G9 Noise Problem

I sent the following to Canon and got the following reply that seems worthless, but perhaps I am missing something:

I have a G9 (and a 40D and a slew of L glass). In good light, the G9 is
outstanding. But in anything resembling low light and at ANY ISO, the
noise is totally unacceptable. The worst situation is concert photography where the highlights are blown out and obliterated and the surrounding low light areas are unusably noisy.

I figure this must be me

Is there a group of settings that make these kind of shots more usable?

Is it metering mode?

Appreciate any advice for these two situations you can offer.

Canon replies:

Thank you for writing to us. We value you as a Canon customer and
appreciate the opportunity to assist you with your PowerShot G9. We are
sorry to hear that your camera is taking grainy images.

Try resetting the camera to the default settings:

1. Turn your camera on in the record mode (picture taking mode).

2. Press the MENU button.

3. Select the SETUP menu (this is the tab with the hammer and the
wrench).

4. Scroll down until you see RESET ALL.

5. Once RESET ALL is highlighted, press the FUNC. SET button.

6. Select OK and then press FUNC. SET again to reset your camera to the
default settings.

We hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we
can be of any further assistance with your PowerShot G9.

Thank you for choosing Canon.
_______________

So...since I do not think a reset is the answer, I took a number of shots trying different focus modes and metering modes. Not a one was acceptable. Yet outdoors and daylight last week were VERY pleasing.

I have a number of raw samples, all large. I could put them up and post a link, but before I do, maybe someone can offer suggestions on what I might be doing wrong.

Thanks.

~Bob

You are not going to get great photos without noise in low light at higher ISO settings. Not going to happen.

Anything above 200 is dicey. There have been some examples posted in lower resolution/cropped photos that have shown lower noise, but these are far and few to be found.

If there is a P&S that takes great low light shots without noise, I have not seen it yet-including the LX3 that people rave about.

If you want concert shots with little or no noise, you will need to go SLR.

Personally, I use it outside at low ISO or inside with a flash. For what it is, it is good. Anything else is SLR duty.

Thanks. But this includes low ISO as the problem.

Went back and forth with another Canon support person. He tyhinks this image is fine. Maybe I am expecting too much?

First is out of the camera and only sized down to a reasonable size. Second is 100% crop.

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

The only way to keep the noise down is to keep the ISO down. You already shot it wide open, so the only other option would be better lighting or a flash.

Your sized shot looks OK, but you can see the noise on the crop which is pretty consistent with most P&S. The sensor is very small on the small cameras. In ambient light, you either use a flash or tripod at 80-200 ISO.

That image looks fine. Try running it through Noise Ninja or equivalent. It can give very good results.

Anything over iso 400 is pretty darn noisy... It's because the sensor is so small,,, and nobody on this forum has found a workaround. If you need low light pics for anything other than 4x6's or web pics you should really use the 40d.

Thanks folks. I'm surprised, but guess I am just used to the 40D results now (or even lower res P+S cams with more built in processing) and this just doesn;t look good to me on a shot that shouldn't be this difficult.

I'll see if I can't find a trial of Noise Ninja and see what that does.

~Bob

For your concert photography, I think you've reached the limit of what the G9 (or any P&S really) can do. Under those conditions (e.g., low light, high ISO, maybe longer shutter times), there are simply not enough "photosites" on the small sensor in the G9 to give you a good clear image. Due to the small size, the limited number of photosites on the sensor are working as hard as they can and necessarily produce artifacts, which turn up in your image as grainy noise or banding. Conversely, a camera with a larger sensor has more photosites that individually do not have to work as hard under those conditions. This is in part why the new 5D MkII with its full frame sensor has such good resolution at relatively high ISOs.

I agree with the other posters here.... if you are looking to take good clear images under low light with high ISO, you'll need to use an SLR camera with a bigger sensor.

The crop image shows plenty of separation all across the tonal range. At 640, it's really not that bad, in fact better than most compacts.
If you think in terms of grain/noise like in film, than you may understand what is happening better. Lower speed gives finer detail, more contrast and less grain....same as with digital....
if you convert to B&W, maybe you could live with the noise somewhat more.
I've never had a digicam that satisfied me all the way...including M8, D300, 5D etc...
they all have their weakpoints...

Many new shooters never used film...I suggest that they rent a camera for the day and run through 1/2 dozen rolls of film from 100-1600...then get some prints made and look at the results....after returning back to digital, there's little to complain about....
shooter

Thanks for all the replies.

Just tried Noise Ninja and I must say I am impressed! I assume one uses this before doing development in Lightroom? And I am also surprised there is no profile for the G9. They have G7 and G10, but no G9. Can the G10 profile be used for a G9?

I thought the last thing I needed was more imaging software I think I need to buy this. Unless there are alternatives I should try first before making my decison.

Thanks for this pointer. Very helpful.

~Bob

Bob,
NN works best without a profile.
You will see a button that will profile the image.
It will do best on each image...slower but more
accurate.....
Be careful of the smoothing effect...
Don

At the higher ISOs, you're definitely better off shooting in RAW and using 3rd party noise reduction software. I use and recommend Noiseware.

When shooting at high ISO, be certain that the histogram is pushed to the right (ETTR -- Expose To The Right). If you shoot in RAW and are forced to increase exposure compensation during RAW conversion then the noise will be even more apparent.

Thanks again.

Does anyone have an opinion on the 8 vs 16 bit versions? Is 16 necessary or better enough to warrant the cost difference? And since I only see one download, I assume its the license key that determines which is activated.

And I like the Photoshop plugin as it has a compare button for before and after. Have not found that in the standalone which I will likely use for integration with Lightroom.

Glad I found this, thanks to your help. I think if I underexpose concerts 3/4 - 1 stop, I may be on the road to more usable images.

~Bob

rebop wrote in post #8191319
Thanks again.

Does anyone have an opinion on the 8 vs 16 bit versions? Is 16 necessary or better enough to warrant the cost difference? And since I only see one download, I assume its the license key that determines which is activated.

And I like the Photoshop plugin as it has a compare button for before and after. Have not found that in the standalone which I will likely use for integration with Lightroom.

Glad I found this, thanks to your help. I think if I underexpose concerts 3/4 - 1 stop, I may be on the road to more usable images.

~Bob

I have the 16 bit version and I guess it's kind of handy if the photo never becomes a JPG,, if I get it printed as a Tiff, PSD, etc then it's nice... But if you print your photos as jpegs I'm not sure it matters much. But I could be wrong.

rebop wrote in post #8191319
... I think if I underexpose concerts 3/4 - 1 stop, I may be on the road to more usable images.

~Bob

Depending on the meaning of "underexpose", reduction in noise is highly doubtful. If anything, you want to slightly overexpose to reduce noise (even while sacrificing highlights). Before you try underexposing in a concept, try it in a few test shots. Bracket a few shots, use Lightroom to compensate exposure and see which exposure gives the least noise.