[KungPOW]

No, you don't need to "shoot to the right with all high ISO shots". The original shot is quite bright for an ISO 3200 shot, and if anything has already given the camera a leg up in terms of keeping noise to a minimum. Exposing brighter than it already is on top of that? Come on.

Complaining about underexposure--ok, I can go with that. But now we're not even allowed to take a shot at the proper exposure?

To the OP: wow that Noise Ninja job is awful. Have you tried NR Low in-camera? From test shots I've seen it strikes a good balance between noise reduction and detail retention. It particularly does a good job reducing the chroma noise that's so visible in your original shot.

Yup, you are correct. You don't NEED to do anything. The OP has a choice to continue to do what he is doing, and continue to get crap results.

As for not being "allowed" to shoot at the correct exposure... We are not talking about slide film here. The correct exposure is what gets the best results.

The OP's shots all look like they were under exposed, and then pushed in post process. I expect he did this as he was shooting against a bright sky, and he under exposed the bird. So, to show some details on the bird, the image was pushed, and the result is masive noise.

[sveinmb]

This is just sad really. I think I'll have to buy a 5Dmk2 and start taking pictures that are underexposed with 2 to 4 stops and complain online.

[snooked]

Yup, you are correct. You don't NEED to do anything. The OP has a choice to continue to do what he is doing, and continue to get crap results.

As for not being "allowed" to shoot at the correct exposure... We are not talking about slide film here. The correct exposure is what gets the best results.

The OP's shots all look like they were under exposed, and then pushed in post process. I expect he did this as he was shooting against a bright sky, and he under exposed the bird. So, to show some details on the bird, the image was pushed, and the result is masive noise.

This photo was not used to show a great example in labaratory conditions. I did it to evaluate the use of ISO 3200 in field conditions. This day was overcast, hot, and humid (mosquitos also). Exposing to the right would blow out the sky even worse and still make the shot unusable. For my purposes in the field I determined it would be useless to use ISO 3200. I did get respectable results with ISO 1600, as I did with my K20D also. There are a lot of good things about the K 7, but I do not see much difference in noise.

Ed

Ed

[KungPOW]

This photo was not used to show a great example in labaratory conditions. I did it to evaluate the use of ISO 3200 in field conditions. This day was overcast, hot, and humid (mosquitos also). Exposing to the right would blow out the sky even worse and still make the shot unusable. For my purposes in the field I determined it would be useless to use ISO 3200. I did get respectable results with ISO 1600, as I did with my K20D also. There are a lot of good things about the K 7, but I do not see much difference in noise.

Ed

Ed

Most people have shown there the be very little diferance between ISO 3200 on the K20D vs the K-7. The K-7 has a little less chroma noise, and to me, the noise looks more ramdom.

But you still need to optimise your exposure to get the most benifit from high ISO shots.

We could argue this all day, but some others members of this board have actually shown how exposure will affect noise.

Have a look at post no. 29 here: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/66151-my-k-7-vs-k-...arisons-2.html

As for your shot, shooting into the sun, on an overcast day, you cannot expect to have both a well exposed dark subject, and a sky that is corectly exposed. This has nothing to do with ISO. This is a dynamic range issue.

The issue I have with your post is that you present ISO 3200 to be unusable "in field conditions". The example you post is one of the worst high ISO examples I have yet to see come from the K-7. But I still believe that 90% of the problem with the noise in the photo is user error.

[Yohan Pamudji]

The issue I have with your post is that you present ISO 3200 to be unusable "in field conditions". The example you post is one of the worst high ISO examples I have yet to see come from the K-7. But I still believe that 90% of the problem with the noise in the photo is user error.

Maybe not user error per se, but rather very challenging conditions. I wouldn't expect any user with any camera to do radically better under those shooting conditions. That shouldn't stop one from trying to get the shot though, so this example can still be indicative of what to expect when shooting in such extreme conditions (bright sky and dark subject needing correction in post).

[Pentaxor]

it's more like user error and improper exposure combination. I'm not that convinced that the photo is the best that a photographer can come up with in such extreme condition. honestly speaking, it's no better than a novice's photo result, shooting at the same high ISO. even I could replicate such ugly noise in a normal condition.

this is definitely one of the "DONT's" on the K-7. just wasting the camera's potential.

[defiant]

Could you attach the image with Exif data intact? There are so many questions on camera settings that everyone's making assumptions about what settings were being used, and then advising accordingly which could be based on completely wrong assumptions.

[raz]

Could you attach the image with Exif data intact? There are so many questions on camera settings that everyone's making assumptions about what settings were being used, and then advising accordingly which could be based on completely wrong assumptions.

+1

I may be wrong, but my general feeling is that the image looks "pushed"...

[Maffer]

Pushed or not, but if the situation was overcast then calling in +EV would blow the white part of tail feathers clean off, not the sky. Good luck trying to spot meter the white feathers to get optimal exposure. At least the OP got the shot.

