D5 in-camera noise reduction

chasgroh2

...now that I've done a few shoots with the D5 (outside, football field, marching bands, dawn to dark) I'm happy to say...wow! I've used the in-camera High ISO noise reduction and, in conjunction with LR's NR, and stepping not-too-heavily, have produced some nice images with minimal noise issues. Most of the settings on the D5 I've migrated from my D4, so basically I've improved a stop or more and the focusing function is noticeably better...but I'm curious if there is anyone out there using this body under similar conditions (high school football would be a great comparison)? Playing with the noise? In-camera ON or OFF? How much NR in LR? I'm thinking my next shoot to go with no in-camera NR...thoughts?

Ferguson

I have shot the D5 quite a bit at soccer, where typical speeds are ISO 4000-12000 to get 1/800th at F2.8.

My own feeling is that the noise is similar to the D4. I have not tried to quantify that, notably in relation to the increased resolution, but after post processing I tend to see similar amounts of noise.

However, the color hangs in there much better than the D4, so that images look better for 1-2 stops beyond where the D4 lands. I've had shots well into the mid-5-figures that were completely usable for something like newsprint or blogs, though I would hesitate to see them on glossy print like magazines.

I shoot raw however, so I'm relying only on the post processing (Lightroom in my case) noise reduction. You do realize that high ISO Noise reduction in-camera has no impact on raw images, right? unlike long exposure NR which does. I have not experimented much with SOOC JPG's and in-camera processing.

To me the D5 needed a bit of change in approach. With the D4 I found the best results by, at high ISO and high DR (e.g. harsh shadows from night field lights) that it was better to under-expose a bit, so the highlights are less blown -- I could recover shadows on the D4 better than kill highlights. With the D5 that seems reversed - shadow recovery is (relatively) poor, but highlight recovery has improved, especially colors, and so in a real high DR scene at high ISO, I find that erring on the correct-to-over exposure side is better. I get the whole ETTR philosophy, but at high ISO I just did not find it worked on the D4; it does on the D5.

Focus is funny. I love the new D-9 feature with the smaller tracking area, but if I get it off center (say a third from the left side), I get a lot of missed focus in real dark areas. Not just missed -- cases where it just won't focus at all. Not on field -- the fields are bright (even if very high ISO due to shutter), but if I turn to shoot the stands - center focus works great, far far better than the D4. Offset, in real dark - worse. Maybe it's the cross vs. straight AF sensors and where I position the D9. Haven't seen it in D-25 and higher.

chasgroh2

...I shoot jpeg (fine lately...) only because I might get 10,000 shots in a day...have found, with the excellent equipment, that processing is generally quite straight-up and exposure corrections achievable...so the in-camera NR is what I'm dealing with (or not). I am of like mind vis a vis the D4 and my shooting is pretty much on the field so haven't run into any focus problems, I'm delighted with the system. So thanks for the input, I'm just gonna hack away and figger it out, but, like I said, I used the High ISO NR and *then* LR's NR (maybe halfway) and got good results...and another shoot where I left in-camera off and then LR a bit heavier...jury is still out since it was two different venues. Have two more shows to do before a big time championship weekend...should have it locked-in by then!