60D quality issues

To my eyes that's a cloud.

stsva wrote in post #14215246
Also, it looks like there are several dark dots toward the right side of your image - unless those were birds you might want to check your sensor for dust.

Those were birds.
The thing I'm most annoyed about is the grain, or noise, or whatever it is. When I put a picture through HDR processing that really comes out, and absolutely ruins an image in my opinion. Here is an example of a picture I made HDR (Nik HDREfex PS plugin) and you can really see the noise/grain/whatever trashing my image:
http://img24.imageshac​k.us/img24/6146/testim​g1903hdr.jpg
Those were RAW files too in case you were wondering

Should I be shooting in Jpeg instead of RAW for my HDR? Is this just a problem with the programs not handling the RAW file right?

Aquaticbob wrote in post #14215839
Those were birds.
The thing I'm most annoyed about is the grain, or noise, or whatever it is. When I put a picture through HDR processing that really comes out, and absolutely ruins an image in my opinion. Here is an example of a picture I made HDR (Nik HDREfex PS plugin) and you can really see the noise/grain/whatever trashing my image:
http://img24.imageshac​k.us/img24/6146/testim​g1903hdr.jpg

Should I be shooting in Jpeg instead of RAW for my HDR? Is this just a problem with the programs not handling the RAW file right?

So the question really was about the HDR rendering bringin up the noise.. I'd recommend processing the files differently. I haven't done much HDR, but I guess running some sort of smart blur to sky should blend the color to be more even.

For me the image itself seems to be just as good as yo should get out of that sensor.

I used the mentioned smart blur for this image:

Here's a 100% crop sample of a photo of the sky I took 2 months ago. It was taken at ISO 250 with an 18-135 even with a UV filter. Shot at Large JPEG fine quality.

Here's another 100% crop - 7D at ISO 200, nothing unusual about the exposure, processed through LR4, default sharpening, no luminance noise reduction, default color noise reduction; the second one is the same except with LR4 luminance NR applied (25 setting). For whatever reason, these sensors can be noisy with featureless blue areas of a scene.

Here's one with more than just the sky, processed same as the first one above. If you're not looking at 100% crops but instead at full images at normal sizes, this noise drops out of sight pretty fast.