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I shoot a lot of long exposure shots with my Pentax K10D. One of my pet peeves is waiting for the built-in noise reduction to take a 1:1 dark frame subtraction exposure. This ends up doubling the length of time for each shot. Not that big of a deal if you are shooting 1 second exposures but a bit of a PITA if you’re shooting 5 minute bulb shots.

In-camera noise reduction is pretty critical for shooting JPEGs. Sure, you can always shoot your own series of dark frames at different ISOs and use them with 3rd party software to remove hot spots, etc. but this seems a bit extreme. So, I have just left the in-camera NR on and lived with the dark frame subtraction double exposure.

Many times I’ve noticed that there are hot spots in the initial Adobe Lightroom previews of my long exposure RAW files that disappear the first time I zoom in to 100%. This got me to thinking that maybe Lightroom could take care of long exposure noise on its own without the camera’s help. After searching Google in vain for a definitive answer, I decided a quick test was in order. I was pleased to learn that, now that I am shooting exclusively in RAW, I can turn off the in-camera noise reduction on my K10D and eliminate the wait between long exposure shots. (In-camera NR is still recommended for JPEG shooting).

Here’s what I found in the test. All shots are 30 seconds at f/16 and ISO 400 using my 50mm f/1.7 SMC-A lens with only LR’s default processing applied. Sorry for the crude composition…

JPEG with NR OFF

100% crop of JPEG w/ NR OFF

RAW with NR ON

100% crop of RAW w/ NR ON

RAW with NR OFF

100% crop of RAW w/ NR OFF

From what I could tell from this test, there is virtually no difference in noise between the RAW images with and without in-camera noise reduction. In fact, to me the images without the NR has slightly better contrast and more shadow detail. Keep in mind that these are unprocessed RAW files so I could easily get similar contrast and saturation as the JPEG image while maintaining the greater detail and dynamic range of the RAW images.

January 5th, 2009 | Tags: Adobe Lightroom, dark frame subtraction, JPEG, long exposure, noise reduction, Pentax K10D, RAW, test, www.booleansplit.com | Category: Tips & Tricks, gear | Comments (1)

dpreview.com has concluded their compact camera tests with a look at enthusiast cameras. The choice of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 as the overall winner is no real surprise to me. I picked up an LX2 back in February ‘07 in an attempt to replace my DSLR. I was incredibly impressed with the camera’s overall performance. My biggest complaint (and the thing that caused me to return it in exchange for a Canon G7) was the heavy handed noise reduction at all ISOs that ruined the 100% magnified detail of my shots. I’m a pixel peeper so this was a deal breaker for me. Also, the separate lens cap was a huge annoyance. Otherwise, it was one hell of a camera packed into a realistically pocket-able form factor (unlike the G series Canons).

Apparently, Panasonic has listened to the complaints of photographers like myself and made improvements to the image quality. Meanwhile, the solid build, wonderful wide angle Leica lenses, built-in IS, and user-centric controls continue to make the Lumix line one of my favorites. While I ultimately decided that an advanced compact camera was not a viable substitute for a DSLR, I did settle upon a Lumix for my pocket camera of choice.

December 19th, 2008 | Tags: booleansplit, Canon G7, compact cameras, dpreview.com, enthusiast, Lumix, LX2, LX3, Panasonic, review, test | Category: reviews | Comments (1)