[UncleVanya]

Have you tried Topaz Denoise AI? DXO Prime images has lot of artifacts in my opinion. Denoise AI produce noisefree, more natural and sharper images that every other piece of software I tried. Bonus: it even improve images taken at 100 iso! I am not afraid of noise anymore with my K-3II

Can you post some examples? I haven't noticed but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

[UncleVanya]

I used to shoot the KX (the film body, not the K-X DSLR) Loaded with tri-x pushed to 3200 with the K50/1.4 wide open at about 1/30th

In the 1980’s you could walk around at night and nobody took any notice at night with a guy with a camera

Show us your grain! - PentaxForums.com

Between grain, and monochrome, you’re right the images add a quality not captured in our somewhat spoiled perfection driven technology of today. But is it lack of staff photogs or the editors having a different standard.

This thread died in 2012.

This shot is printed 13x19 and hanging in a couple of places right now. It was shot at ISO 25600...

[Lowell Goudge]

So I will ask the basic question. Take your shot as it is, and be glad you have it, or hold out for ISO100 and have nothing. No need to answer

[savoche]

I think the main problem with shooting high ISO is the lack of dynamic range more than the noise. You can (to some degree) remove noise, byt you can't add dynamic range.

Take your shot as it is, and be glad you have it

Every time, Lowell, every time.

K-5 at ISO20,000 (which, had I had time and presence of mind to choose a longer shutterspeed, could have been lower) - noise cleans up quite well, but the DR is not very dynamic It's far, far better than no picture at all, though.


K-3 at ISO12,800. Again, the lack of dynamic range is worse than the noise IMO.

[fs999]

Here you have a good comparision between most contenders : Square Pixel.

[Madaboutpix]

Here you have a good comparision between most contenders : Square Pixel.

That looks like a worthwhile find. Thanks indeed for posting, Frederic.

[Peter_JDH]

I ended up going with Topaz. They had a great Black a Friday sale on their whole suite. DenoiseAI is incredible. It was the SharpenAI that really blew me away though. This program corrected photos with motion blur and made them look like they were taken from a rock solid tripod. The noise reduction within SharpenAI is also quite good on its own. Even lenses that are less sharp in the corners end up razor sharp across the frame. Gigapixel also upscales extremely well. This really solved my desire to get cleaner images out of my K-50 in low light and I ended up also making my DA lenses look more expensive than they are. Only problem is that I no longer have any justification for a new camera until this one dies of old age. In a way, that suits me fine. Part of the joy of outdoor and travel photography is getting the shots I want without thinking how much the electronic box around my neck cost, and what I may subject it to in the process.

[Mooncatt]

Can you post some examples? I haven't noticed but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

I know I'm late to the game, but replying because this wasn't directly answered for you. Here's a couple of originals shot with the K3 II, then some close crops to show the results. It was a quick and dirty example made from already processed jpegs. If you run Denoise straight from the raw file and export as a TIFF (it has a DNG export option, but it didn't work right for me), the results are even better. It's really obvious on the intake screen of the funny car, which looked like a solid cover after processing. No critique needed, it was one my first serious sessions.

[Madaboutpix]

DxO OpticsPro/PhotoLab has got better in some way with each new iteration, and at some point, I'm confident, programmers at DxO will think of further evolving their Prime noise reduction too (if they haven't done so already).

I don't usually quote myself, but it struck me that less than six months later what I imagined has actually happened: DxO has rolled out DeepPrime - a markedly-improved, AI-powered version of their noise reduction technology. Which puts them right back at the cutting edge of what can be done about noise today, IMHO. (I'm not saying this to put down Topaz Denoise AI, BTW. Alternatives and competition are always a good thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the advent of Denoise AI helped to motivate the engineers at DxO to come up with something new rather sooner than later.)

Noise levels in the following K-3 shot at ISO 5000 should be outrageous, but they aren't with DeepPrime applied at its magic-wand default levels. Yet there's quite a bit of detail in the in-focus areas. Admittedly, the scene wasn't super low-light, and spot-on exposure helped to keep the noise at bay already in-camera.

[steamloco76]

I went with DeNoise AI last year and it really helps the images from my K-3. One thing really upsets me though, any upgrades since September 2020 will not work with my four year old iMac 27 inch retina. Topaz decided to make all MAC upgrades compatible with only 64 bit OS. I won’t upgrade my OS because I have hundreds of dollars of software which will then be rendered worthless. At least Topaz refunded my subscription upgrade purchase with no hassles.

[UncleVanya]

I don't usually quote myself, but it struck me that less than six months later what I imagined has actually happened: DxO has rolled out DeepPrime - a markedly-improved, AI-powered version of their noise reduction technology. Which puts them right back at the cutting edge of what can be done about noise today, IMHO. (I'm not saying this to put down Topaz Denoise AI, BTW. Alternatives and competition are always a good thing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the advent of Denoise AI helped to motivate the engineers at DxO to come up with something new rather sooner than later.)

Noise levels in the following K-3 shot at ISO 5000 should be outrageous, but they aren't with DeepPrime applied at its magic-wand default levels. Yet there's quite a bit of detail in the in-focus areas. Admittedly, the scene wasn't super low-light, and spot-on exposure helped to keep the noise at bay already in-camera.

Impressive results nevertheless.

[UncleVanya]

I went with DeNoise AI last year and it really helps the images from my K-3. One thing really upsets me though, any upgrades since September 2020 will not work with my four year old iMac 27 inch retina. Topaz decided to make all MAC upgrades compatible with only 64 bit OS. I won’t upgrade my OS because I have hundreds of dollars of software which will then be rendered worthless. At least Topaz refunded my subscription upgrade purchase with no hassles.

That is quite a testament to their integrity.

[Madaboutpix]

Impressive results nevertheless.

So far so good (and thanks, UncleVanya). But how does DxO PL4's DeepPrime denoising fare with real low-light situations? How about a museum interior in a former WWII bunker system lit by fluorescent lamps (here encountered at Westwallmuseum, Pirmasens, Rhineland-Palatinate)?

Likely due to varying ages and provenience, the individual lamps in the tunnel differed significantly in their colour spectrum, and there were extended darker patches between them, so obtaining a natural-looking white balance already required careful placement of the eyedropper tool (on the white mug and the whitewashed wall, respectively). The shot EXIFs give normalized light values as 5.6 in both situations (ISO 5000, F11, 1/20s). I guess that qualifies as, well, pretty shitty light. Check out, then, what you get with cautious local adjustments and DeepPrime at one-click magic wand values: