Canon 5D noise

I am evaluating a used camera for purchase, so I wanted to test it in low light and high ISO. I am not impressed from what I shot this afternoon. I was under the impression that the full frame sensor would give better results than this! Am I off-base here?

This image is from an 11MB RAW file that was cropped only-no exposure adjustments, sharpening, or NR applied.

Canon 5D
auto WB
300mm f4L IS,
ISO 800
f4.0 @ 1/320sec
0 EV, pattern metering
tripod

I would appreciate any comments you may have to offer:)

Julie,
It is not possible to evaluate noise from such a small photograph, it looks to me as if it has sharpening applied or other processing. If possible post a 100% unprocessed crop. the 5D should have little problem at ISO 800.

Cheers

Arash, I brought it into lightroom and cropped it, nothing else.
I will repost the full frame image. I'm anxious to see what you think.

Julie- The other variable is exposure. Any camera can produce noise in underexposed areas of the image. "In low light" was a key phrase in your post, but the noise produced depends a lot on how you exposed for that low light. Did you expose to mimic the scene as you saw it or did you use the histogram and expose to the right? If you did the former, I'm not surprised you got some noise. If you did the latter, the 5D produces very clean images at ISO 800 in my experience.

I own a 5D and I love the camera but I can make noise with it like the best of them! Noise is relative too. Yes perhaps the 5D will produce some noticeable noise at ISO 800 in underexposed areas, but compared to many other cameras of the day it was superior, and is still outstanding today IMO. Remember as well that the 5D is now almost 5-year old technology and that's a long time in the development and evolution of sensors.

John, thanks so much for giving me that information. I know I got a few images with the histogram exposed to the right. Maybe I will post another one tomorrow.

I do know that underexposure produces noise, I guess I thought the camera could compensate for that.:o
I will have to pay more attention to technique and give the camera another chance! :D

So, do you think the technology is too old now-should I wait and spend the money on the MKIII when it comes out? I have a 40D now, and I like it.
Oh, one thing I did like about the 5D was the brighter viewfinder.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Julie Brown

Arash, I brought it into lightroom and cropped it, nothing else.
I will repost the full frame image. I'm anxious to see what you think.

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Hi Julie,
Do the following:

Go to light room and open the Cr2 file, turn the sharpening slider to zero in the "details" tab, then crop an are where you see noise, then export making sure you don't select "resize" option, this way you will get a 100% crop. The 5D should produce files that are noticeably cleaner than 40D unless something is wrong with processing or the camera.

Cheers

Julie- I got my 5D (second hand) because it was by far the cheapest way I could enter the full frame arena. I think for the right price (not sure what that is right now) the 5D is still a great camera that will serve you well.

Arash, if I don't resize, how will I get it to be within 1024 x 800 and under 200kb?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Julie Brown

Arash, if I don't resize, how will I get it to be within 1024 x 800 and under 200kb?

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you need to crop an area that is smaller than 1024X800 pixels but you should not resize the original photo. Crop and resize are two different things, resize takes the original photo and interpolates to generate new pixels, crop just crops an area of the image without touching the pixels.

hope this helps

John, that is what I am trying to do. I already have 3 L lenses.

Arash, here is another try after following your instructions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Julie Brown

John, that is what I am trying to do. I already have 3 L lenses.

Arash, here is another try after following your instructions.

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Yup Julie, this is exactly what I wanted to see!!

As you can see there is some noise in the form of color blotches but fine detail is intact, this noise is easily removable without much effort.
Do you have Canon DPP software? If so I recommend giving it a try, set the chroma NR to 8 and luminance NR to 0 and you will love the 5D files.

Also the appearance of noise in the final image depends on the specific tone curve that is applied to RAW file, these are also referred to as "camera profiles" Adobe's default profile is somewhat bright and flat which aggravates the noise in uniform areas of the image. You can also increase the amount of chroma noise reduction that is applied in LR to get rid of the color noise.

Nevertheless this is normal and still better than 40D :)

Arash, I really appreciate you taking the time to walk me through all of this. I do have the DPP software, but in addition to Lightroom I have PSE, and just got the NIK complete collection. You and John have made me feel better about the camera-now I know the problem is me!:D

Here is the image again after adjusting WB and exposure, sharpening, and cranking the luminance and color NR up in Lightroom. I also chose "camera faithful" in the calibration panel.
Oh, should the luminance NR be at zero-per your instructions for DPP?

Nice try Julie!!
However you can get much better results that do not have the water-color look :) If you like using Lightroom just use the chroma slider and set it to 40, set luminance to zero and then use a sharpening of 25, that should give nice results. luminance NR is usually responsible for loss of detail and water-color look. If noise is very high and you need luminance NR use third-party applications like neat image, noise ninja etc.

If you like to use DPP, set chroma to 8 and luminance to 0 with a sharpening of 2 or 3 and that well give you a nice image!

looking forward to your photos with the 5D!

I have been all over the map with the NR sliders. I will put this info to good use!

Thanks again Arash.

Have a good evening!:)

Hi Julie: I have both the 40D and the 5D. I will regularly use higher ISO's with the 5D which I can't do with teh 40D. WIth the correct NR application, I really think you'll be happy with the 5D. I sure am! Good luck.

Marina

Julie, I agree with Marina and John. I love my 5D and regularly shoot at high ISOs. In fact, I recently printed a toucan image at 24x36" for an exhibit that was taken with the 5D at ISO 1250 (dawn light in the rainforest so you do what you gotta do!), and it looks pretty darn good. If you don't feel like spending the money for a 5DII, I think you will be very happy with the original 5D.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

Marina, and Greg thanks for your input. I did some more test shooting today and I will start another thread to post another image that hopefully is exposed better.

Greg-I am thinking of the 5D MKII now!:)

Julie, sounds good. Even though I really like my 5D, the 5DII is at the top of my wish list.

Cheers,
Greg Basco