In camera noise reduction at night?

[flyinion]

I know I've read that with high ISO and night shots it's supposed to be a good idea to turn on the in camera noise reduction (Canon XSi in my case). What about at ISO 100? I'm going to be testing out my tripod at night finally tonight and wasn't sure if I need the in camera noise reduction or not. I don't expect any of the exposure to take more than 10-15 seconds if that matters. It's going to be for a car show/street fair in a shopping area so there is some lighting. Here's a picture from the shopping place's website showing about what the night lighting looks like, though some is a bit darker.



And here's one of mine from last year showing maybe a bit better the lighting at least in the darker areas. This was handheld at ISO 800.............

[Greg McCary]

Well I am not sure with a Canon but with all my Olympus cameras noise seemed to be worse the longer the exposure. I think it just takes longer to write to the card. Regaurdless of ISO, nr seemed to help.

[Anbesol]

Yes it does get worse with longer exposure. Its also more significant in shadow area, meaning, if you underexpose, it will be noisier than if you expose accurately or overexpose.

[flyinion]

Ok thanks guys. I'll go ahead and turn it on then when it comes time for the night shots. I guess I was thinking it was for reducing noise at high ISO's but it sounds like it's for more than that.

[Anbesol]

Well high ISO noise and long exposure noise are two different things though. Not sure how your XSi handles it, but on my Sony there are two options for noise reduction, one is high ISO noise reduction, the other is long exposure noise reduction. I don't think high ISO noise reduction will be of a great help on long exposure noise. Long exposure noise is more a problem of artifacts and shadow area than it is a general image grain as it is with high ISO.

[flyinion]

Ah you know I'll have to go look at it when I get home. I may just be way off base then and asking about the wrong thing, oops:blush2:

[flyinion]

Ok I just checked the manual online and sure enough there are two separate settings. I guess for some reason I was thinking there was just one generic "noise reduction" though I don't know why. Sorry for wasting everyone's time in the end :mad2:

[gryphonslair99]

Personally I prefer to remove noise in post processing since I have control.

Keep in mind that in camera noise reduction is going to be a time consuming thing. If you take a 30 second photo it will take around 30 seconds for the noise reduction to be applied. You will not be able to take a photo until that is done.

[freygr]

With both my cameras, Olympus and Nikon the longer the exposure the more noise there is. The imaging cells of the sensor all have small differences in sensitivities in ISO and electronic noise. Other will take a noise frame to subtract the noise from the exposure. It has worked for me quite will. The newer cameras all have much less electronic noise and much better matched cells also as very small basic differences make very large differences at very high ISO's like 3200 and higher. I do not remember any films higher than 1600 ISO unless it was B&W.

As doing post processing for the best results you do need a current noise frame, and as the noise frame does change over time and with temperature the best result is the in camera noise reduction with post processing to fine turn the image. Best result is using the camera's RAW format as you have most likely more than 8 bits per color, and non-lossly compression which gives you better color and more adjustment range for using curves or gama, or color correction.

[flyinion]

With both my cameras, Olympus and Nikon the longer the exposure the more noise there is. The imaging cells of the sensor all have small differences in sensitivities in ISO and electronic noise. Other will take a noise frame to subtract the noise from the exposure. It has worked for me quite will. The newer cameras all have much less electronic noise and much better matched cells also as very small basic differences make very large differences at very high ISO's like 3200 and higher. I do not remember any films higher than 1600 ISO unless it was B&W.

As doing post processing for the best results you do need a current noise frame, and as the noise frame does change over time and with temperature the best result is the in camera noise reduction with post processing to fine turn the image. Best result is using the camera's RAW format as you have most likely more than 8 bits per color, and non-lossly compression which gives you better color and more adjustment range for using curves or gama, or color correction.

Thanks, yes I always shoot in RAW I did use the long exposure noise reduction (put it on auto which is supposed to detect if it's needed or not) and then did my shots. I haven't had a chance to offload and look at them since last night though. Now I just need to learn to take better shots at night. Through the LCD they looked a bit brighter than I expected, though the graph showed the pictures being more towards the darker end of the range so I just need to get them on the computer to see (calibrated monitor).