High ISO NR


symmetrix

New Member
Mar 14, 2011
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I came across some videos in Youtube discussing an issue some people have with K3's sharpness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHxqelMWvU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHImZGBRto8

He tends to ramble, but long story short his shots with k5 IIs were sharper with k3. He found out it was caused with k3's auto high ISO noise reduction, which seems to be more aggressive. Turning it off and the quality vastly improved.

So I'm curious about the people out there. Do you leave NR settings at default/auto, or do you turn it off (and probably do it in PP)? Did you notice a difference when the NR is on or off in terms of sharpness? Does the NR affect both raw and jpg?
 

I came across some videos in Youtube discussing an issue some people have with K3's sharpness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHxqelMWvU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHImZGBRto8

He tends to ramble, but long story short his shots with k5 IIs were sharper with k3. He found out it was caused with k3's auto high ISO noise reduction, which seems to be more aggressive. Turning it off and the quality vastly improved.

So I'm curious about the people out there. Do you leave NR settings at default/auto, or do you turn it off (and probably do it in PP)? Did you notice a difference when the NR is on or off in terms of sharpness? Does the NR affect both raw and jpg?

Ed from PhotoUniverse. (yeah, he tends to ramble)

I would think its logical to turn off NR for all ISO, because external computer software is better at it and can be updated to the latest algorithms/techniques.
The other thing is that very often, at normal viewing sizes, the noise is not obvious at all, so there may no even be a need to do the NR in the first place if used in this context.
That's how I approach and see it anyway for all my cameras.

AFAIK, the setting is for JPG.

The other/'practical' way to look at this (for me ) is like this.
Normally, I only view on the screen (1920x1080 is plenty)
In other words, its downsampled from the original, and it will look sharp on the right viewer (ie. most) using the viewers downsampling algo.
Picture looks sharp, noise looks negligible at these sizes most of the time.

The other thing I do with my photos is print. (up to A3/A3+)
This shows up noise in clean/even textures (eg. sky), but then usually, if there are such things as sky, its at low ISO anyway (ie. less noise)
But, its pretty easy to manually intervene with a NR layer to those areas.
Then there is sharpening for print which can take quite a bit and needs quite a bit of it and throws off the argument for NR in early stages. (ie. a file sharpened for print looks very oversharpened, not what would be used for pixel peeping/normal viewing)

Just my few cents.
 

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I turn it off all the time.

Because in-camera NR is never going to be as good as what you can get from dedicated NR programs like Noise Ninja or Nik Dfine.
 

I turn it off all the time.

Because in-camera NR is never going to be as good as what you can get from dedicated NR programs like Noise Ninja or Nik Dfine.

Oic....but landscape photgraphy with low iso wont be affected much right whether on or off nr??
 

Shooting in JPG is always a compromise, camera makers give us the options to tune the cameras to our like, we can't just complain about a camera with its default setting when taking JPG.

When someone says K5IIs takes sharper or better color photos than K3, I wouldn't even continue reading his/her comments. I know how much improvement this camera has over all previous Pentax cameras including the K5IIs (which is still a very nice camera). I just feel these two don't really compare much after I've used the K3 for a while. My suggestion is just forget about all the reviews and go to shop and grab one :) I think this would be the last ultimate APSC dSLR camera Pentax makes, the next one will either be a cheaper and more affordable version, or a mirrorless one.
 

Oic....but landscape photgraphy with low iso wont be affected much right whether on or off nr??

It won't affect the result much if you shoot in RAW. And if you want the best IQ, just shoot RAW. When shooting in JPG, better don't think too much about the IQ, it's for convenience sake, and you won't see any difference at all if you post it on web, whether turn on the NR or not.
 

Shooting in JPG is always a compromise, camera makers give us the options to tune the cameras to our like, we can't just complain about a camera with its default setting when taking JPG.

When someone says K5IIs takes sharper or better color photos than K3, I wouldn't even continue reading his/her comments. I know how much improvement this camera has over all previous Pentax cameras including the K5IIs (which is still a very nice camera). I just feel these two don't really compare much after I've used the K3 for a while. My suggestion is just forget about all the reviews and go to shop and grab one :) I think this would be the last ultimate APSC dSLR camera Pentax makes, the next one will either be a cheaper and more affordable version, or a mirrorless one.

Glad to hear that. :) yes i shooting in raw. Thx for the advice...really worried me....thx
 

Oic....but landscape photgraphy with low iso wont be affected much right whether on or off nr??

There are two types of NR in camera for Pentax IIRC.

1) Long exposure noise reduction

2) High ISO noise reduction

#2 is not applicable to low ISO landscape photography, for #1, I have always found that the NR programs work better than dark frame subtraction (which is done to resolve #1). Do note that noise levels for K5 at least (and presumably all the cameras after K5) start to be visible from 2 minute exposures onwards (also dependent on ambient temperature).
 

There are two types of NR in camera for Pentax IIRC.

1) Long exposure noise reduction

2) High ISO noise reduction

#2 is not applicable to low ISO landscape photography, for #1, I have always found that the NR programs work better than dark frame subtraction (which is done to resolve #1). Do note that noise levels for K5 at least (and presumably all the cameras after K5) start to be visible from 2 minute exposures onwards (also dependent on ambient temperature).

Thx for te advice....cheers....so far my longest exposure ard 80s....should be ok lolxx
 

Shooting in JPG is always a compromise, camera makers give us the options to tune the cameras to our like, we can't just complain about a camera with its default setting when taking JPG.

When someone says K5IIs takes sharper or better color photos than K3, I wouldn't even continue reading his/her comments. I know how much improvement this camera has over all previous Pentax cameras including the K5IIs (which is still a very nice camera). I just feel these two don't really compare much after I've used the K3 for a while. My suggestion is just forget about all the reviews and go to shop and grab one :) I think this would be the last ultimate APSC dSLR camera Pentax makes, the next one will either be a cheaper and more affordable version, or a mirrorless one.


Last ultimate Aps-c ever made.. If I ever buy one. It would be from this statement..