Testing my new gear on some airways today - What do you think?

Then what is the point? That if you take an ISO500 image from a 7D, crop 50% and sharpen it, that you'll see noise? I think that's to be expected.

Instead of sharpening try applying a high-pass filter layer. You can do this in Ps, or using Perfect Effects 8 free.

bumpintheroad wrote in post #17633037
Then what is the point? That if you take an ISO500 image from a 7D, crop 50% and sharpen it, that you'll see noise? I think that's to be expected.

Instead of sharpening try applying a high-pass filter layer. You can do this in Ps, or using Perfect Effects 8 free.

I have been experimenting with color channel noise reduction through masks, have you heard of it or tried it, is it any good?


P.

Hi Pagman, I have LR 5 so don't know if its different than what you have, but, if I'm doing a single image I zero presets, then crop for composition, then if needed, I'll boost contrast slightly, in the Presence Tab, adjust clarity, this is a huge step in lr 5, I usually boost it to 30-40, then vibrance, usually a little less than half of the clarity setting so around 15-20, then a little saturation, 5-10 usually.
Then bring color noise reduction up to about 25 which is default, Then I bring Luminance Noise Reduction up, usually 25-35, Then I sharpen if needed, hardly ever over 25, sometimes a lot less, now I bring my exposure level down to where I want it.
95 % of my images are done that way, I have found that with that work flow, if I'm a little under exposed I can push 1-2 full stops without introducing any noise.
You really shouldn't have to ec to the right that much with the bright sky and a white subject. I usually leave mine about 2/3, sometimes on darker days, darker subjects, a little higher to avoid noise in the shadows. Sharpening at 80 in lr 5 will give me really bad results, usually never more than 25, most of the time less.
I shoot wildlife and birds so I'm always at 600mm and cropping like mad it seems like, and this work flow usually gives me good results. Most of what I have learned with pp for the 7d I picked up from Teamspeed and trial and error. Hope this helps!
Oh, and I export with 0 Sharpening, don't really know if that makes a difference.

Since LR, and all other RAW processing programs are parametric, it doesn't actually matter what order you apply the settings in, only the final settings matter. Most people find an order that they prefer to work in, but it makes no practical difference to the results, as long as the settings you finally arrive at are the same. Personally I will set the Colour Profile first, as this has a large effect on the results of the other controls. After that I usually work from the top to the bottom in LR, although as settings tend to interact with each other I may make changes to one control, and then go back to tweek previous ones.

When it comes to camera settings, I would not use Auto ISO, and I would NEVER use ISO 500, or any of the other +1/3rd ISO settings, as it effectively applies a -1/3rd stop expose to the left in camera, and then digitally boosts the output values. If shooting RAW and applying ETTR then I would only ever use whole ISO values, and would not use the expanded values either, as these are all applied digitally in camera, and can usually be better applied as adjustments to the data in a RAW processing application. Or at least with finer control over the results. Short of looking at the RAW RGGB histogram in something like RAWDigger, I would suggest that looking at the screenshot of the image with default LR processing applied to it, that it is not at all over exposed, and would seem not even to be particularly exposed to the right. Personally I would expect that with the shutter speed, aperture combination used, that exposing it at ISO 800 would have gotten better results. For this sort of shooting though I would not be using any camera automation. Since you are shooting from a fixed location, I would find myself a metering target that I could use that will not change. I would meter from it in manual, and initially set the camera up to shoot bracketed exposures. Once I had some data to use to "calibrate" the metering target I would simply meter from my target and shoot manual. I would expect that on a day when you can actually see the aircraft enroute that from an hour or two after sunrise, to an hour or two before sunset the required exposure will remain pretty constant. It is only at the two ends of the day, where the sun is low in the sky, and so can effectively illuminate the aircraft from underneath that you may need a different exposure.

Personally I still think that you are expecting far too much from any camera, especially when combined with a less than stella lens for the job in hand.

