Digital Noise on the 50D

[JimTx]

Back in Basketball season I switched to sRaw1 to shoot where I had poor light and had to use the higher ISOs ... there was a lot less noise in the picture.

I have been shooting birds in the woods .. often at distances and high ISOs that required big crops if I wanted the picture. This brought in a lot of digital noise. Switched to the sRaw1 again and even with big crops .. the noise wasn't bad.

I only use RAW (or sRaw1) ... just one of those things

Your mileage may vary.

[mikeivan]

Thanks for this tip. I have never tried sRAW on my 50D, seems like I always need to crop so I like the pixel count. At what ISO do you start seeing the noise? I never shoot higher than 800 and prefer 400 but my lens + 1.4 ext eats light. I will try sRAW next outing.

[gasrocks]

Are you saying that with your 50D you get better crops from an sRAW1 (7.1 mp) image than you do from a RAW (15.1 mp) image? Hard to believe.

[hollis_f]

Are you saying that with your 50D you get better crops from an sRAW1 (7.1 mp) image than you do from a RAW (15.1 mp) image? Hard to believe.

I agree. I'd like to see a comparison of a crop from a 15.1MP Raw, a 7.1MP sRAW and the 15.1MP RAW shrunk down to a 7.1MP TIFF in PhotoShop. I'd be surprised if there much difference between the last two.

[mikeivan]

Well, I dunno, maybe the OP is onto something. I just ran a quick comparison in the backyard with my 50D at ISO 1600, something I never use when actually photographing birds. These were converted in DPP with no noise reduction or lens compensation and sharpening at 3. Cropped and saved for web in Elements. There are lots of different ways to look at this but these are my results.

360223
RAW, 67% crop, f7.1, 1/6400 sec, 560mm, range 15m

360224
sRAW, 100% crop, f/7.1, 1/6400 sec, 560mm, range 15m

It looks to me as if you may lose more noise than detail when going from RAW to sRAW. I did the same experiment at ISO 800 and noticed the same effect, albeit less pronounced. Certainly worth a field test for me. YMMV. Thanks again to JimTX.

[JimTx]

I think nothing of shooting a baskeball game at 3200 or 6400 ISO ... in sRaw1 and then following it up with Noise Ninja. There is some noise but for a newpaper shot ..it doesn't show.

I start picking up noise about 1600 ISO with the 50D in RAW and there is less in sRAW1 .... I think that the smaller number of pixels is better at high ISOs. I could be wrong ... but it works for me.

Actually .. I can't think of the last time I turned off of sRAW1 for anything. I seldom go above 8X10 and I don't seem much difference between the two at that size.

The tip was free but if you want to give me a bonus (if it works for you !!! ) I am working toward a UWA lens! LOL