May replace D800 with a 600?

EphTwoEight

The low light noise is awful. The vignetting is awful. All the lines are weird.

I even had to use the de-vignette thing.

So we took my rental truck out to a really remote dry lake bed in Nv. to see if it would be a place worth going back for a real shoot. Just goofing off with my daughter.

So I used the 70-200, the 24-70, and the 15mm. All 2.8.

ISO 100, except the last one, and only up to 640, and its just unusable.

Maybe its the strobes? But I really hate them all. Would the 600 give better results? :scratch

Gallery

Qarik

the images look fine to me besides underexposure (that's not the cameras fault). not sure what you are expecting but noise looks good to me as well. what the heck does "all the lines are weird" mean? Why would you think a D600 might be better? YOu've got great gear..trust me..it's not the gear

EphTwoEight

I don't know?

On my computer they look awful. Especially the sky, and where the different shades of light. On my monitor it shows a lot of annoying lines. And lots of noise in the sky as well.

So I was wondering if the 600's sensor would do better in the low light?

babowc

:uhoh:uhohNot this againrolleyes

angevin1

EphTwoEight wrote: »

I don't know?

On my computer they look awful. Especially the sky, and where the different shades of light. On my monitor it shows a lot of annoying lines. And lots of noise in the sky as well.

So I was wondering if the 600's sensor would do better in the low light?

Sounds like a monitor issue! What sort of Monitor are you viewing with?

Art Scott

EphTwoEight wrote: »

I don't know?

On my computer they look awful. Especially the sky, and where the different shades of light. On my monitor it shows a lot of annoying lines. And lots of noise in the sky as well.

So I was wondering if the 600's sensor would do better in the low light?

is your monitor calibrated??

What software are you viewing with??

perroneford

babowc wrote: »

:uhoh:uhohNot this againrolleyes

Exactly what I was thinking...

insanefred

EphTwoEight wrote: »

I don't know?

On my computer they look awful. Especially the sky, and where the different shades of light. On my monitor it shows a lot of annoying lines. And lots of noise in the sky as well.

So I was wondering if the 600's sensor would do better in the low light?

Sounds like you either are shooting jpeg and pixel peeping. Or you have your video setting to 16bit. Or you are using a bad monitor with poor 6 bit look up. Or it isn't properly calibrated. Or there is something malfunctioning in your work flow.

David_S85

They all look normal to me too. The 15mm shots have some vignetting in the outer corners, but you used a 15mm! Par for the course. Why would a 600 do better than an 800? At ISO 640, the noise looks fairly controlled, considering the conditions you were shooting at. Did you pump up the exposure in any of these in post? If so (particularly with the last shot), by how many stops?

EphTwoEight

Sorry, working all day. 15" MPB 2010, matte screen, I remember I paid extra for it, and it looks a lot better than any windows machine.

Funny thing is. I've been shooting sports at 1600 ISO and low mount flash, and i see virtually no noise. Been quite happy with it.

EphTwoEight

David_S85 wrote: »

They all look normal to me too. The 15mm shots have some vignetting in the outer corners, but you used a 15mm! Par for the course. Why would a 600 do better than an 800? At ISO 640, the noise looks fairly controlled, considering the conditions you were shooting at. Did you pump up the exposure in any of these in post? If so (particularly with the last shot), by how many stops?

Yes, upped the last one .36 in Aperture. Not sure how many stops that equals. But looks like a 4000 ISO image on my screen in the program with the RAW image.

EphTwoEight

David_S85 wrote: »

They all look normal to me too. The 15mm shots have some vignetting in the outer corners, but you used a 15mm! Par for the course. Why would a 600 do better than an 800? At ISO 640, the noise looks fairly controlled, considering the conditions you were shooting at. Did you pump up the exposure in any of these in post? If so (particularly with the last shot), by how many stops?

insanefred wrote: »

Sounds like you either are shooting jpeg and pixel peeping. Or you have your video setting to 16bit. Or you are using a bad monitor with poor 6 bit look up. Or it isn't properly calibrated. Or there is something malfunctioning in your work flow.

Shooting RAW, I hope its not malfunctioning, I've done a lot of sports at 1600, and they look fine. I was at 100 that night and the look terrible.

