Trying out my Christmas gifts...White-tailed Kite

So I got a 7D and a 400 5.6 for Christmas. Now I am trying to get the feel of them. I went to a local regional park here in the Bay Area and had some good luck spotting birds, but only so so results with my gear. I seem to be getting an awful lot of noise compared to my other cameras at lower ISO settings. These were ISO 200 5.6 at 1/1000. I had to really crank up the NR in ACR. Still learning

NICE!!!!

Noise at 200 ISO, very odd. I try to shot everyhing at 400 ISO

Compared to previous bodies, you typically will get a little bit more noise at the lower ISO's. That has been one of the complaints with the 7D. Upload one of the same pictures without noise reduction and another that is a 100% crop. We can let you know if what you are seeing is typical or unusually high. One thing for sure, if you underexpose any, the 7D will make you pay. However, once you learn to shoot with it and post process the files it is a great body.

I've only had issues with noise when doing heavy cropping or with 1800-6400 in low light with my 7D. Particularly on the blue channel.

Nice shots. I'd like to see the versions without noise reduction as well.

Thanks guys, I will post the pre NR pics tomorrow. I have turned off my big pc for the night and am getting ready to hit the sack. Work comes early

They do look a bit smooth after the NR, so try adding an unsharp mask and seeing if you get some detail back. I get noise in clear blue sky like this as well and have to use NR. I am pretty sure the 7D and T2i have the same exact sensor.

Here is a shot that I had to use NIK Dfine and I let it automate the NR and then pulled it back into CS5 and added an unsharp mask of 105%. Take a look and see if it looks any different to you on your monitor. Every monitor I look at with my pictures seems to show slight differences in the amount of noise I see and any artifacting. I saved this one as a Tiff then cropped it to 70% to make it small enough to upload.

No Angle wrote in post #13643333
They do look a bit smooth after the NR, so try adding an unsharp mask and seeing if you get some detail back. I get noise in clear blue sky like this as well and have to use NR. I am pretty sure the 7D and T2i have the same exact sensor.

Here is a shot that I had to use NIK Dfine and I let it automate the NR and then pulled it back into CS5 and added an unsharp mask of 105%. Take a look and see if it looks any different to you on your monitor. Every monitor I look at with my pictures seems to show slight differences in the amount of noise I see and any artifacting. I saved this one as a Tiff then cropped it to 70% to make it small enough to upload.

That looks great. I don't have NIK Dfine at the moment, and hope I don't have to get it, but I will if I can't get better from the 7D. I also have always used smart sharpen in the past on my other photos (mostly trains planes and cars, along with my pets), but I guess I need to sharpen my CS5 skills!

Here is one of the pics, converted straight from ACR and resized for posting, the second one is a 100% crop. I was pushing the exposure a bit because I have read that that could help reduce the noise. I am aware that I am really cropping it down for posting because I am too far away too, and that could be the cause, but the sky itself just looks way noisier than I am used to with my other bodies espeically at 200 ISO.

Hey, I am new to bird photography, so any advice is welcome, thanks!

Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias +2/3 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
Orientation Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution 240 dpi
Y-Resolution 240 dpi
Software Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Date and Time (Modified) 2012:01:01 22:30:16
Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE
Date and Time (Original) 2012:01:01 13:55:16
Date and Time (Digitized) 2012:01:01 13:55:16
Max Aperture Value 5.7
Subject Distance 76.6 m
Metering Mode Multi-segment

Original

Well he was pretty far away it looks like with that 400mm still. SO detail will not be there as I have learned no matter the camera body. I think they are fine being such a far distance from you. Noise seems to be really bad in the sky for all of my photos as well. I have looked at a bunch of other peoples photos and it seems to be much the same. Give NIK Dfine a try for the 15 days and see how it goes. Also you can separate the bird from the backround with the quick select tool and refine edge tools then just do a lot of NR to the background and bring the subject back into the layer and do an unsharp mask. I am still learning to, and this method is something I just found out about. The quick select tool takes a bit of practice to learn to use. It can have a mind of its own. You can use it to move your subject around in the photo if you dont like where they were to bein with.

Watch this video about it. he does not go into extreme detail but he explains enough to get the idea.http://tv.adobe.com …5-photoshop-cs5-features/

Itsed65 wrote in post #13648228
That looks great. I don't have NIK Dfine at the moment, and hope I don't have to get it, but I will if I can't get better from the 7D. I also have always used smart sharpen in the past on my other photos (mostly trains planes and cars, along with my pets), but I guess I need to sharpen my CS5 skills!

Here is one of the pics, converted straight from ACR and resized for posting, the second one is a 100% crop. I was pushing the exposure a bit because I have read that that could help reduce the noise. I am aware that I am really cropping it down for posting because I am too far away too, and that could be the cause, but the sky itself just looks way noisier than I am used to with my other bodies espeically at 200 ISO.

Hey, I am new to bird photography, so any advice is welcome, thanks!

Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias +2/3 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
Orientation Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution 240 dpi
Y-Resolution 240 dpi
Software Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Date and Time (Modified) 2012:01:01 22:30:16
Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE
Date and Time (Original) 2012:01:01 13:55:16
Date and Time (Digitized) 2012:01:01 13:55:16
Max Aperture Value 5.7
Subject Distance 76.6 m
Metering Mode Multi-segment

Original

100% crop

Also for birds in flight you can try dropping your aperture to 7.1.
This is usually he sharpest point on many 400s and it gives you some room in your DOF for small focus errors.

Pretty kite. Never seen a white one.

I try to always stay at iso 200, f/8 almost always under expose 1 stop, s.s depends on the sun and have little noise.
But man,what a Christmas presents(s)!

Itsed65 wrote in post #13648228
Hey, I am new to bird photography, so any advice is welcome, thanks!

Camera Canon EOS 7D
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture f/5.6
Focal Length 400 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias +2/3 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire
Orientation Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution 240 dpi
Y-Resolution 240 dpi
Software Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows
Date and Time (Modified) 2012:01:01 22:30:16
Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE
Date and Time (Original) 2012:01:01 13:55:16
Date and Time (Digitized) 2012:01:01 13:55:16
Max Aperture Value 5.7
Subject Distance 76.6 m
Metering Mode Multi-segment

Welcome to Bird Photography! It's addicting.

In ACR, how much do you need to crank up the exposure? The reason i ask is, bumping up exposure during PP would accentuate noise. Also, sharpening will intensify the noise even further.

What you can do in Photoshop is, you can do selective sharpening and noise reduction. Meaning, sharpening only the subject, and NR the sky. Then blend two layers together. WALA! Noise free background with sharp-looking subject.