50D Noise: Possible Solution

[sharky]

I was having a look through the first batch of photos I've taken with my new 50D, and like some people here was pretty disappointed in the level of noise I was finding in the shadow areas, especially in high-contrast images. I was using DPP to view them since that's the only program that offers official support, when I realised that on every image Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) was selected. So I turned it off just to see what it would do and instantly most of the shadow noise just disappeared!

For some reason, it seems that Canon have chosen to have ALO on by default in both basic and creative modes, so unless you dig into the custom functions (CF II-4) to disable it your new 50D will automatically try to lift up the shadows in your photos, dramatically increasing noise as it goes.

[tonylong]

That's interesting, and a valuable discovery to pass on! With high ISOs, you would definitely want to avoid that, although it would probably be safe at lower ISOs.

In fact, at high ISOs if I was to choose between the two I'd probably use HTP and then expose to the right to get more shadow detail at a lower ISO (HTP takes an exposure at a stop lower ISO than your setting, then boosts the shadows).

[turbodude]

hmmm interesting

[Glenn NK]

Originally Posted by tonylong

That's interesting, and a valuable discovery to pass on! With high ISOs, you would definitely want to avoid that, although it would probably be safe at lower ISOs.

In fact, at high ISOs if I was to choose between the two I'd probably use HTP and then expose to the right to get more shadow detail at a lower ISO (HTP takes an exposure at a stop lower ISO than your setting, then boosts the shadows).

Originally Posted by turbodude

hmmm interesting

Perhaps another cause of the high ISO problems has been discovered.

Gee, maybe this new body is as good as Canon claimed.

[pknight]

Originally Posted by Glenn NK

Gee, maybe this new body is as good as Canon claimed.

I hope so. If this is the case, though, I feel bad for all the Boo Birds that have come out of the woodwork to bash the 50D. They will have to resort to griping about the CA setting.

[Glenn NK]

Originally Posted by pknight

I hope so. If this is the case, though, I feel bad for all the Boo Birds that have come out of the woodwork to bash the 50D. They will have to resort to griping about the CA setting.

So true - my dear old Mom used to say to us, "think quietly a bit before you embarrass yourself out loud".

[Tsmith]

I am assuming in RAW these settings don't really apply?

[Tee Why]

Yea, I thought that was a JPEG setting and not available in RAW?
If you are turning on the effects in DPP from a RAW image, how does it look with noise reduction applied?

Anyway, losing my enthusiasm for the 50D.

[sharky]

Originally Posted by tonylong

That's interesting, and a valuable discovery to pass on! With high ISOs, you would definitely want to avoid that, although it would probably be safe at lower ISOs.

I actually found that it was exhibiting noise even at low ISOs, which was pretty diestressing since my 30D looked much cleaner. By the way, I was shoting everything in RAW and the ALO was definitely being applied by the camera and read by DPP. It wasn't apparent in evenly lit images but where there was significant contrast ALO really messed things up, to such an extent that I was ready to return the camera as faulty.

[sharky]

Originally Posted by Tsmith

I am assuming in RAW these settings don't really apply?

Nope, RAW was where it seemed to do the most damage. DPP reads the file as it was encoded by the camera, so since ALO was turned on by default that's how DPP presented it. Interestingly, noise reduction is set to 0 by default in RAW, so you get the worst of both worlds: ALO boosting the noise in the shadows with no noise reduction applied.

[Lucy Brown]

So the solution is to change the default setting turning alo off. Simple enough I guess.

[sharky]

It does seem odd that Canon would have this enabled by default on this level of camera. I guess they're trying to make the camera as idiot-proof as possible.

[SOK]

Well spotted mate.

When I first read about ALO in the 50D press release, the only thing I was interested in was how to turn it off. It just sounded like bad, bad news!

Do you mind sharing where you bought it from? Trust it was in Aus?

I'm considering picking one up, but not until there are a few more reviews out there....and I'm interested to see how the price will move in the next couple of months!

[sharky]

Originally Posted by SOK

Well spotted mate.

Do you mind sharing where you bought it from? Trust it was in Aus?

I got it from Teds in Melbourne. I haven't given it a proper workout yet, but plan to do that this weekend. My initial 80 or so shots had me on the verge of returning it, until I saw what happened when you disable ALO

[khkohl]

I received my 50D tonight. I took some indoor flas shots with the 580 EX II. I thought the images looked great on the display, but soft on my PC at 100%.

I was going to wait until I took some careful shots tomorrow before I posted my first impressions.

I will disable the ALO to see if I get some benefit from this.