EphTwoEight

David_S85 wrote: »

They all look normal to me too. The 15mm shots have some vignetting in the outer corners, but you used a 15mm! Par for the course. Why would a 600 do better than an 800? At ISO 640, the noise looks fairly controlled, considering the conditions you were shooting at. Did you pump up the exposure in any of these in post? If so (particularly with the last shot), by how many stops?

I did up the shadows not quite half way. Perhaps thats where the noise is coming from. ?

David_S85

EphTwoEight wrote: »

I did up the shadows not quite half way. Perhaps thats where the noise is coming from. ?

Don't know what that means. Do you mean a half stop?

My experience is that any time a low light shot is increased in EV in post, noise that wouldn't normally be noticeable crops up, even when shot at lower ISO's.

EphTwoEight

Yeah, shadows, right above Highlights. But, yes, just abnormally crappy in the raw settings. Thats why I wonder if the 600 would have been even better? I'd love a D4, but, thats a lot dough I aint got.

(and I really wish the D800 had wifi, for news days.)

Matthew Saville

All sorts of things wrong with this situation.

1.) Under-exposure is the devil. All your shots are under-exposed by an incredible amount, or at least the severely under-exposed areas are where I'm seeing the noise. The highlights in the properly exposed images all have normal levels of noise. For a Nikon, that is. If you want completely silky, noiseless tones in highlights, Canon is a better choice. (With the down side being complete crap shadows...) Shadows are where noise gets worst, and when your entire image is a shadow as far as the histogram is concerned, you're gonna see all sorts of noise.

2.) Brightening in post doesn't help either... Taking an already under-exposed image and brightening it up, even by 2/3 of a stop, will make noise much worse.

3.) Intermediate ISO's can be nasty. Stick to whole ISO's, otherwise you're either compromising dynamic range or noise.

4.) Noise reduction is always necessary with Nikon. Even at ISO 100, and especially when you're trying to bring out tons of dynamic range from shadows, I recommend (Lightroom) noise reduction around 20-30. Not sure how that would translate to Aperture, or if Aperture can even match LR's quality of NR, but I'm sure there are options.


Bottom line, either way, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the D600 would give you the same issues if shot the same way.

To be blunt, these images need to be shot better and processed better. If you have a way of hosting the NEF's, I'd be happy to take a whack at one of two of them. #8 and #16 might benefit greatly from different post-production...

It is possible, however, that you have a defective camera with a much worse than normal noise output. So you could send it in for a checkup.

The only reason I would consider the D600 instead of the D800 would be for the money savings or the weight savings. The overall control and customization compromises are too great. I recently tested the D600 and compared it to the D700 and D800, and that's my verdict based on shooting weddings and landscapes. Your needs may vary.

=Matt=

Ed911

Nicely assessed Matt. My first thoughts were poor lighting...under exposure...and then whatever you said.

MarkR

Matthew Saville wrote: »

All sorts of things wrong with this situation.

1.) Under-exposure is the devil. All your shots are under-exposed by an incredible amount, or at least the severely under-exposed areas are where I'm seeing the noise. The highlights in the properly exposed images all have normal levels of noise. For a Nikon, that is. If you want completely silky, noiseless tones in highlights, Canon is a better choice. (With the down side being complete crap shadows...) Shadows are where noise gets worst, and when your entire image is a shadow as far as the histogram is concerned, you're gonna see all sorts of noise.

2.) Brightening in post doesn't help either... Taking an already under-exposed image and brightening it up, even by 2/3 of a stop, will make noise much worse.

3.) Intermediate ISO's can be nasty. Stick to whole ISO's, otherwise you're either compromising dynamic range or noise.

4.) Noise reduction is always necessary with Nikon. Even at ISO 100, and especially when you're trying to bring out tons of dynamic range from shadows, I recommend (Lightroom) noise reduction around 20-30. Not sure how that would translate to Aperture, or if Aperture can even match LR's quality of NR, but I'm sure there are options.


Bottom line, either way, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the D600 would give you the same issues if shot the same way.

To be blunt, these images need to be shot better and processed better. If you have a way of hosting the NEF's, I'd be happy to take a whack at one of two of them. #8 and #16 might benefit greatly from different post-production...

