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01-27-2016, 09:28 AM   #121
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
Agreed.



Not sure I agree with this bit, though. I have numerous photos taken at ISO 12,800 and above on the K5 and K3 that look good at 10 x 6 or less on a 128dpi laptop monitor. They required some work in Lightroom to reduce noise, and there is some loss of fine detail, but they are serviceable photos. Viewed at a reasonable distance, they're fine. Converted to monochrome, they look even better.

I expect the D5 may offer some improvement on the K3 / K3II in terms of IQ at the same ISO settings, and the D5 will almost certainly offer useable IQ except at the highest one or two ISO settings...
It depends on what you are shooting and what your goal is. I shot some photos of my family Go Karting and I had to shoot f2.8 and iso 6400-12K in order to get decent enough shutter speeds that it wasn't a blurry mess. But I would show the photos to others, the dynamic range is poor and other than documenting that we were there, the results weren't stellar.

Converting to monochrome may get rid of noise, but it doesn't change the fact that the dynamic range sucks at these isos and that is what really makes these images unusable.

But maybe I have higher standards than others...

01-27-2016, 11:00 AM   #122
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
It depends on what you are shooting and what your goal is.
Oh, I agree completely. I certainly wouldn't expect the K3's IQ at ISO 12800 to be sufficient in a lot of circumstances. But then we have a pretty simple choice - take the photo anyway (if a record of the moment is an important one) or compromise on our creative use of the shutter speed and aperture to let in more light, but potentially spoil the shot.

Just for the heck of it, I took the three photos below a few minutes ago, purely to demonstrate. All were taken at ISO 12800. The two product photos were under not-very-bright kitchen lighting, and the flower shot in dim dining room lighting. Now, I'm not saying these are great photos - and you can tell (particularly with the flower shot) that a higher ISO setting was used - also that some noise reduction has been added, and JPG / file size compression involved. But the results are quite acceptable, looking at them here on my screen where they show up at 10" wide...

EDIT: Noise reduction and some shadow recovery / tonal compression done in Lightroom - out-of-camera JPGs would look worse...






Last edited by BigMackCam; 01-27-2016 at 11:23 AM.
01-29-2016, 02:56 AM   #123
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I'm finding the dynamic range from a D750 raw file at ISO10000 quite amazing - color rendition too



So I'm sure the D5 would be better - at a price of course
01-29-2016, 03:54 AM   #124
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
Oh, I agree completely. I certainly wouldn't expect the K3's IQ at ISO 12800 to be sufficient in a lot of circumstances. But then we have a pretty simple choice - take the photo anyway (if a record of the moment is an important one) or compromise on our creative use of the shutter speed and aperture to let in more light, but potentially spoil the shot.

Just for the heck of it, I took the three photos below a few minutes ago, purely to demonstrate. All were taken at ISO 12800. The two product photos were under not-very-bright kitchen lighting, and the flower shot in dim dining room lighting. Now, I'm not saying these are great photos - and you can tell (particularly with the flower shot) that a higher ISO setting was used - also that some noise reduction has been added, and JPG / file size compression involved. But the results are quite acceptable, looking at them here on my screen where they show up at 10" wide...

EDIT: Noise reduction and some shadow recovery / tonal compression done in Lightroom - out-of-camera JPGs would look worse...




It is when things are really dark that it seems to fall apart. This is iso 12,800 f2.8 and 1/200 second and even doing some noise reduction in post, I don't feel like I could print it at any sort of a decent size. Is it usable? I guess so, but I think it looks pretty poor. If there is a little bit of light and less subject movement, then I think the end result would be a little better.



A lot of images I see shot at high iso actually have fairly decent light and no deep shadows and I think those are the sorts of high iso images that look the best. Toss in bright spots and dark areas within the same image and iso 10,000 begins to look pretty poor, even on a D750.

01-29-2016, 04:54 AM   #125
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
It is when things are really dark that it seems to fall apart. This is iso 12,800 f2.8 and 1/200 second and even doing some noise reduction in post, I don't feel like I could print it at any sort of a decent size. Is it usable? I guess so, but I think it looks pretty poor.
Can I ask what you're using for noise reduction? I get my best results using Lightroom 6. I start by bringing up the black level so there's no clipping of shadows. I tend not to get a lot of this, as in low light situations I aim to over-expose slightly to lower the risk (this is the biggest lesson I've learned recently with low light shooting). I also find that Lightroom has a much wider range of shadow recovery than Adobe Camera Raw. Next, I adjust the white level to address any problematic highlight clipping. If I don't ensure there's no clipping of shadows, then the noise reduction in darker areas will have a very mottled effect. Then, I reduce sharpnening to zero and at 1:1 magnification I adjust luminance noise reduction to a reasonable level (a light amount of grain), leaving color noise reduction at the default of 25. Finally, I typically set the sharpening to around 50 with a radius of between 0.5 and 1.5 depending on how "busy" the subject is, and adjust the masking so that only the edges are getting sharpened - hence avoiding the sharpening of any remaining luminance noise.

