Image noise on K20

I often wonder still if the noise I am getting from my K20 shooting at anything higher than 400 is still acceptable. I have seen a few images here from our forum members at quite high iso settings that seem well below what I get. But being inexperienced and my first contact into the DSLR world I can't be sure.

Here is an image shot at 800 ISO this morning. Ran through Ninja, actually I ran it twice, first time used the brush to keep the subject isolated so that its not affected with the noise engine, but then ran again because the background looked still noisy to me.

Original image in RAW at ISO 800 is here

This is at ISO 1600 here

this is the final image I managed to get after Ninja twice




Any help in order for me to understand or put my mind to rest about the noise would be greatly appreciated.

Amin

When I download the original Amin I get a damaged file error.
Also could you post the non ninja pic.

Reloading the files again to server Mike. A glitch seems to have happened while uploading the first time. A couple of minutes and both links should be working
Thank you for your help

No Noise Ninja applied.
Looking at your K20D @ 800 iso tells me how bad mine really was.

[IMG]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj132/CraigF1969/private/finch.jpg[/IMG]

Noise removal in RAW conversion software varies immensely.
I have perfectly acceptable results with Silkypix at up to ISO2500. Some noise, yes, but definitely acceptable. I have a lovely 18"x12" print taken at ISO3200 from the K20D.

I'll try and dig out a scan of Fuji ISO 1600 film to show what noise really was like

(Might check out your image later...)

Matt

Thanks Matt, appreciate your help and input on this.
I will try to open the ISO 1600 RAW file with silkypix.
My trouble with silkypix though is the settings. There are so many bits and pieces there that I get totally lost, its not like Ninja that I just load the profile.
Or is there something in the Silkypix that I can just load and keep it as standard for most images and then I can just tweak a little individually when I want to?
Seems like silkypix is more for people like you, professionals that know exactly what those bits and pieces and settings are. As for me I get headaches by just shuffling the menus

But sure wish I could understand a bit more of it so I could get some better results and not get such a phobia of bumping the ISO

I'm confused. When I click on your links Amin, I see a .jpg version. When I right click > Save As, I get a .tiff file.

Wos apnin?

I was going to try processing them in Lightroom, but I need the .PEF's.

Hmm now you are confusing me Peter

The links are for PEF files
and the image is a jpg obviously

I've downloaded the .tiff versions ? ? ?

Observations:
1: Both images are underexposed so noise will be more apparent when the exposure is corrected.
2: You've had to crop a lot of the original away to produce these compositions which will make any noise present even more apparent.

Recommendations:-
1: Expose to the right of the histogram. That is, err on the slightly overexposed (but without blowing out highlights). To help achieve this, set your camera's EV compensation to +0.7 and try it for a while. Adjust for the overexposure in PP. The resulting image from a corrected overexposure is far superior to that from a corrected underexposure.
2: Get closer or use a longer focal length zoom.

Ok - I've had a quick look, and like Peter have these comments and recommendations:

1. The ISO1600 image was about 1Ev underexposed. Effectively the noise is the same as a good exposure taken at ISO3200.
2. The ISO800 image was nearly 2Ev underexposed. Effectively the noise is the same as a good exposure taken at ISO3200.

So, you've pretty much got the same kind of noise in both

Looking at the scenes I would recommend shooting in manual mode - take some sample shots and check the histogram (not worrying about the blown out sky behind - or reposition yourself). Either that or use some Ev compensation.

The other problem you have is that you are too far away and I expect you are needing to crop to almost 1:1 to get anything decent! I'd suggest going closer to the subject - if the birds filled the frame then you wouldn't worry nearly so much about the noise.

So - the noise levels are what I'd expect from the K20D (and in normal circumstances are perfectly acceptable for even large prints in the real world). However, as stated you are pushing both the exposure and crop which is exacerbating the noise issue

HTH!
Matt

So let me see if I got this clear. Should I permanently leave my EV setting as +0.7 and shoot anything at that EV or only when I am forced to bump up the ISO?

Peter, I have indeed noticed that on occasion when I increased the exposure to +1 I remember seeing better results when the ISO was bumped high.

I will give it a try
thanks for the advice

Well you learn something new every day.
I have always shot slightly underexposed, often dialing in -0.5 to make sure. Will try that for a while.

No

The exposure issue is there because you have backlighting. The diffused sunlight through the trees behind is "confusing" the camera into thinking it needs to expose for that. It doesn't know there's a little bird in front!

Best option in these situations where the scene is basically static and the lighting doesn't change much - use manual

Matt

Matt, thank you so much for this. It definitely helps knowing that these are normal noise levels and I can just tweak and work things out.

Normally I wouldn't attempt a capture at that distance and under that light. But on this occasion I wanted to be on the safe side meaning wanting to make sure the noise levels were as expected, just like you mentioned Matt. Now from here it can only be better because I rarely shoot at 1600, if ever, and when I do its with slightly better lighting even and also slightly closer. So this added to a slight EV compensation I think I will be on the right track.

Thank you so much for all your kind help and input. Learnt something new today and I can start implementing

There is something new that I want to try . But decidedly I am game . Let's have some more birdies and shoot with M setting