topic Re: R5 Light Sensor in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS R5 Terrible noise problem

lostinCR — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:55:40 GMT

I've had the R5 for 2.5 years and it has been through a lot of travel with me to areas both dry/dusty and humid/dark. It has always given me great photos and I have been very happy with it. I had it professionally cleaned in the USA after trips to Africa and South America. On my most recent trip to Colombia, I have had terrible problems with noise. Let me be clear, I am not a professional. I think I know how to use the camera correctly but am 100% willing to be told I am doing something wrong.

I've included two random photos from a trip to Colombia that show my problem. The first is a night photo where the moon is totally blown out but the shadows are complete noise. The second is a random orchid at ISO 800 that is almost completely unusable due to noise. I have hundreds more I can include.

I have changed setting on the camera multiple times to use every combination of options I can think of but the noise levels never change. Is there something obvious that I am missing or do I just need to send the camera back to Canon for a diagnostic?

Re: R5 Light Sensor

Peter — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:45:58 GMT

I can only see compression artifacts from JPEG. Can you share some raw files instead?

Because you use Lightroom, set sharpness and NR to 0. Better/worse?

Re: R5 Light Sensor

shadowsports — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:44:48 GMT

Greetings,

We'd be happy to evaluate your photos, but you're going to need to post the images with EXIF data to a sharing site and provide a link for us to do so.

I assume you're using Canon glass? This should be in the EXIF data. Please include a few photos and we'll take a look. 🙂

Re: R5 Light Sensor

lostinCR — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:52:53 GMT

What sharing site works best? I've not don this before.

Re: R5 Light Sensor

shadowsports — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:57:17 GMT

Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, etc.

Re: R5 Light Sensor

lostinCR — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 21:59:51 GMT

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hsO0aAeQYTqrGbDvoN-rxk-wdbBf5BUX/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KYLMvJPr34z0my8WPoOUsqEXA0BK8iR_/view?usp=drive_link

Re: R5 Light Sensor

lostinCR — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 22:03:30 GMT

When downloaded, these show the noise levels on most photos. Noise is visible down to at least ISO 200.

Re: R5 Light Sensor

lostinCR — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:19:51 GMT

I think the links can now be opened. If not, please let me know.

Re: R5 Light Sensor

Peter — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 06:53:44 GMT

Left with tone curve. Right without. I see no problem.

The moon picture at ISO 6400 looks completely normal.

Make sure that you don't sharpen non-details in post processing.

Re: R5 Light Sensor

Peter — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:38:29 GMT

In Lightroom you get the characteristic noisy look in the background due to sharpening and colour NR.

The solution is to only sharpen the details. For this I use a mask. I suppose you can do the same i Lightroom.

And for the NR you do the opposite.

Re: R5 Light Sensor

johnrmoyer — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 13:30:45 GMT

I also use an EOS R5. I hope some of this might be helpful.

I found that after a few years, running the "Clean Sensor Now" option in the camera helped the noise. I have hesitated to spend money sending the camera to Canon for cleaning and bought another memory card and battery instead. https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/html/UG-07_Set-up_0280.html#Set-up_0280_1

I usually use Canon DPP software to develop raw files. When there is noise, I set the unsharp mask fineness to larger than the noise, usually 3.0 or 4.0, instead of my usual 2.0. Sometimes I will reduce fineness below 2.0 if there is no noise and fine detail that could use more contrast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsharp_masking https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/unsharp-mask.htm The unsharp mask numbers will be different in other software, but I find it helpful to think of "fineness" as related to a radius or diameter in pixels. If noise is one or two pixels, then a fineness setting of 3.0 will be large enough to not sharpen noise.

As mentioned by Peter, it is possible to sharpen an image without sharpening the noise. Here is a gimp tutorial on "smart sharpening": https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Smart_Sharpening/

Some camera settings that will sometimes increase noise or make noise more visible under some lighting conditions when any of the exposure settings are automatic include:

auto lighting optimizer
peripheral illumination
distortion correction
clarity

In DPP, digital lens optimizer defaults to a level which varies with ISO. More DLO is possible when there is less noise. If using other software that attempts to remove small aperture diffraction blur during "capture sharpening" or using a Richardson/Lucy deconvolution, it would be good to do less as the ISO increases. In camera, the DLO amount is chosen differently than in DPP but that does not matter if using raw files.

A higher "clarity" setting in DPP will sometimes make noise more visible.