D300 high ISO noise reduction

[Brian T. Faddis]

Hi group,
First time poster and really enjoying my new D300 and this forum. I have been taking a lot of indoor sports photos of the kids, mostly water polo and basketball, and I have a couple questions regarding high ISO noise reduction: 1) Is it better to use the noise reduction on the camera or wait and perform noise reduction in Capture NX? 2) I haven't shot much in RAW mode--are there advantages to performing noise reduction on a RAW pic vs a tiff or jpeg? Thanks very much for the help!

[Rooz]

I generally have it set to Low all the time. NX doesnt have the best NR around, Noise Ninja is far better. what i prefer to do with NR is apply it selectively in NX if i really need to. that way you can get rid of noise in really noisy background areas but retain alot of detail in faces etc. what iso are you shooting at ?

btw: RAW is definatly far better to shoot in if you want to fix things in PP. by a long, long way. apparently 14bit is better aswell although i havent found that to be the case in practice.

[XaiLo]

Turned off.

[Visual Reality]

apparently 14bit is better aswell although i havent found that to be the case in practice.
According to Thom Hogan 14-bit isn't worth it...dunno.

[Brian T. Faddis]

Thanks, Rooz...I typically have to shoot at ISO 1600 for these events, which still gives me a pretty underexposed result to lighten up. Does NX allow selective noise reduction like you mentioned or is that only a feature of Noise Ninja? Appreciate the help!

[Rooz]

you can selectively apply with NX using the paintbrush

[Rooz]

do you have NX btw ? if you do let me know and i'll try and step you thru it. i'm pretty lazy though so in-cam resuts are by far my preference. i find on the rare occasion i use hi iso's i use the following settings in cam. i have one of my custom settings for HI ISO so all i do is flick over to that and all the settings are saved.

>add +0.3EV. this may blow a few highlights but brings out the shadows nicely.
>NR on low or normal depending on how hi your iso is. for anything over 1600 i use normal.
>d-lighting on low or medium...same as above.
> i use 12 bit but apparently 14bit is better for hi iso shots. i cant be bothered dealing with a 30mb file though.
>auto iso, min shutter for sports i guess 1/125s, max iso 3200

i wouldnt worry too much about iso1600. the below shot is in very dim light. i had to use 1/80s to catch him tearing around the house.

1/80s, f2, iso2500, str8 out of the camera.

[XaiLo]

Alright Rooz, I don't need any more reasons to want another lens. :D

[Rooz]

honestly x, as much of a bargain as the 50 is, if i knew how good the 35 was i dont think i would have bought the 50, no way can i get that quality out of the 50 wide open

[XaiLo]

Can't say I blame you for that sentiment considering I promptly returned the 50mm. For my needs I wasn't impressed, but the extra 15mm of the 35 is something to consider IMO the images speak for themselves ;) also I think it would cover 35 to 70mm rather nicely. :cool:

[Visual Reality]

I'm loving my 35 as well! It should get lots of use indoors.