Menu Position MENU --> 
6 --> High ISO NR
What it Does Allows you to specify the amount of in-camera noise reduction when shooting .jpgs at ISO 1600 or higher
Recommended Setting Low
Menu Position MENU --> 6 --> High ISO NR
What it Does Allows you to specify the amount of in-camera noise reduction when shooting .jpgs at ISO 1600 or higher
Recommended Setting Low
Noise is a fact of life, and the higher the pixel density, the more you will get. That’s just the laws of physics for this kind of sensor technology. Most cameras try to minimize it in their .jpgs algorithmically, by smoothing over the noise artifacts, reducing noise at the expense of detail. That’s the tradeoff. And even though the amount of noise this sensor produces is lower than what I was expecting, if you’re looking for the best method of noise reduction, this High ISO NR feature is not it.
With this setting the camera is offering to reduce the noise of .jpgs (not RAW) at ISO settings of 1600 and above. (It’s not selectable if you’re shooting just RAW.) You can see the effects of the High ISO Noise Reduction settings on an ISO 6400 test image in Figure 6-73. These settings can actually be quite effective when you’re making 4x6 prints from .jpgs, as they do tend to make the picture look noticeably cleaner at that size when printed. Anything larger than that, and/or if you’re the kind of person who likes to pixel peep (and shame on you if you do :-) ), then none of these settings will particularly please you.
Those who really want the best quality images at high ISO should shoot RAW (where no noise reduction is applied) and post-process using noise-reduction software such as Noise Ninja or NeatImage (those are stand-alone packages) or use the native noise reduction features in workflow software (such as Lightroom, CaptureOne, DxO, or Adobe Camera RAW). Figure 6-74 shows the same test image shot in RAW and cleaned up using the Noise Reduction feature in Lightroom.
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Figure 6-73: The effects of High ISO Noise Reduction on an ISO 6400 image. Normally the higher the noise reduction level, the “splotchier” the image appears to be. However, in these examples I am impressed at just how low the noise level is to begin with, even at ISO 6400.
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I discuss my techniques for reducing noise in high-ISO RAW files in Section 15.8.
Figure 6-74: The same picture shot in RAW and post-processed in Lightroom. If pixel-peeping is your hobby, then shooting RAW is the way to go, although with this camera the difference isn't nearly as pronounced as with past models! :-) |
Menu Position MENU --> 6 --> Center Lock-On AF
What it Does Tracks brightly-colored objects that move slowly across the screen
Recommended Setting n/a
This feature was described earlier in Section 3.7
