[mediaslinky]

Are you using the in camera noise reduction? Or doing something in post?

Or... What is the best way to reduce noise with the K-x and high ISO photography?

I'm still finding the limits of the camera. This weekend I have a very theatrical production I plan to shoot. Very dark/light, high contrast. Was looking for some methods from experience.

Using manual lenses. Shooting in a range from f1.7 to 2.8 depending on lens.

[Adam]

In general, the in-camera NR does a pretty good job, especially if you're looking to keep PP to a minimum. However, for the most optimal results, you should shoot raw and then use something like topaz denoise. I've usually just used the in-camera functionality to save time.

[KxBlaze]

I also found out that the in-camera NR works when you are shooting jpeg. When shooting raw I did not notice a difference with the in-camera NR. I did a test and posted it on a thread on this forum a while back. I shot in RAW and did all the levels of NR and all the photos looked the same. That is when someone pointed out that the NR is meant for jpeg and that PP was necessary for reducing noise in RAW photos. In either case I prefer to do the NR in PP. Topaz or Photoshop works very well for me.


Found the old thread:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/115647-does-camera...ml?src=subsct2

[jolepp]

Shooting RAW allows tweaking to suit your taste and the particular shot, especially balancing between noise reduction and preserving detail. In-camera NR does a very decent job, but PP helps to get the most out of the high-ISO capabilities of the K-x (or any DLSR for that matter). Personally I have been using ufraw and gimp for PP as I'd like to be able to use Linux as well as Windows, my current idea of doing it with these can be found here: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/digital-processing-software-printing/1239...ml#post1281387

[mediaslinky]

Thanks! I'll try the in camera and see what happens. Since these are just for fun.

[rawr]

Are you using the in camera noise reduction? Or doing something in post?

Or... What is the best way to reduce noise with the K-x and high ISO photography?

I shoot RAW+ so I get to compare the effects of the in-camera noise reduction to RAW all the time.

I have the K-x set to apply NR only above 1600 ISO, and only to apply 'Low' NR. My experience has been that the K-x shoots pretty clean up to 1600 ISO without NR, and that the in-camera noise reduction generally works pretty well up to about 3200 ISO. After that, for best results, out-of-camera RAW post-processing delivers superior results, especially if you shoot right up to 12800 ISO.

Having said that, the acceptability of the K-x JPG output also depends very much on how you plan to use or present your output. For small prints or web use, for example, JPG's shot at even 12800 and then resized down can look very clean and detailed straight out of camera.

For example, I took the pix below of several local stage performers over a year ago with the K-x, with just the 18-55 kit lens. They illustrate how even extreme K-x high ISO out-of-camera JPG's can look quite OK depending on your output needs. In this format, and for anything up to a 8x10 print probably, the output looks OK. If you zoom to 100% on screen or print out at A3 though, you may see perhaps too much noise and grain.

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

[john5100]

I use the same settings as mentioned above. Here is mine at ISO 5000

[mediaslinky]

Here is one from tonight. Part of our Singing Christmas Trees Christmas production. This is a scene from the end of scrooge, with an upbeat version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I caught the dancers jumping.

scroogejump | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Right out of the camera, jpg with high noise reduction. ISO 3200. 1/160 shutter, using my 50mm f1.7 at about f2.8.

I shot with Raw + jpg, and will see what the raw file looks like in comparison later.

Edit: flickr used to allow posting, but the new site... I can't figure it out, so just a link.