It is possible, however, that you have a defective camera with a much worse than normal noise output. So you could send it in for a checkup.

The only reason I would consider the D600 instead of the D800 would be for the money savings or the weight savings. The overall control and customization compromises are too great. I recently tested the D600 and compared it to the D700 and D800, and that's my verdict based on shooting weddings and landscapes. Your needs may vary.

=Matt=

I'm very interested in your assertion #3-- is there really a difference at intermediate step ISO's for a digital camera? I'd always assumed that noise and range was relatively normal-- that ISO 640 (for example) would behave somewhere in between 400 and 800 in terms of noise and exposure range. Is this not the case, or am I misunderstanding you?

Matthew Saville

MarkR wrote: »

I'm very interested in your assertion #3-- is there really a difference at intermediate step ISO's for a digital camera? I'd always assumed that noise and range was relatively normal-- that ISO 640 (for example) would behave somewhere in between 400 and 800 in terms of noise and exposure range. Is this not the case, or am I misunderstanding you?

It is much more prevalent in Canon sensors, however for example an intermediate ISO 1/3 of a stop above a whole stop will have slightly more noise because it is (sometimes) just a 1/3 bump of that native ISO. Oppositely, a 1/3 stop below a whole stop will contain less dynamic range in highlights, because it is just that whole ISO bumped down.

I do not know whether all Nikon sensors are currently free of these issues, nor can I be sure which issues might arise if you use 1/2 stop increments instead of 1/3 increments. Either way, I haven't had this much noise in images, so I had to make that suggestion.

Intermediate ISO's are probably not the biggest issue in this case. I would place it last in rank, prioritizing correct exposure, proper lighting, focusing, and post-production.


=Matt=

MarkR

Interesting.

IIRC, Aperture actually did a nice job with raw file color noise (I played with it seriously for about a month, sometime last year), but lum. noise is a weak spot. Certainly there are any number of noise reduction plugins available for Aperture, and they all do a pretty good job.

EphTwoEight

Matthew Saville wrote: »

All sorts of things wrong with this situation.

1.) Under-exposure is the devil. All your shots are under-exposed by an incredible amount, or at least the severely under-exposed areas are where I'm seeing the noise. The highlights in the properly exposed images all have normal levels of noise. For a Nikon, that is. If you want completely silky, noiseless tones in highlights, Canon is a better choice. (With the down side being complete crap shadows...) Shadows are where noise gets worst, and when your entire image is a shadow as far as the histogram is concerned, you're gonna see all sorts of noise.

2.) Brightening in post doesn't help either... Taking an already under-exposed image and brightening it up, even by 2/3 of a stop, will make noise much worse.

3.) Intermediate ISO's can be nasty. Stick to whole ISO's, otherwise you're either compromising dynamic range or noise.

4.) Noise reduction is always necessary with Nikon. Even at ISO 100, and especially when you're trying to bring out tons of dynamic range from shadows, I recommend (Lightroom) noise reduction around 20-30. Not sure how that would translate to Aperture, or if Aperture can even match LR's quality of NR, but I'm sure there are options.


Bottom line, either way, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the D600 would give you the same issues if shot the same way.

To be blunt, these images need to be shot better and processed better. If you have a way of hosting the NEF's, I'd be happy to take a whack at one of two of them. #8 and #16 might benefit greatly from different post-production...

It is possible, however, that you have a defective camera with a much worse than normal noise output. So you could send it in for a checkup.

The only reason I would consider the D600 instead of the D800 would be for the money savings or the weight savings. The overall control and customization compromises are too great. I recently tested the D600 and compared it to the D700 and D800, and that's my verdict based on shooting weddings and landscapes. Your needs may vary.

=Matt=

So how am I supposed to expose the sky after the sun has gone down? Plus its so far away. Hard to light up. j/k

We got there just as the sun was setting. So it was purely goofing off. Not much thought into these, other than it would be a neat place to return with a cool car, and a real model.

Yeah I dont see Apertures noise reduction doing anything really. I've tried, but see no diff. I just dont like any of Adobes software, so I dont have it.

