Need some help here - Forster's Tern

[Melissa Usrey]

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Canon 1 DX Mark II, Canon 400 II f/4 DO with 1.4 tc
ISO 4000
560mm
1/1600 sec.
5.6
I processed it in LR only cropping a little bit, reducing the highlights and slightly increasing the shadow slider.

This is certainly not an exciting shot, but I am concerned about it. I took it at 7:30 a.m. with overcast skies. My speed setting was high because I had been trying to take photos of these birds in flight and didn't have a chance to change it when this Tern landed.

As this was only the second time I shot with the 1DX II, I wasn't worried about the high ISO. My previous 1 DX could handle very high ISOs without noise. Not so with the new one! I did not reduce the noise yet in LR and/or Dfine in PS because I wanted to show you how much noise there is!

After spending $6000 on the new 1DX, I'm very disappointed. Do I need to have it calibrated with all of my lenses? Frustrated!!!

[Randy Stout]

Melissa:

I hope some of the Canon crew will chime in on this for you.

As posted, I would have probably have commented that the noise looked pretty decent for that ISO. So much of the noise that we see depends on the original exposure, balance of shadows and darks in the frame, amount of post processing, etc.

I can shoot the same camera (Nikons) one day, and be very happy with the noise, but due to the items mentioned above, may not be pleased the next.

Calibrating the lenses will have no impact on your noise levels.

I would shoot a wide variety of scenes and lighting conditions before giving up on this camera.

As a general rule however, shoot with the lowest ISO you can. I try to use ISO 400- 800 with the D500 and a bit more with the D4. I do however ride the ISO frequently, and adjust to the available light.

Cheers

Randy

PS: I am looking at the image on an iMac 5K, which shows a lot of detail, and usually makes noise more noticeable than lesser resolution monitors.

[Melissa Usrey]

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This is the same Tern in the same burst on my camera. This time I removed the noise in DFine 2. On both photos in LR, I magnified by 2X and the noise was very significant.

[Melissa Usrey]

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Randy, here is a close-up of the noise on the head.

[Randy Stout]

Melissa:

That crop does show it well. How much did you increase the shadow slider? Do you have a high level of sharpening set in Lightroom as a default?

Randy

[Melissa Usrey]

I increased the shadow slider a tiny bit to bring out the eyes, but certainly not as much as I usually do. I'm not sure what you mean by high level of sharpening in LR. I didn't sharpen the photo at all.

[Randy Stout]

In the detail section of lightroom, you have the option of setting several sharpening parameters. I generally leave all of the sharpening off, but if for some reason the presets have really been cranked up by accident, you can get increased noise levels.

Randy

[Melissa Usrey]

Geez, I didn't know that even with the tutorials on LR! Will this occur even if you don't choose to sharpen in LR? I'm going to go look at the parameters now!! Okay, I see what you mean now. The sharpening sliders under Detail. I don't sharpen in LR. The times I have sharpened, I've used Output Sharpener in PS (NIK filter).

[John Mack]

You might wanna try exposing to the right , especially with high ISOs and low light.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hey Melissa ....you have a good " toy " in your hand .
One of the best performers on the market ....on all counts .
So generally i am surprised about your concerns regarding the Iso performance of the 1Dx II ....lens calibration does have no effect on the noise level .
The key is to shoot ETTR and bring back detail with the EXP slider over the tonal range . Never ....never try it other way round , even if the 1Dx II is more forgiving when it comes to shadow recovery compared to the 1Dx .
To be honest without seeing the RAW file it is barely possible how good the file is in terms of sharpness and noise level ....you just post downsized jpg images with a lot of compression involved .
So if you want a decent opinion .....provide the original file for the folks to download .
Cannot say much about LR and the settings as i prefer to work with Canon ´s DPP for the conversion .
In pane 4 you posted the very tight crop to show the noise , well look at 100 % view and make a judgement and not that tight , for sure noise will be obvious , even at 400 Iso :w3

I do use the 1Dx II at 12800 and up to 50K and the output is quite stunning ....keeping in mind that i would keep the Iso lower if possible , but i rather like to have a sharp file and deal with the higher noise level than having a soft file and lower noise level .

Hope this helps ...Cheers Andreas

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Melissa, I have followed this post and read the comments. The 1DX II, Nikon D5, Nikon D500 are good high ISO cameras. The caveat I would add is that the tones in the image must be within the dynamic range of the camera. Andreas's Llama or whatever it was at ISO 51,200 is a good example, also I recently posted a image I captured at Gatorland at ISO 9000 with my Nikon D500. Your image of the Tern is very difficult to expose for because of the white and black tones. Expose for the blacks and blow out the whites, expose for the whites and possibly block the blacks. A image with only midtones is so much easier to expose correctly or expose to the right. The midtone images can then be darkened in exposure which tends to hide the noise. Thank you for sharing and asking the question.

