Noise Problems with Canon 650D

[saqib]

I bought the Canon 650D about six months ago and have taken almost 1000 photos with it todate. I always shoot Raw+ jpg so I never really had the need to process my Raw files until now when I got interested in stock photos and stuff.

To get up to speed with the world of stock photography, I’m reading Rob Sylvan’s terrific guide ‘Taking Stock’.

In it he emphasizes that you’ve to inspect your photos 1:1 to identify any aberrations and unwanted artefacts because that’s what the inspectors at any stock agency do to judge your photos.

Now the problem is that when I imported my photos into Lightroom (4.4), which I’m using for the first time, I discovered that at actual size all my photos have noise. Not some noise but considerable noise, at least to me, unless I’m being overly critical of my own work.

What on earth is happening here?

1. Am I doing something wrong here? I always strive to shoot at ISO 100. Sometimes I use the tripod, sometimes I don’t. But that seems to have no bearing on the noise outcome.

2. Is there something wrong with my camera? Or is it an inherent problem with 650D?

3. Is there something with the lenses? I mostly shoot with Tokina 11-16mm. Noise remains constant whether I shoot at wide open at 2.8 or at F22. Ditto for the time of day. Sometimes I shoot with the kit lens 18-55mm. Both lenses are giving the same noise level. Both can’t be faulty at the same time, or can they?

4. What can I do to stop this from happening in the future?

5. What can I do to salvage my previous work?

6. Should I use Lightroom to reduce luminance and color noise on all my photos? Rob discourages from reducing too much noise as it reduces sharpness and turns the details all mushy which will defeat the purpose of noise reduction in the first place as it will get the photo rejected by the stock inspector. What do you think?

7. How much noise reduction to apply so that it gets the pictures past the inspector? Remember no noise is visible when you see the images in normal view.

8. Is there a better tool than Lightroom for reducing noise? Should I use that before importing the photo into lightroom for further processing?

9. Or is everything ok and the only thing wrong is my laptop monitor calibration? If that’s the case how do I rectify that?

10. How can I get your input on this? Should I upload one of the Raw files. Is it possible here considering the large size? Or should I convert it to jpg and then show it? Won’t that reduce the noise level that I wanted to show you?

[Nigel G]

Hi saqib, welcome to WPF

Can you post a couple of images at normal size and also a 100% crop so we can maybe see the extent of the problem.

[miketoll]

Convert the RAW files to jpg's without doing any adjustment then upload as big a file as you are permitted to use by this website.

[postcardcv]

I think that all digital files will show some noise when viewed at 100%, the best way to show us the problem is to convert a RAW to jpg in LR with no NR applied. Then upload a 100% crop from it and a resized copy if the full photo.

To address some of the questions, neither use of a tripod or the lens used should effect the noise levels (though a fast lens and a tripod might help keep the ISO down which would help). Personally I would not worry too much about a bit of visible noise so long as it is not impacting on the overall look of an image - digital noise will show even less when an image is printed. I do not apply any NR unless shooting at ISO1600 or higher, when I do use NR I do it in LR as it seems to work quite well. I agree with not over doing NR, I would rather have a slightly noisy shot with plenty of detail than a smooth shot that ends up looking like a water colour painting. Some cameras have very aggressive in camera noise reduction on jpgs which can look terrible which is why I would always shoot RW do I can control it myself (your 650D shouldn't be bad though).

In order to reduce noise as much a possible in the future always try to get the exposure spot on as recovering an underexposed shot will lead to very noisy results. With my 7D I tend to shoot with +1/3rd EV comp as the metering tends to slightly underexpose. I would prefer to recover highlights as this won't add nose and processing RAWs in LR you should have a couple of stops recover in blown highlights. S long as you still have the RAW files of your older shots you can always reprocess them in LR to get the best out of them.

Anyway put up some examples of the problems and hopefully someone will be able to tell if it is normal or a problem with the camera.

[saqib]

Let me sift through all the photos I’ve taken with 650D.

I want to show you select photos in a chronological order so that you know the sensor behavior over time and hence if the camera has ‘lost’ it after just six months down the line or if it’s me who has lost it.

BTW, whats the maximum size I can upload on this site?

[saqib]

Till I do that, I've uploaded two of the most recent RAW images I've taken on the following links:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1nE...it?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1nE...it?usp=sharing

Both these were taken at sunrise, and as you know, exposure becomes a little tricky at the dawn of the day.