I numbered them, since theres only 14 and you said you would like #16. I could put them in a dropbox. Would love it if you wouldnt mind playing with one or two.

I was also determining whether I liked the wide lens or a longer one. And sadly, that Nikkor 70-200 still blows. Yet the 24-70 usually turns out tack sharp images.

Matthew Saville

EphTwoEight wrote: »

So how am I supposed to expose the sky after the sun has gone down? Plus its so far away. Hard to light up. j/k

We got there just as the sun was setting. So it was purely goofing off. Not much thought into these, other than it would be a neat place to return with a cool car, and a real model.

Yeah I dont see Apertures noise reduction doing anything really. I've tried, but see no diff. I just dont like any of Adobes software, so I dont have it.

I numbered them, since theres only 14 and you said you would like #16. I could put them in a dropbox. Would love it if you wouldnt mind playing with one or two.

I was also determining whether I liked the wide lens or a longer one. And sadly, that Nikkor 70-200 still blows. Yet the 24-70 usually turns out tack sharp images.

Yeah, Noise reduction is a major part in pulling out dynamic range in Nikon images. That, and perfect exposure in a situation where huge parts of the image are in shadow area.

My dropbox is matt(a)matthewsaville... Sorry about the typo, I meant #8 and #14...

=Matt=

MarkR

EphTwoEight wrote: »

So how am I supposed to expose the sky after the sun has gone down? Plus its so far away. Hard to light up. j/k

We got there just as the sun was setting. So it was purely goofing off. Not much thought into these, other than it would be a neat place to return with a cool car, and a real model.

Yeah I dont see Apertures noise reduction doing anything really. I've tried, but see no diff. I just dont like any of Adobes software, so I dont have it.

I numbered them, since theres only 14 and you said you would like #16. I could put them in a dropbox. Would love it if you wouldnt mind playing with one or two.

I was also determining whether I liked the wide lens or a longer one. And sadly, that Nikkor 70-200 still blows. Yet the 24-70 usually turns out tack sharp images.

Aperture's main noise control settings are up at the top in the raw developing section (can't remember the exact name right now.) Otherwise, yes, the noise reduction tools in the main development tab are ... subtle.

EphTwoEight

Matthew Saville wrote: »

All sorts of things wrong with this situation.

1.) Under-exposure is the devil. All your shots are under-exposed by an incredible amount, or at least the severely under-exposed areas are where I'm seeing the noise. The highlights in the properly exposed images all have normal levels of noise. For a Nikon, that is. If you want completely silky, noiseless tones in highlights, Canon is a better choice. (With the down side being complete crap shadows...) Shadows are where noise gets worst, and when your entire image is a shadow as far as the histogram is concerned, you're gonna see all sorts of noise.

2.) Brightening in post doesn't help either... Taking an already under-exposed image and brightening it up, even by 2/3 of a stop, will make noise much worse.

3.) Intermediate ISO's can be nasty. Stick to whole ISO's, otherwise you're either compromising dynamic range or noise.

4.) Noise reduction is always necessary with Nikon. Even at ISO 100, and especially when you're trying to bring out tons of dynamic range from shadows, I recommend (Lightroom) noise reduction around 20-30. Not sure how that would translate to Aperture, or if Aperture can even match LR's quality of NR, but I'm sure there are options.


Bottom line, either way, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the D600 would give you the same issues if shot the same way.

To be blunt, these images need to be shot better and processed better. If you have a way of hosting the NEF's, I'd be happy to take a whack at one of two of them. #8 and #16 might benefit greatly from different post-production...

It is possible, however, that you have a defective camera with a much worse than normal noise output. So you could send it in for a checkup.

The only reason I would consider the D600 instead of the D800 would be for the money savings or the weight savings. The overall control and customization compromises are too great. I recently tested the D600 and compared it to the D700 and D800, and that's my verdict based on shooting weddings and landscapes. Your needs may vary.

=Matt=

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Yeah, Noise reduction is a major part in pulling out dynamic range in Nikon images. That, and perfect exposure in a situation where huge parts of the image are in shadow area.

My dropbox is matt(a)matthewsaville... Sorry about the typo, I meant #8 and #14...

=Matt=

Did you get em? I couldnt figure out Dropbox, if there was some other way to send them>