[Melissa Usrey]

Thank you Joseph! I always seem to have problems with black and white birds, so this makes so much sense. I think it will be a good challenge for me to work on it and get it right in the camera.

[Melissa Usrey]

Andreas, I tried posting a larger file but this forum won't accept it. I actually have an Export preset just for birdphotographers.net so I don't have to keep going back and reducing the size to make it work here. I'm sure there's a way around it, but I'm not up to speed on it. I always shoot to the right at 1/3 or more. That's been drummed into me! With my older 1DX, I was able to get noise free images at 10,000 ISO which is why I was concerned about the newer model. It was only the second time I used the 1DX II since receiving it. I am going to learn the DPP program!!

[Melissa Usrey]

Thanks John. That's something I always try to do - 1/3 to 2/3 stops. I know I need much more practice with low light shooting!!!

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Melissa
didnt you already message me about this and I told you what the problem is ????

Your problem is LR and until you use DPP you are not going to get a good IQ. The LR is really garbage when it comes to dealing with Canon RAW files. I am afraid you are wasting no your time dealing with LR.


As for for the 1DXII it is the best camera for high ISO money can buy. It is not a lot better than the 1Dx as that camera is perfect too but it is not worse.

Good luck

[Melissa Usrey]

Yes!!! That's what I'm going to do - learn the DPP program and start using it!!! I didn't repost this - was just replying to later posts.

[arash_hazeghi]

The high ISO performance of modern cameras are primarily a function of the sensor size (total amount of light collected) with the FF cameras performing significantly better than the crop cameras. A Tern is not a very difficult subject for high ISO as it doesn't have very fine feather structure that might become difficult to maintain at very high ISO's. To show what this camera can do here is an example of GHO at ISO 5000


First FF image
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1DX II 600 II +1.4X III. ISO 5000 f/5.6 1/1000 sec hand held

here is a 100% crop as it comes out from DPP4.5 with recommended settings. There is surely some grain visible in the BG, but it is very small while all the fine detail on the owl's feathers is remaining. you can even see moire on the feathers... for this shot applying NR on the BG is enough to give you a nice clean image.

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This goes to show Adobe LR doesn't work well for the Canon 1DX MK II at high ISO's, when the grain is so coarse removing it will compromise the details. The 1DXII is relatively a new camera so my guess is with time and more attempts at reverse engineering Adobe RAW conversion will improve but for now it's just not good and should be avoided if you care about IQ

[arash_hazeghi]

I don't shoot terns much these days but I found this example in my files. It's a juvenile tern, shot wth the 1DX2 ISO 5000. the bird was much farther than Melissa's example but as you can see there is much more details on it...

not a great photo but it shows the point

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100% crop : again there some noise but this is pretty darn good for ISO 5000. you can even make large prints out of it

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[arash_hazeghi]

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100% crop ISO 5000

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[Don Lacy]

Hi Melissa, Without seeing the Raw image it is hard for anyone to tell were the issue is. Use dropbox to post a link to the Raw and we can download it and pin point if it was the capture or post work that is causing the noise. https://www.dropbox.com my guess is the same as Arash

[Melissa Usrey]

Arash, I'm going to start processing using the DPP4 and hope it's not too complicated! My original point was that my 1DX was able to handle high ISOs without noise. The 1DX Mk II doesn't seem to do as well. That's my frustration. The first lesson I learned when studying the fundamentals of photography by Joel Sartore was "to get it right in the camera."

[Melissa Usrey]

I can understand getting noise on your Tern as it was farther away than mine. My Tern was practically on top of me!

[Don Lacy]

Arash, I'm going to start processing using the DPP4 and hope it's not too complicated! My original point was that my 1DX was able to handle high ISOs without noise. The 1DX Mk II doesn't seem to do as well. That's my frustration. The first lesson I learned when studying the fundamentals of photography by Joel Sartore was "to get it right in the camera."
Your experience goes against every test and observation made since the camera came out. So either you have a bad camera or there is something in your workflow that is off again if you use dropbox to link the Raw file we can determine if it is a workflow issue. If you want our help link the Raw otherwise we are only guessing.

[arash_hazeghi]

I can understand getting noise on your Tern as it was farther away than mine. My Tern was practically on top of me!

Hi Melissa, noise does not depend on the distance. noise depends on the camera's sensor and the exposure settings (amount if light captured) as well as the software that is used for processing of the RAW data from the camera.

Also note that while it is very important to get things right in the camera, including exposure and focus, how you process your RAW files, from the software itself to the type of the screen that you use for processing your files is paramount in achieving a perfect image quality. You can have the best field technique but ruin your files with bad processing, or you could have the best processing in the world but a lousy file to start with, both will lead to a delete! :S3:

let us know when you use DPP if you still have issues

best