Alan

daverator wrote in post #17633127
Hi Pagman, I have LR 5 so don't know if its different than what you have, but, if I'm doing a single image I zero presets, then crop for composition, then if needed, I'll boost contrast slightly, in the Presence Tab, adjust clarity, this is a huge step in lr 5, I usually boost it to 30-40, then vibrance, usually a little less than half of the clarity setting so around 15-20, then a little saturation, 5-10 usually.
Then bring color noise reduction up to about 25 which is default, Then I bring Luminance Noise Reduction up, usually 25-35, Then I sharpen if needed, hardly ever over 25, sometimes a lot less, now I bring my exposure level down to where I want it.
95 % of my images are done that way, I have found that with that work flow, if I'm a little under exposed I can push 1-2 full stops without introducing any noise.
You really shouldn't have to ec to the right that much with the bright sky and a white subject. I usually leave mine about 2/3, sometimes on darker days, darker subjects, a little higher to avoid noise in the shadows. Sharpening at 80 in lr 5 will give me really bad results, usually never more than 25, most of the time less.
I shoot wildlife and birds so I'm always at 600mm and cropping like mad it seems like, and this work flow usually gives me good results. Most of what I have learned with pp for the 7d I picked up from Teamspeed and trial and error. Hope this helps!
Oh, and I export with 0 Sharpening, don't really know if that makes a difference.

Hi Dave,

I am still very much getting to grips with the 7d system, I also like Teamspeed's process skills and admire his work flow, i had my LR 4.4 workflow more or less sorted with my previous Nikon so I am tailoring my process for the 7d now.

P.

BigAl007 wrote in post #17633249
Since LR, and all other RAW processing programs are parametric, it doesn't actually matter what order you apply the settings in, only the final settings matter. Most people find an order that they prefer to work in, but it makes no practical difference to the results, as long as the settings you finally arrive at are the same. Personally I will set the Colour Profile first, as this has a large effect on the results of the other controls. After that I usually work from the top to the bottom in LR, although as settings tend to interact with each other I may make changes to one control, and then go back to tweek previous ones.

When it comes to camera settings, I would not use Auto ISO, and I would NEVER use ISO 500, or any of the other +1/3rd ISO settings, as it effectively applies a -1/3rd stop expose to the left in camera, and then digitally boosts the output values. If shooting RAW and applying ETTR then I would only ever use whole ISO values, and would not use the expanded values either, as these are all applied digitally in camera, and can usually be better applied as adjustments to the data in a RAW processing application. Or at least with finer control over the results. Short of looking at the RAW RGGB histogram in something like RAWDigger, I would suggest that looking at the screenshot of the image with default LR processing applied to it, that it is not at all over exposed, and would seem not even to be particularly exposed to the right. Personally I would expect that with the shutter speed, aperture combination used, that exposing it at ISO 800 would have gotten better results. For this sort of shooting though I would not be using any camera automation. Since you are shooting from a fixed location, I would find myself a metering target that I could use that will not change. I would meter from it in manual, and initially set the camera up to shoot bracketed exposures. Once I had some data to use to "calibrate" the metering target I would simply meter from my target and shoot manual. I would expect that on a day when you can actually see the aircraft enroute that from an hour or two after sunrise, to an hour or two before sunset the required exposure will remain pretty constant. It is only at the two ends of the day, where the sun is low in the sky, and so can effectively illuminate the aircraft from underneath that you may need a different exposure.

Personally I still think that you are expecting far too much from any camera, especially when combined with a less than stella lens for the job in hand.

Alan

HI Alan hope your well, I didn't realize that auto ISO was using the bad ISO speeds - to be honest i just didn't give 500 ISO much consideration regarding its noise creating potential, I also read within the many Taemspeed posts that 800 with ETTR is as clean as 400, so this is probably a good bench mark ISO to use for general use, i wonder if the combination of Auto ISO, Tv mode and + 1/1/3 EC was causing the problem and not pushing the exposure far enough over to the right.
To be fare in relation to the 55-250 STM lens, it is a Stalla Lens a much better lens AF and IQ over my Nikon AFS ED VR 70-300 lens i had, in fact the STM lens is considered and backed up by many tests and user accounts, to be comparable to many L series lenses costing many many times more.

Pagman.