[EricT]

This photo was not used to show a great example in labaratory conditions. I did it to evaluate the use of ISO 3200 in field conditions. This day was overcast, hot, and humid (mosquitos also). Exposing to the right would blow out the sky even worse and still make the shot unusable. For my purposes in the field I determined it would be useless to use ISO 3200. I did get respectable results with ISO 1600, as I did with my K20D also. There are a lot of good things about the K 7, but I do not see much difference in noise.

Ed

Ed

IMO, a blown sky wouldn't matter here. It's still just a gray blob, so making it a white blob wouldn't impact the picture in any way. It would, however, give you less noise and much more detail of the bird, which could actually make the picture usable.

Just my $.02.

[augustmoon]

handheld, but I got some acceptable results by exposing to the right as far as I could get away with.

RAW from lightroom, no noise correction, but because I exposed to the right, I brought down the brightness a bit and boosted the black level to get a normal looking pic.

the 1600 looks even better. It's definitely "different" looking than K20D noise. More noticeable at first (coarser?) but maybe more acceptable due that it seems to have less chroma in it?

But I think that even ISO 400 (with the K-7) can be ruined if it gets even slightly underexposed.

[brecklundin]

snooked, when you say "no noise reduction" do you mean that the NR was turned off on the K-7? I think the user NR settings are different on the K-7 than the k20d. The k20d seems to do more NR at the system level, and so the user default is "NR. off". I recommend using the K-7 default NR setting.

One other question: Was the camera really warm when you took that shot? Sensors are sensitive to heat, and the noise in any digital camera goes up with increasing temperature. I have read that the noise can double for ever 8 degrees C. This can be a problem sometimes in the summer with a black camera in the hot sun. I haven't seen this tested with these cameras.

That is excellent info...while waiting for the K7 price to drop, two concerns I have developed are not only that the body will be too small for my hands but also that the small form factor does not allow for sufficient heat dissipation due to decreased volume inside the body.

From what I have read almost all of the beta testers were testing in colder seasons so heat might not have been an issue. Also, perhaps this bring into question how Pentax was able to get the system to function well in lower temperatures as in that -10C...it might actually be via no conscious effort by HoyaTax but rather the very idea of putting the same components into a more confined space.

[mtngal]

As far as operating the K-7 in hot weather - I spent Sunday hiking where the temperature was in the low 90s F in the shade. Only thing was, there was no shade - my car said the outside air was 98 F when I started it to go home. I didn't use movie mode and live view only once and briefly. The pictures (over 150 of them) were fine, the camera did get hot (looking at the temperatures in exiftool, they went as high as 41 C, which is over 100 F). There was no additional noise or performance problems (including the one vertical line in the center of the pictures I had seen the day before after using movie mode). Granted, this wasn't Vegas or the middle of the Mojave, but I wouldn't expect much difference based on this one-day test.

[kasv]

I respect the approaches outlined here and I dare say I want to be sure to have gear that is capable of making visible what I want to express. I have to admint, the pic on page 1 of this thread looks anything but pretty and I know this can happen with Pentax gear (don't know how other brands would behave here). Yet I found something that made me start thinking a bit differently:
When I was looking for an upgrade to K100Ds, I evaluated K20D and and found K100Ds and istDL that I still own having better high ISO performance. Then my neighbor gave me a Nikon D300 for comparison and I made several high ISO shots under bad light circumstances. Looking at a screen, I always found D300 much better in terms of chroma noise and rendition of dark portions, esp. deep shadows. K20D always showed the typical objectionable purple/blueish granularity, where D300 was nicely monolithic black. However, I did a few test prints on a recently bought HP Photosmart B9180 to see how this works out there; and the result was a bit astonishing: there was little to no difference to be seen in shots of both cameras at 3200 and 6400 ISO. So, depending on the use model (and I view a printed result as a "real" photo), you may want to consider what it looks printed rather than onscreen. Still I think, that when brightening up dark portions, D300 gives you a bit better headroom, but again, will that turn out in printed results? I now judge K20D one of the best DSLRs in its market segment and am mostly quite pleased even with the high ISO performance. Printed, even 6400 comes very detailed and almost free of banding - it's noise reminds me of the beautiful side of ISO 400 of old film days. Whatever differences we see in todays various brands and models: they all provide excellent ISO perfomance compared to what many of us grew up with. I'll try to quit pixel peeping now;-)

[GaryM]

So, depending on the use model (and I view a printed result as a "real" photo), you may want to consider what it looks printed rather than onscreen.

Bingo. If the ultimate purpose of this stuff isn't to produce prints, then we would have never needed more than a few megapixels. IMO, the 100% pixel-view method of measuring image quality has seriously distorted the real measure of image quality - which may, perhaps, not be something that can ever be properly conveyed over the internet.