1600 ISO - No noise reduction

[Lance Peters]

Still testing the D3S lack of wildlife is making it hard.
1600ISO no noise reduction!!!!

D3S
Nikon 200-400 VR with 1.7X Converter
F6.3
1/500th
+.7EV
Aperture Priority
Matrix Metering
1600 ISO
Handheld

Cropped - 50% of original - sharpened
NO NOISE REDUCTION.

Comments welcome.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Lovely color, both the bird and the background. Also love the sharpness and the fine feather details. Background noise looks very good, even after sharpen, did you do selective sharpen or sharpen the whole image? The OOF dry glass in the foreground distracts a bit.

[Lance Peters]

Lovely color, both the bird and the background. Also love the sharpness and the fine feather details. Background noise looks very good, even after sharpen, did you do selective sharpen or sharpen the whole image? The OOF dry glass in the foreground distracts a bit.

Selective sharpen.

[kostas nianiopoulos]

verry varry good , Lance , i love your image details the color and the noise free . well done .

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Starting to get tempting on the d3s :confused:

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Nice image, great colors, good detail, and this specific image does very little is proving any noise reduction claims. Why? Noise is a product of low luminosity, and if you look at the histogram for this image, which I did, there are very few areas of low luminosity. The performance is very close to my Sony A700 at ISO 1600, with a similar histogram profile. I generally overexpose a bit, and back off exposure in post processing, but with the same result. I have a strong suspicion that some camera manufacturers do the same trick internally. The camera overexposes, the onboard software corrects the exposure, and there you go. Of course I could be wrong.
I'm not saying the DS3 or any camera for that matter doesn't have better high ISO ability, and if you observe the DS3 does, I believe you. Just that in my opinion this fine image here doesn't prove the point.
Also an image that has large smooth areas wouldn't prove it either, since smoothing is what noise reduction software does.
Manufacturers characteristically cherry pick images shot under very specific lighting, subjects, color(primaries usually since sensors can handle them much better that off-colors) etc. and they use these to bolster their claims.
What I would like to see is an image with a good amount of detail, and a full range of luminosity(shadows to highlights), that was shot at normal exposure.
Sorry, I might be off track here.
Quickly, back to your image. The OOF foreground grass: again my opinion is that you can do to things with a foreground object. Blur it completely so it is a nebulous cloud of color, as in the near foreground here, or have it all in sharp focus, which would require a greater DOF. IMO any middle ground doesn't work nearly as well.
regards~Bill

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Interesting point, just wondering about the camera overexposes then onboard software correct the exposure part. Not sure how can the camera overexposes the image, for example if you shoot manual mode then you set the aperture value, shutter speed and ISO. To over expose an image the camera must let more light in, either by slow down the shutter speed or use larger aperture which override your setting. Or maybe there other way and I am missing something.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanaboon: I am not an expert, and I stated I could be incorrect. It is also not my opinion only. The camera would over ride the settings in this hypothesis, and even in manual mode as things are, exposure compensation being set can do this. Theoretically, as you pointed out, increasing exposure by slowing the shutter speed is a possibility, aperture much less likely becasue you can only open it up so far, and shifting the ISO seems most likely.
There are laws pertaining to the way light behaves, and signal to noise ratios, etc. but I think that usually advances in sensor technology are incremental (or any technology for that matter), and great advances, until proven, should be vigoriusly challanged. Manufacturers, who have a vested interest, are very biased is their accessments, as you would expect. I just hope that the people who use the camera do not fall into the cherry picker camp to justify an expensive purchase. regards~Bill

[Lance Peters]

Thanaboon: I am not an expert, and I stated I could be incorrect. It is also not my opinion only. The camera would over ride the settings in this hypothesis, and even in manual mode as things are, exposure compensation being set can do this. Theoretically, as you pointed out, increasing exposure by slowing the shutter speed is a possibility, aperture much less likely becasue you can only open it up so far, and shifting the ISO seems most likely.
There are laws pertaining to the way light behaves, and signal to noise ratios, etc. but I think that usually advances in sensor technology are incremental (or any technology for that matter), and great advances, until proven, should be vigoriusly challanged. Manufacturers, who have a vested interest, are very biased is their accessments, as you would expect. I just hope that the people who use the camera do not fall into the cherry picker camp to justify an expensive purchase. regards~Bill

Anything is possible - All I can provide is a personal opinion based on having used the D3 for two years and just having got the D3S. 1600 ISO seems much cleaner on the D3S - I would not hesitate to shoot 1600 ISO on the D3S.
D3 I knew I would have to run some NR.
Heres a throwaway shot at 10,000 ISO - Just not possible on the D3.
This is s straight conversion - no sharpening - no NR -> RAW to JPG.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The noise performance looks great. I'm not entirely sure but remember reading that the D3S does apply NR in-camera at higher ISOs even if it is not enabled.

[Lance Peters]

The noise performance looks great. I'm not entirely sure but remember reading that the D3S does apply NR in-camera at higher ISOs even if it is not enabled.

hi Alex - could quote possibly do so. Whatever it is -its a huge improvement over the D3.

[scott benson]

i didn't think any noise reduction was done in raw only jpeg, else what is the point of raw.
just read the manual(eat my own words) learnt something new, even in raw mode, at iso of hi1 noise reduction is applied.

[Alfred Forns]

Noise performance is impressive !! ... haven't seen anything like it !!! Even on the lighter tone image you can tell the smoothness and detail which lacks in all others.

Regarding over exposure maybe is just the term being used? One thing is to push the histogram to the right and maybe have a few blinking pixels and the other to over expose .. which is never a good thing. Once you blow the pixels they are gone !!!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

i didn't think any noise reduction was done in raw only jpeg, else what is the point of raw.
just read the manual(eat my own words) learnt something new, even in raw mode, at iso of hi1 noise reduction is applied.

Thanks for looking it up, Scott! I guess that means NR is not applied at ISO 1600.

[scott benson]

sorry axel, it says that noise reduction is performed at isos over 3200 (high, normal and low,)
and in (off) noise reduction is only performed at iso hi0.3 and higher.. the mount of noise reduction is less than the amount performed when low is selected for high iso noise.

[Gus Cobos]

Its a sweet image and capture Mr. Peters. The color rendition and feather details are super...it is one impressive image. The D3s is one impressive computer/machine...:D:cool:

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Alfred: indeed overexposure may very well be a misleading term, and in my mind at least it only means shifting the histogram to the right, left for underexposure, and normal exposure somewhere in the middle. To me an image can be overexposed without clipping the whites, and it will look washed out to one degree or another. Conversely and underexposed image may contain no dead blacks, yet we know what happens when lightened up post processing. Indeed overexposing too much is a serious problem when the clipped whites contain no digital information.
Lance, I have no doubt that your observations are correct in one camera performing better than another, but as mentioned, even in RAW noise reduction is applied in camera once a particular ISO is reached. I still would like to see one of your images with a full range of luminosity(shadows to highlights) with a detailed subject, like a bird fairly close with expected feather detail as shown in your image of your bird posted here. ISO 1600 would be fine.
regards~Bill

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill that is what I thought you meant, shifting the histogram (totally correct). I think most people get the idea of actually going over !!!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Ahhhhh, what a cracker there Lance! I could shoot these birds for hours (with a camera). Lack of noise IS amazing. My mate will certainly look at upgrading from his D3, I guess.

[Juan Aragonés]

Lance you are killing me with the performance of the D3s, please stop posting examples like this because I need a new car not a new camera :D

I wonder if you can post a 100% crop without processing to enjoy the details.:)