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D5 in-camera noise reduction
...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?
Charlie Groh
(tin can tied to the bumper)
(tin can tied to the bumper)
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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.
(tin can tied to the bumper)