"Plugins to Reduce Noise on the M8" or "How to make the M8's ISO 640 really useable?"

[JPSuisse]

"Plugins to Reduce Noise on the M8" or "How to make the M8's ISO 640 really useable?"

Hi all

Menos' recent post here about post processing and plugins from Nik Software gave me an idea to ask for info here.

Does anybody use plugins for Lightroom to reduce the noise on the DNGs out of the M8/M9? Nik's Dfine 2.0 is not suitable because it only works on TIFFs not RAW files.

I personally find Bibble's Noise Ninja implementation much better than Lightroom's noise reduction. But alas, I'm using Lightroom for various reasons.

Cheers,

JP

 

[cplkao]

Hello JP,

I found the noise reduction of Capture One beats both Noise Ninja and DFine, especially for high ISO shots of 640 and above.

Personally, I found the 640 shots quite useable with lightroom own NR.

At the moment,
my M8 workflow involves importing into lightroom, filtering, process the shots at 640 and below with lightroom, the shots at 1250 and above with C1, the tiff goes back to the same folder as the originals in lightroom.

This works for me as an amateur shooting personal projects.

I think, the "correct exposure" should be the answer to all questions regarding the high ISO performance of M8.

 

[achi4]

Hello JP
The noise reduction in Lightroom 3, although at the moment only color noise is implementated in the presently available beta version of LR3, gives me results comparable to those in Capture One 5 even at 1250. Comparing results side by side at 100% I think I see a tiny bit more detail in the C1 version but that may be due more to my inherent love of C1 than anything else.
Maurice

 

[martin s]

Jesus Christ. Make 640 files usable? Sometimes reading this website I wonder if I'm visually impaired or something.

martin

 

[jaapv]

Could you please show some other shots that inspired the question?🙄The ones you referred to simply look digital - better taken with a Canon.

 

[user237428934]

For my taste 640 is absolutely usable even without noise reduction. Of course there is some noise but that is not the kind of ugly and distracting noise.
NR in Capture One is OK for me.

 

[miklosphoto]

In my workflow, I send everything through C1, and I am getting absolutely gorgeous photos at 1250 ISO. Lightroom DNG processing sucks. There is a good reason why Leica is bundling C1 with M8. If you bought an M8, please do a favor to yourself and use C1.
Just for those who are interested, here is a link to a 100% ISO 1250 set of photos:
http://www.miklosphoto.com/albums/Charanga2009/

 

[JPSuisse]

Alright... I shouldn't have picked such a provocative title with this post. I have a bad habit of doing that... Let me explain and give an example.

Often, I'm shooting at 640 trying to avoid jumping to 1250. In the example I'm posting here, I shot the picture at F2, 1/30 Sec at ISO 640. You can look at the full sized, uncropped picture shot as a DNG and developed without noise reduction in Lightroom 2.5.

Now, there are also 2 cutouts of the persons face and watch: one with nose reduction, one without. Since the shot was made at 1/30 it's obviously not too sharp. But sharp enough. In my opinion the noise reduction in Lightroom really doesn't do much.

Cplkao, I agree with you 100%. My experience shows that a well exposed image at ISO 640 has markedly less noise than the image I'm showing you here. Noise seems to increase disproportionately with underexposure on the M8. But, I had no other choice except maybe going to 1/20 sec. ( On the other hand, it is a "bar scene" and "bar scene's" should usually be dark... But that's another subject.)

Some important parameters of mine are: (1) I'm still working in a PPC world. That means no Lightroom 3, because Adobe only will only support PCs and Macintel computers in the future; (2) Also, the metadata support in Lightroom is far better than with Capture 1 it seems. However, I will go back and look / test again Capture 1; and (3) Lightroom allows me to import my RAW scans of my film negatives from my Nikon 5000. Thus, I use Lightroom to combine all my film and digital media! This is not yet possible with C1. Probably I'm stuck with Lightroom 2...

This is why I was wondering if people are using plugins for Lightroom 2. It looks as if people are not doing this though. Just many recommendations for other things...

Nonetheless I do appreciate all your comments.

Cheers, JP

PS - And... Miklos, I really liked your pics from the concert! Was just wondering though, if the concert really was that bright.

 

[jaapv]

There are a number of noise-reducing programs that are popular. Noise Ninja, Neat Image and D-fine come to mind. Relying on the noise reduction of RAW developers or Photoshop/LR is bound to lead to disappointment. Especially CS4 and LR are particularly lame. And just out of interest, what would be the problem with shooting at 1/20th? Most experienced RF users find speeds like 1/8th or even longer perfectly acceptable.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Does anyone know what algorithms are used for noise-reduction with their plug-ins?

Are spline/averaging smoothing functions used, Fourier transforms with cut-offs, wavelets, etc?

 

[JPSuisse]

Jaap, you're right. 1/20th is often acceptable. I try to only go below 1/30th though when the atmosphere is calm, or I have a good wall to brace myself on. Otherwise, I'll jerk the camera.

JP

 

[JPSuisse]

Jaap,

I wanted to add one more thing. Noise Ninja, Neat Image and D-fine do not make plugins for Lightroom. They are only stand alone applications requiring me to leave the RAW environment. That means exporting to something like a TIFF.

Here, I really have to say that Bibble has all other RAW applications beat hands down. Noise Ninja is built into the RAW editor. Unfortunately, the newly released Bibble 5 can read neither my RAW scanner files nor my M8 raw files. Works like a charm for my D100 though.

JP

 

[jaapv]

Jaap,

I wanted to add one more thing. Noise Ninja, Neat Image and D-fine do not make plugins for Lightroom. They are only stand alone applications requiring me to leave the RAW environment. That means exporting to something like a TIFF.

Here, I really have to say that Bibble has all other RAW applications beat hands down. Noise Ninja is built into the RAW editor. Unfortunately, the newly released Bibble 5 can read neither my RAW scanner files nor my M8 raw files. Works like a charm for my D100 though.

JP

Well, I use a C1-5.0-->CS4 workflow, and they certainly are plugins for Photoshop.

 

[miklosphoto]

PS - And... Miklos, I really liked your pics from the concert! Was just wondering though, if the concert really was that bright.

I was shooting wide open at f/1.4 and manual shutter speed at 1/90sec the whole concert. The spots were very strong, that explains the strong highlights. I was trying to find a right balance not to blow out the spots and show all the details I can. The shutter speed was important, I wanted to freeze the movements; I mean artistically some more motion blur could have been made, but I was really interested how sharp it can get at ISO 1250.