Nikon D2X and ISO - Severe noise issues

[HotHolly]

I was hoping someone else on here shoots with this little number. One of our shooters has this camera and is having severe noise issues when ISO is over 300. Is that a complaint on this model or is something else going on?

If you need an example - think of nice rich, creamy skin tones on the face. Then imagine chopped meat instead of skin. Tah Dah - its that bad. I have a different system, but still...300 ISO is freakin low. So, we aren't talking slight grain - we are talking severe noise. Anyone else have this issue? Thanks for your tips.

[Daniel Bates]

Is this straight from the camera?

[Jake]

Can you post a crop from one of the pics?

Here are some samples posted a few days ago of high ISO from the D2X.
http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=51991

[*Mike*]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

Is this straight from the camera?

Ooops. lol. Mike was here! (This is Holly)

[HotHolly]

Lets try that again. Yes, bad noise out of camera. PP is making it look much worse. Let me see if I have a shot to show you.

[dbphotos]

That doesn't seem normal. I know there are problems above 800 ISO, but not that bad. Also, make sure he has the most recent firmware upgrade which helps some.

[HotHolly]

Here is a close up of the skin.

[HotHolly]

Am I a superspaz? What am I missing?

[Daniel Bates]

That's odd... can I see the whole file?

[PeteQ]

Holly, was the image initially underexposed to "help" stay away from high iso's? Like say, shot at iso 400 to avoid iso 800 and then "fixed" in post? If so, that is the worst possible thing one can do. It will exaggerate any noise and my guess is that is what happened here.

Here's a link to a previous thread about this: http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=34802

This was shots at iso 1000 (D2x) with no post noise reduction just resized for web:


The rest of the series is here: http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=52272

And here's the 100% crop from that showing light and shadow. In an 8x10 print you would never see it...

[HotHolly]

i wasnt the shooter - but i doubt she would do that. she should know that stuff by now. its also happening in brighter images - this one was pretty dark. But shes picking up heavy noise in general over 300.

[jeffkohn]

Hmm, something's not right here. The D2x is no high-ISO champ, but the images should be useable at ISO 300, or even a bit higher. The splotchiness in that image is not characteristic of the D2x noise pattern, which is more fine-grained (D2x noise actually looks a bit like film grain, especially at moderate ISO's before chroma noise starts to creep in around 800 or so).

I'm guessing this shot was underexposed and then heavily manipulated, as I can't think of another explanation for how you would get such ugly results from a properly-functioning D2x at ISO 300.

[PeteQ]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

i wasnt the shooter - but i doubt she would do that. she should know that stuff by now. its also happening in brighter images - this one was pretty dark. But shes picking up heavy noise in general over 300.

She wouldn't be the first to shy away from high iso because of the noise only to exacerbate the issue...

Is there a way to get the RAW file?

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

Hmm, something's not right here. The D2x is no high-ISO champ, but the images should be useable at ISO 300, or even a bit higher. The splotchiness in that image is not characteristic of the D2x noise pattern, which is more fine-grained (D2x noise actually looks a bit like film grain, especially at moderate ISO's before chroma noise starts to creep in around 800 or so).

I'm guessing this shot was underexposed and then heavily manipulated, as I can't think of another explanation for how you would get such ugly results from a properly-functioning D2x at ISO 300.

No, the noise pattern doesnt look like a pattern at all. The image was slightly underexposed. Shot RAW. It looked like that in RAW - VERY splotchy skin tones. Think the camera should be sent to Nikon? This sounds odd from what you all are saying.

[PeteQ]

Have her shoot some subject at 400, 800, and 1000 from a tripod. Shoot manual and just use shutter speed to get the correct exposure and see what happens before sending it in.