I'm sure you know all this anyway, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. I've tried the noise reduction in Pentax Digital Camera Utility, Photoshop Elements 14, Google Nik Dfine 2, GIMP and a few other applications, and while some of them are good, none of them is a match for Lightroom 6 (based on my own experience, that is).

For what it's worth, looking at your photo, I think it's OK. A little further post-processing to increase the clarity and vibrance just a touch might give it a little more punch, but it looks like a pretty natural rendition of the scene...
02-05-2016, 03:11 AM   #126
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Shot at ISO 12800 with no noise reduction - future cameras are going to do even better

02-05-2016, 03:33 AM   #127
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
Can I ask what you're using for noise reduction? I get my best results using Lightroom 6. I start by bringing up the black level so there's no clipping of shadows. I tend not to get a lot of this, as in low light situations I aim to over-expose slightly to lower the risk (this is the biggest lesson I've learned recently with low light shooting). I also find that Lightroom has a much wider range of shadow recovery than Adobe Camera Raw. Next, I adjust the white level to address any problematic highlight clipping. If I don't ensure there's no clipping of shadows, then the noise reduction in darker areas will have a very mottled effect. Then, I reduce sharpnening to zero and at 1:1 magnification I adjust luminance noise reduction to a reasonable level (a light amount of grain), leaving color noise reduction at the default of 25. Finally, I typically set the sharpening to around 50 with a radius of between 0.5 and 1.5 depending on how "busy" the subject is, and adjust the masking so that only the edges are getting sharpened - hence avoiding the sharpening of any remaining luminance noise.

I'm sure you know all this anyway, but I thought I'd mention it just in case. I've tried the noise reduction in Pentax Digital Camera Utility, Photoshop Elements 14, Google Nik Dfine 2, GIMP and a few other applications, and while some of them are good, none of them is a match for Lightroom 6 (based on my own experience, that is).

For what it's worth, looking at your photo, I think it's OK. A little further post-processing to increase the clarity and vibrance just a touch might give it a little more punch, but it looks like a pretty natural rendition of the scene...
I have Lightroom 5 and I usually use the noise reduction sliders there or, I have Nik Dfine as well and use that sometimes. I'm certainly no master of noise reduction, that's for sure.

---------- Post added 02-05-16 at 05:34 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by dylansalt Quote
Shot at ISO 12800 with no noise reduction - future cameras are going to do even better
Did you use flash on this shot?

02-05-2016, 03:38 AM   #128
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
I have Lightroom 5 and I usually use the noise reduction sliders there or, I have Nik Dfine as well and use that sometimes. I'm certainly no master of noise reduction, that's for sure.

---------- Post added 02-05-16 at 05:34 AM ----------



Did you use flash on this shot?
I was just about to ask the same thing Plus, I see no colour noise whatsoever... even in the dark area at the top left, and just to the right of the lad at the BBQ. is there absolutely no chrominance noise reduction (even a default amount)? I'm a fan of the K3's high ISO capabilities, but I rarely get a shot at 12800 that doesn't need at least a little chrominance noise reduction...
02-05-2016, 04:36 AM   #129
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
I was just about to ask the same thing Plus, I see no colour noise whatsoever... even in the dark area at the top left, and just to the right of the lad at the BBQ. is there absolutely no chrominance noise reduction (even a default amount)? I'm a fan of the K3's high ISO capabilities, but I rarely get a shot at 12800 that doesn't need at least a little chrominance noise reduction...
My guess is that he is shooting out of camera jpegs and there is plenty of noise reduction added in the camera engine. I'm not totally sure why you would use such a high iso if you are using flash, either, but certainly the light fall off in the photo appears that way.
02-05-2016, 06:03 AM   #130
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
My guess is that he is shooting out of camera jpegs and there is plenty of noise reduction added in the camera engine.
Ah, yes - that would make sense.

QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
I'm not totally sure why you would use such a high iso if you are using flash, either, but certainly the light fall off in the photo appears that way.
It does seem high, but if flash has been used, upping the ISO would bring up the ambient lighting so that the immediate subjects aren't too isolated and flash not so harsh... TAv mode is quite clever in this respect - an indoor shot without flash might get an ISO of 12800, while the same shot with the on-board flash might get an ISO of 6400, maintaining a nice balance between ambient and flash light.
02-05-2016, 06:46 AM   #131
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
Ah, yes - that would make sense.



It does seem high, but if flash has been used, upping the ISO would bring up the ambient lighting so that the immediate subjects aren't too isolated and flash not so harsh... TAv mode is quite clever in this respect - an indoor shot without flash might get an ISO of 12800, while the same shot with the on-board flash might get an ISO of 6400, maintaining a nice balance between ambient and flash light.
I typically don't use auto iso with flash. I usually set my iso at 800 or 1600 and that gives a decent mix of ambient and flash light.
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