Noise issue with EOS 20D - Please help/comment !!!

[Raj]

Am a new 20D user. I am having noise issues.
If I shoot a photo indoors (raw/jpeg) at ISO 800/1600, then go to review mode & zoom to max (100% crop ??) I can see some visible noise at the extreme end. This happens even at 400 !
To make sure, I shot similiar pictures indoor at ISO 3200/1600/800/400/200/100 in P mode with flash.
I see very noticable noise starting ISO 400. Is this normal ? spending so much $$ on 20D i exptected better performance :( :( dpreview.com says full ISO range is usable, however this dosent seems to be the case.

Can you please have a look at my shots & let me know if this is normal ? I want to confirm if there is something wrong with my camera or not ... I havent resized my pics, so they ar ebig but please bear with me ......

http://www14.plala.or.jp/rajkaori/noise/index.html

Any help is greatly appriciated...

A panicking 20D user.. :(

[Raj]

Just to clarify, I understand noise will increase at higher ISO's but is it supposed to be as bad as in pics in my link ? & moroever is visible noise expected even at ISO 400 ?

[gramps]

if those are resixed up to a larger than 100% size then croped I would think your camera is fine. Can you post a 100% crop of a picture that has not be upsized? That might be a better way to judge.

[Radtech1]

How does the full image look when printed at various sizes. 4x6, 8x10, etc.

Rad

[drisley]

How does the full image look when printed at various sizes. 4x6, 8x10, etc.
Rad

EXACTLY. It's not what the image looks like at 100% that counts. It's what it looks like in OUTPUT form, ie, web-size, or printed.
Btw, the noise on the pictures you posted is very good. The 20D arguably has the best noise profiles of any camera you can buy.
Go try a point and shoot camera at ISO 400 (like one of the G series), or even film at ISO400, then you will know just how good the 20D is when it comes to noise levels.
I notice in fact you have a G3. I used to own a G3, and I can say for a fact the 20D has less noise at ISO1600 than the G3 had at ISO400.

[Scottes]

Those posts look fine.

Noise will be more prominent in the middle third of exposure, which these photos are, for the most part. I wouldn't worry about this. At all.

[robertwgross]

Besides, if you get some color noise in an image, you can process most of it out using a noise reduction program (e.g. Neat Image, Noise Ninja, etc.).

---Bob Gross---

[Persian-Rice]

Are you underexposing and then brightening the image? That would be the culprit if you are doing that.

[Olegis]

Please allow me to quote myself from another thread :

Personally, I think that we, the Canon DSLR shooters, are very spoiled people - just look at the results of an 800 ASA film to understand what I'm talking about. The noise the current cameras produce is so much better that high-sensitivity film grain - it's almost amazing. I've made hundreds of pictures at ISO 1600, which came out pretty nice after some noise-removal treatment.

Your pictures look fine, even at ISO3200. ;)

A word of advice - try searching this forum for drisley's posts, he's internationally recognized advocate of "shoot at high ISOs, expose to the right" approach. :)

[jfred]

are you using C.Fn-02 (long exposure noise reduction) at all? Could you try it?

if you were using iso 400 and above film in a standard 35mm camera, you'd be seeing graininess at the high end of the ISO scale. (just a thought!)

[Andy_T]

Just 2 factoids on this ...

1) Noise tends to increase dramatically if you underexpose the picture. Your picture sure looks underexposed to me.

2) Adam Hicks just recently started a thread on some great FREE noise reduction software: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=57047&highlight=free+noise+reduction

Best regards,
Andy

[coarphoto]

your noise looks pretty normal to me- please take note that it is better to increase iso than to underexpoe and brighten in photoshop as this will really make the noise visible everything is fine with your camera.....I suggest that you try some noise supression software like neat image or noise ninga----also try this---convert your image to lab mode in photoshop(5 6 7 or cs) then in the chanels pallette choose either the a or b channel---whichever has the most visible noise and blur it until it looks smoother this technique will help to some extent have a great day!

[drisley]

A word of advice - try searching this forum for drisley's posts, he's internationally recognized advocate of "shoot at high ISOs, expose to the right" approach. :)

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Raj]

Thank you everyone for your quick response. I apologize for my late reply, I was on vacation with no access to internet.

gramps: These pics were as such, i mean I didnt cropped or resized them in anyway, just generated webpages with original size.

drisley: Following your advice I didi a quick comparison test between G3 & 30D noise, took similiar shots from G3 & 20D at all permisible ISO's at both the camera's, 20D at 1600 seems to have less noise than G3 @ 400 ... even 3200 is comparable :lol:

[Raj]

Rad: I havent printed any image from 20D yet, will check that today...

Robert: I did try DCE auto enhance with Noise reduction "on" today to enhance images, results look good.. Gives me some confidence to shoot at high ISO's :lol:

Persian Rice, Jfred & andy : Images are slightly underexposed as they were taken indoors with built in flash without any exposure compensation. However what I posted was as such, that is I didnt tried to correct exposure later.
I get your point, as I said seeing DCE's correction I am now more confident to shoot at high ISO if I have to :-)

[Raj]

However during my G3 & 20 D comparison test, I swapped same CF card from G3 to 20D. At this point 20D had shot some 300 pics, while G3's counter was onm ~3100. 20D started marking images with counter ~3100. It somehow tooks G3's counter as its own & started indexing images from there.... Has anyone seen this issue ?
Its non trivial though, I will use dedicated memory cards going forward ..

[defordphoto]

However during my G3 & 20 D comparison test, I swapped same CF card from G3 to 20D. At this point 20D had shot some 300 pics, while G3's counter was onm ~3100. 20D started marking images with counter ~3100. It somehow tooks G3's counter as its own & started indexing images from there.... Has anyone seen this issue ?
Its non trivial though, I will use dedicated memory cards going forward ..

Yes. Happens all the time. Just rename the folder to 301 or whatever and the 20D will revert back. Format CFs on computer before exchanging. Or, buy more CFs and do not exchange at all.

[Raj]

Thanks Jim

I have enough cards, will make them dedicated :-)

Cheers

[drisley]

drisley: Following your advice I didi a quick comparison test between G3 & 30D noise, took similiar shots from G3 & 20D at all permisible ISO's at both the camera's, 20D at 1600 seems to have less noise than G3 @ 400 ... even 3200 is comparable :lol:

And, dont forget that the 20D has twice as many pixels as the G3.
An even better comparison would be to resize the 20D image down to 50%, THEN compare to the G3 images. I'll bet even the ISO3200 images will blow away the G3 images at ISO400.

[Raj]

Good point drisley !
Didnt even occured to me :oops: