I get color noise with my D200 when shooting RAW

Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

02/18/2007 04:27:50 PM · #1

When shooting with my D200 in JPEG format the picture have hardly any Grain. But when I shoot with the same settings in RAW format, they have a lot of noise. the higher ISO the more color noise i get. It is ridiculous, am I doing something wrong? I would like to be able to enjoy RAW photography with my D200.

Any tips would be nice, I have tried many things, and I have bad issues finding a solution to this by searching Google, so I figured I would post something where a bunch of photographers visit!

Thanks for your time, and hopefully your expertise! :)

CEJ

Canon EOS-40D

02/18/2007 04:29:02 PM · #2

Can you post an example of this?

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM

02/18/2007 04:31:04 PM · #3

Oh, good call! I have deleted all the high noise pictures that I have had in the past, let me re-create one.

fotomann_forever

02/18/2007 04:33:53 PM · #4

I have a suspicion that you are creating the noise in conversion. In ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) it is quite easy to add noise with the Shadow and brightness sliders.

gryphonslair99

Canon EOS-30D

02/18/2007 04:34:43 PM · #5

Noise is not a product of the recording format. It has to do with exposure or more precicesly, proper exposure. I have seen ISO 100 that have terrible noise and photos at ISO 1600 that look fantastic. Shooting in JPG is not a lossless format like raw is. Perhaps the difference is that part of the loss in the JPG's is noise. As CEJ adivsed, examples, with exif data would be very helpful.

02/18/2007 04:41:55 PM · #6

Well, the D200 has so many options and settings, it is almost acting as if I had something set wrong... It just seems like i can see every single dot of the picture... I guess the lower quality JPEG would not be quite as sharp to see all of the dots...

This probably doesn't make much sense... haha

Most of the noise is showing up when i put it into Google's Picasa... then I right click the file, and open it in Adobe... and it opens Adobe Camera RAW 3.6)... before adjusting any of the sliders, it appears to already have a lot of dust/speckles and such... but it generally looks really bad in picasa, and i delete it... this has been happening on pictures of faces... their skin has a bunch of dots, instead of showing the smoothness...

fotomann_forever

02/18/2007 04:44:25 PM · #7

Originally posted by gryphonslair99:

Perhaps the difference is that part of the loss in the JPG's is noise.

Nah,. generally noise would be exaggerated by sharpening and compression, not lost.

For doing RAW conversion, you need to remember how your lighting was. If you try to push the shadows too light, you add noise. If you try to push the exposure too high you add noise. IF you try to push the brightness too high you add noise.

For instance, if you aren't seeing ANY clipping in the shadows you are likely adding noise. If a subject was backlit and you aren't seeing a lot of clipping, you are likely adding noise.

RAW is flexible, but only to a certain point.

02/18/2007 04:56:03 PM · #8

Interesting... So, what could I do when taking the picture to reduce noise? I understand that adding more light to the picture would help, but is there any other suggestions or strategies for initializing the photo shoot?

Olympus 50mm f/1.8 MF Normal Zuiko

02/18/2007 05:13:30 PM · #9

Maybe i should invest in "Noise Ninja" since it seems like a lot of people use it for their pictures on here...

emorgan49

Olympus E-5

02/18/2007 05:37:27 PM · #10

I notice you take band photos. Is the problem worse with low light images? What about well lit outdoor shots?