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Any advice on night shooting regards noise?


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5 hours ago, Alex Ramsay said:

 

Not necessarily correct - certainly my old D3 can apply NR to the RAW file on both high ISO exposures and long exposures - I don't know about more recent models

 

Alex

 

As far as I know and I have done some research this afternoon so as to be hopefully standing on solid ground here, the high ISO noise reduction feature is only recognised in post processing raw conversions if using Nikon's own raw converter and ignored by third party software. The raw NEF file itself is not altered in camera by the high ISO noise reduction settings , but metadata tags are added which are subsequently interpreted by Nikon-only raw converters and ignored by third party software. I have always used Adobe software so have never even tried Nikon Capture NX2 etc. Nikon seem to have virtually abandoned the development of raw conversion and image editing and passed the buck literally to Adobe, maybe since their statement about cooperation a few years ago. I don't know if this has led to Adobe software now recognising Nikon-specific instructions but I will check this out when I get a few free nerd-hours.

 

The long exposure noise reduction feature is apparently different as this takes place in camera and involves the camera making a second dark frame exposure which is then mapped onto the initial exposure with the purpose of removing hot pixels in the image. This does produce a single NEF raw file in camera which cannot be reversed in post-processing. I have never used it and I have generally seen it recommended not to bother but again I must spend a little nerd time checking it out.

 

I have obtained most of my info from reading the very authoritative writings of Simon Stafford who is probably the leading expert on all technical things Nikon in the country. Simon also recommends turning off all in-camera noise reduction and doing all the work in post, shooting raw of course. Needless to say there are many other reasons for shooting raw.

 

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8 hours ago, spacecadet said:

The forum helped me down this road a while ago. RAWs just retain more detail. Naturally you should take our word for it ;) but a quick test on a lens chart will show it, particularly at high ISOs.

I routinely go up to 3200  with downsizing (Sony A58) and could probably get away with 6400- I wouldn't even think about it in jpeg nw. Although nowadays I'd only shoot jpeg for quick FB posts, and that with a RAW duplicate to process and substitute when I have time.

RAW is simply incomparable. Skies don't blow out or go turquoise. Shadows don't turn into plastic mush. You can recover highlights in LR like crazy. You'll be glad you switched every day.

 

And not to forget white balance which may be the most important of all as it affects the entire image.

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12 hours ago, spacecadet said:

The forum helped me down this road a while ago. RAWs just retain more detail. Naturally you should take our word for it ;) but a quick test on a lens chart will show it, particularly at high ISOs.

I routinely go up to 3200  with downsizing (Sony A58) and could probably get away with 6400- I wouldn't even think about it in jpeg nw. Although nowadays I'd only shoot jpeg for quick FB posts, and that with a RAW duplicate to process and substitute when I have time.

RAW is simply incomparable. Skies don't blow out or go turquoise. Shadows don't turn into plastic mush. You can recover highlights in LR like crazy. You'll be glad you switched every day.

I really wish I could shoot RAW more, I'm impressed with the quality it has. But storage/processor limitations have held me back: I'm on the last 12GB of a 1TB drive right now! Still, I use RAW for those "once in a lifetime" photos that I know just have to be right.

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32 minutes ago, Matthew Johnson said:

I really wish I could shoot RAW more, I'm impressed with the quality it has. But storage/processor limitations have held me back: I'm on the last 12GB of a 1TB drive right now! Still, I use RAW for those "once in a lifetime" photos that I know just have to be right.

 

Hi Matthew - a bit of very friendly but important advice here. I'm getting from this and another post that you are in school and don't have a lot of spare cash. Well if you do nothing else, as a matter of urgency get yourself a backup drive asap or you risk losing whatever is on that drive. Borrow the money or sell something but get yourself a backup drive without delay. You should never fill a drive to that extent - leaving 1% free is seriously dangerous. Corruption is a real possibility. If you value what is on the drive then back it up. 

