Solution for high noise for landscape?

I have a 20D and a 450D and I am finding that when I shoot landscapes, including star photography with long shutter speeds, I have very high noise, even at my lowest ISO of 100. I can't afford a new body, even the old 1D right now but need a solution. I've also noticed some noise even at faster speeds, up to about 1/40th at ISO 200.

I also have an old AE-1 with several lenses I use on my EOS bodies with an adapter from time to time (not a factor in the noise). If I could get my hands on some 25 ISO film or even 50 would that be a big enough change? Would it be worth it? My lenses aren't spectacular. My best being a Canon 70-210mm f/4 and Kiron 105mm f/2.8 Macro.

Any other solutions? I've tried cleaning my sensors too and that doesn't help. These aren't extraordinarily old bodies and should have higher performance in my mind.

Thanks in advance.

Can you post an example or two? Hard to tell anything otherwise. Long exposures (sensor gets warmer the longer the shutter is open), and improper exposure will also contribute to noise. There are also aftermarket plug-ins such as Noise Ninja, Neat Image, etc.

Any you using any long exposure noise reduction features on the bodies (assuming they have them)?

Alex
Without seeing some examples here is a thought.
When exposing the shots, expose with the histogram favoring the right side. This may help your issue or at least reduce some of the issue.
How are you processing the images?

I did very long star exposures with my 20D and had great clean shots. Use lower ISO's and turn on the long exposure noise reduction feature.

http://dcer.smugmug.co​m …n/1209628557_dE​gEB-X3.jpg <---20D

Without upgrading your body, you have a few choices if you're still seeing noise at ISO 100:

1. Turn on long exposure noise reduction in camera.
2. Over-expose by 1/3 - 2/3 of a stop and pull the exposure back down in post.
3. Invest in noise reduction software.

I would not use any in-camera long exposure noise reduction for the simple fact that it will basically double the time until your camera is able/ready to take another shot. For shutter speed of 1 or 2 seconds, its probably not a big deal. But if you're shooting at shutter speeds much greater than that (i.e. 30-seconds), it could be a while before your camera is ready to shoot again. Disable the in-camera NR in your camera's menu and deal with it in post.

I'll try the over-exposure method mentioned by MNUplander. I have Noise Reduction turned on in both bodies and it doesn't seem to make a difference so I might turn it off.

I'll try software because Lightroom 3's noise reduction makes it look fake

Please attach an image or, better yet, upload a RAW to dropbox or a similar file hosting site.

Stand-alone programs like Neatimage do a fair job, but you have to be careful with the parameters, so as to avoid nuking the faint stars.

You might play with http://ufraw.sourcefor​ge.net/ It has a dark frame option that should eradicate much of your noise. (Win installer at http://sourceforge.net …w-0.18-setup.exe/download ) You'll need to make a small library of dark-frame images, each corresponding to a range of shutter times. Rough half-stop increments are generally good enough. Eg: 1 sec, 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc.

For star trail photography, I took multiple, faster shots to keep noise down and took a black frame with the same speed which I substracted from each shot. I then combined all the shots (pretty much layering them on in Screen mode). There's some pretty good freeware out there that handles all that automatically but I honestly can't remember its name.

That's exactly what I do. Set your camera to continuous shooting mode, manual focus, 30 sec. shutter speed, use a cable release and lock it. The camera will take 30 sec. consecutive shots. You combine them with software like this: http://www.startrails.​de/ (which is free) and you got clean, noise-free star trail pics.

armis wrote in post #13894839
For star trail photography, I took multiple, faster shots to keep noise down and took a black frame with the same speed which I substracted from each shot. I then combined all the shots (pretty much layering them on in Screen mode). There's some pretty good freeware out there that handles all that automatically but I honestly can't remember its name.

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