1D Mark II Color Noise

[nprotz]

It seems like my 1D Mark II has more color noise than my 10D...any suggestions/explanations? also, ISO 400 noise doesn't seem a whole lot better than on my 10D....I had thought this camera would have lower noise but I haven't seen a large difference

It also seems like moire on hair and clothing is worse on the 1D Mark II

[nprotz]

also this noise seems to be much more noticeable in lower light, which I thought the 1D Mark II would be much better than the 10D at this

[MatsP]

Not sure if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with your findings, but I think the main improvement on the 1Dmk2 would be at high ISO (1600 and 3200), not the lower/middle range ISO settings.

At lower ISO settings, I would expect it to be very similar to the 10D, since at these levels the 10D is pretty darn good, and the 1Dmk2 couldn't really do that much better, as the measuring of light on a sensor isn't ever going to be a precise thing (we are converting very small amounts of light to electrical charge, and then using a analog to digital converter to make this into a number. There are small variations in the amount of light hitting each sensor cell, and there will be small variations on each cells sensitivity, which will create noise. The noise will be more noticable on a dark surface than on a light one, because the error is relatively speaking larger at the "zero" end of the scale compared to the higher "all ones" end of the scale).

Of course, this is based on theory, not practical experience with the 1Dmk2, since I've only ever seen them on web-pages, not in real life...

--
Mats

[FredG]

If the low light shots are also underexposed, that will worsen the color noise. The more you can expose it, the better it will be. Of course, the shadows in a well exposed shot are still susceptible. Some time back, Steve posted some well exposed shots at very high ISO that looked even better than quite good.

[nprotz]

Thanks for the answers guys....I think the problem may be in slightly underexposing the picture as you mentioned Fred.....I will play with this some more to make sure....again thanks

[Steve Mitchell]

Sounds like underexposing to me as well...any samples?

[nprotz]

I will check and see if I haven't deleted them

[Daffy_Duck]

Just one suggestion. If you shoot RAW and use Abobe Camera RAW, it's color noise reduction function is excellent. Give it a try. It's luminance smoothing falls short of most dedicated noise removal programs though.