 

Photography these days is not an expensive habit compared to the days of film. Once you buy your camera and lens(es) and a half-decent computer, the ongoing expenses can be minimal but the one essential expense is image storage and backup. Hard drives are really cheap nowadays so it is something that must be factored in as an ongoing expense - whether you are a beginner or a pro, you cannot afford to risk losing your image collection.

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Not shooting RAWs is just a little bit like keeping prints and binning the negatives. You lose so much potential. Sure, many images won't benefit much, but it's hard to decide in advance which is which. Quite a few more of my first 4 or 5 years of jpegs would have made it onto Alamy if they'd been shot as RAW.

It's a bit late for you now, but I put USB drives on my Christmas list when I need  a new one. OH obliges. I'm a cheap date.

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16 hours ago, MDM said:

 

As far as I know and I have done some research this afternoon so as to be hopefully standing on solid ground here, the high ISO noise reduction feature is only recognised in post processing raw conversions if using Nikon's own raw converter and ignored by third party software. The raw NEF file itself is not altered in camera by the high ISO noise reduction settings , but metadata tags are added which are subsequently interpreted by Nikon-only raw converters and ignored by third party software. I have always used Adobe software so have never even tried Nikon Capture NX2 etc. Nikon seem to have virtually abandoned the development of raw conversion and image editing and passed the buck literally to Adobe, maybe since their statement about cooperation a few years ago. I don't know if this has led to Adobe software now recognising Nikon-specific instructions but I will check this out when I get a few free nerd-hours.

 

The long exposure noise reduction feature is apparently different as this takes place in camera and involves the camera making a second dark frame exposure which is then mapped onto the initial exposure with the purpose of removing hot pixels in the image. This does produce a single NEF raw file in camera which cannot be reversed in post-processing. I have never used it and I have generally seen it recommended not to bother but again I must spend a little nerd time checking it out.

 

I have obtained most of my info from reading the very authoritative writings of Simon Stafford who is probably the leading expert on all technical things Nikon in the country. Simon also recommends turning off all in-camera noise reduction and doing all the work in post, shooting raw of course. Needless to say there are many other reasons for shooting raw.

 

 

Interesting - I stand corrected!

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On 28/12/2018 at 18:33, MDM said:

 

As far as I know and I have done some research this afternoon so as to be hopefully standing on solid ground here, the high ISO noise reduction feature is only recognised in post processing raw conversions if using Nikon's own raw converter and ignored by third party software. The raw NEF file itself is not altered in camera by the high ISO noise reduction settings , but metadata tags are added which are subsequently interpreted by Nikon-only raw converters and ignored by third party software. I have always used Adobe software so have never even tried Nikon Capture NX2 etc. Nikon seem to have virtually abandoned the development of raw conversion and image editing and passed the buck literally to Adobe, maybe since their statement about cooperation a few years ago. I don't know if this has led to Adobe software now recognising Nikon-specific instructions but I will check this out when I get a few free nerd-hours.

 

The long exposure noise reduction feature is apparently different as this takes place in camera and involves the camera making a second dark frame exposure which is then mapped onto the initial exposure with the purpose of removing hot pixels in the image. This does produce a single NEF raw file in camera which cannot be reversed in post-processing. I have never used it and I have generally seen it recommended not to bother but again I must spend a little nerd time checking it out.

 

I have obtained most of my info from reading the very authoritative writings of Simon Stafford who is probably the leading expert on all technical things Nikon in the country. Simon also recommends turning off all in-camera noise reduction and doing all the work in post, shooting raw of course. Needless to say there are many other reasons for shooting raw.

 

On 29/12/2018 at 11:29, Alex Ramsay said:

 

Interesting - I stand corrected!

 

Well I did some actual testing and I can now stand by everything I wrote there. The high ISO noise reduction is not recognised by Adobe software when processing raw images.

 

I can't detect any effect on noise using long exposure noise reduction (LENR) at exposures up to about 16s - perhaps a slight softening of the image using LENR but this could be due to a slight change in focus between LENR off and on. In any case there is no benefit that I can see to using LENR on raw images at these shutter speeds. 

 

 

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