember to report back on your findings - it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.


df

[gary71]

Just tried it again with Lightroom 3

Much better, you can get it so there is no noise (where I have put this test to) but detail is starting to suffer somewhat.

The colours are a little different as I completed this edit on my home Mac which is set up properly rather than the decade old works PC!

Unfortunately a Lightroom 3 license is five times the cost that of Imagenomic!


Lightroom 3 Noise Reduction Test by Suggs, on Flickr