Bestest low noise body

I love my 1Ds3, but the noise is disturbing...anything over 200 ISO requires using software on my RAW images, which softens things.
I'm quite anal about 100% PP and "nose length viewing distance" on my studio flowers and BIF metal prints.
Which of the newer generations is the absolute best at handling noise?

chauncey wrote in post #17930663
I love my 1Ds3, but the noise is disturbing...anything over 200 ISO requires using software on my RAW images, which softens things.
I'm quite anal about 100% PP and "nose length viewing distance" on my studio flowers and BIF metal prints.
Which of the newer generations is the absolute best at handling noise?

Unless your camera is defective, you are just too sensitive to noise, or you have a masochistic workflow which exacerbates noise, like over-sharpening bokeh or downsizing with nearest neighbor.

Most of the noise in the midtones and highlights of ISO 400 on your camera should be photon "noise" from the very fabric of light. No current camera will have much less photon noise, as long as it has passive color filter arrays. What you are seeing is the reality of that amount of the light, not the specific camera per se. Again, your camera may be defective.

I agree with the above poster. ISO400 for any modern camera should not be distinguishable from ISO100. Either there is something significantly wrong with the body, your technique, or workflow is ISO 200 is as high as you can go before noise becomes a problem.

chauncey wrote in post #17930663
..
Which of the newer generations is the absolute best at handling noise?

However, I believe that the Sony A7s is the current low noise high ISO winner.

Ya gotta realize that the 1Ds3 is over 8 years old...right?

chauncey wrote in post #17930901
Ya gotta realize that the 1Ds3 is over 8 years old...right?

The 1Ds3 is basically the same as the 5DII and I don't think anyone will agree that at ISO400 the image in not usable. Heck, my first D300 had no trouble with ISO400.

Maybe if you could post a sample showing the issue. A 100% crop would be best.

How is this for ISO 800? Does it meet your expectations? This is direct from raw to JPG and a 100%.

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

This egret was shot at ISO 800...IMHO, the noise is totally unacceptable. I used a 300mm f/2.8 lens with a 1.4 TC attached. Minimal PP.
This is a 1000 pixel crop.

IMAGE LINK: http://s329.photobucke​t.com …gret%20ISO%2080​0.jpg.html

chauncey wrote in post #17932655
This egret was shot at ISO 800...IMHO, the noise is totally unacceptable. I used a 300mm f/2.8 lens with a 1.4 TC attached. Minimal PP.
This is a 1000 pixel crop.

IMAGE LINK: http://s329.photobucke​t.com …gret%20ISO%2080​0.jpg.html

Hi Chauncey - I'm going to guess that your shot is at least 1/2 stop underexposed which is resulting in what I agree is severe noise. I'll admit I have no experience with the 1DSIII but my 10 year old 5Dc does better at ISO 3200 as long as I get the exposure just right.

Were that the case Stu, I would understand the noise...truth be told, I took the RAW image into PS after making no adjustments in LR,
save sharpening and WB (auto). In PS I converted to 8 bit sRGB, used levels to set maximum RGB values to 245.

FWIW...I set my exposures in LV using the histogram to insure ETTR manually then disable LV and shoot in manual mode.

Would you be able to share the raw? I believe the results are from how you are processing the raw.

That must be down to the processing..... I can't believe the camera would produce results like that at ISO 800.... With proper exposure and processing ISO 800 should produce great images..

TeamSpeed wrote in post #17932780
Would you be able to share the raw? I believe the results are from how you are processing the raw.

That would be nice. I suspect a possible defect in the camera, because the "wormy maze" look is just as strong in the white areas as in the dark areas, which would suggest a "noise" problem that is scalar, rather than additive. It may be that the two RAW green channels have different gains, and the converter used does not adapt to that. IIRC correctly, there have been converters with the option to process the two green RAW channels as separate colors, and that option gets around this issue.

I know that many 1Ds2 cameras had a green-channel unbalance, but I've never heard of it with the 1Ds3.

chauncey wrote in post #17932655
This egret was shot at ISO 800...IMHO, the noise is totally unacceptable. I used a 300mm f/2.8 lens with a 1.4 TC attached. Minimal PP.
This is a 1000 pixel crop.

IMAGE LINK: http://s329.photobucke​t.com …gret%20ISO%2080​0.jpg.html

Oversharpening will result in that type of grain. If you are using Lightroom, I have some settings that might interest you...