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24-70mm with Rebel T5i

summerp
Apprentice

Am I missing something? I'm photographing an event and I find my photos are much too grainy once I open them up my Mac. I'm using a 24-70mm with my Rebel T5i. My ISO is anywhere from 800 to 3200 (though I try to keep it lower), aperture at 2.8, shutter speed around 1/125-1/200.

Is there another setting I could adjust for less grain? Or is it really just due to the poor lighting?

8 REPLIES 8

Tronhard
VIP
VIP

It would help if you can provide some sample images and there is a lot more detail to consider. 
Are these events inside or outside? 
Is the light generally dim, is it very contrasty?
Are you shooting in RAW or JPG or both? 
Are these in available light, with flash or both?
Is the noise across the board or just in darker areas?
Are you using PP to bring up the lighting in darker areas and is this were the noise occurs?

The smaller sensor of the T5i is going to be inherently more at risk of noise than a FF sensor with the same MP size.  Furthermore, the dynamic range is not as great. That said, you said you are getting noise and apparently even when using ISO 800... so the question is then about exposure settings.   Noise will occur when a photo is under-exposed, or one is trying to bring up shadows. 

Particularly in RAW, I would suggest shooting with an exposure biased slightly to the right, so you have less chance of under-exposing.

Conversely, one of the things one has to consider is the mantra: protect your highlights and embrace your shadows.  A common issue with folks who seem to be getting noise in their images is that they are cranking the shadow exposure up to try to bring up the level of light because the dynamic range of their camera is not able to give them the levels they want.   One doesn't want to blow out the highlights: often those are the most important elements of  your image, but one must then accept that there are going to be areas in a contrasty image that will be very dark, particularly in dimly lit areas or areas of high contrast. 

 


cheers, TREVOR

The mark of good photographer is less what they hold in their hand, it's more what they hold in their head;
"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

ebiggs1
Legend
Legend

"My ISO is anywhere from 800 to 3200 ..."

ISO at 3200 is probably pushing it on a T5i. Even 1600 might be. Grain always shows up more in underexposed shadows so keep that in mind. Its not going to make a huge difference in ugly grain if you are using jpg vs Raw but I would advise you always use Raw. Raw lets you adjust and edit more deeply than jpg.

 

"Or is it really just due to the poor lighting?"

Yes it is. If you have Photoshop there are a few things you can do to make it look better but not much.

 

"I would suggest shooting with an exposure biased slightly to the right, so you have less chance of under-exposing.

This probably not going to help if it is really a darker venue. EV is what EV is and photo compensation won't do much.  If it is  marginal it can help, however. The answer is more light.

 

" I'm using a 24-70mm with my Rebel T5i."

The lens not the cause but a faster lens might be of help. Is yours the f2.8 or f4 model? You can try a really fast zoom lens like the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art Lens. It's a fantastic lens for the T5i.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

"Is yours the f2.8 or f4 model?"

In the OP he states that the Aperture is at f/2.8.

amfoto1
Authority

Digital noise is caused by a combination of factors... pixel density on the sensor, high ISO "gain", and lighting conditions. ISO 3200 is pushing it with your camera. For that matter, ISO 1600 can be fairly noisy, too. Lower than that is no problem, so long as you don't underexpose.

I have not used a T5i.. but I have used another camera with the same sensor and a generation older processor... the original 7D. Your camera has an 18MP sensor and a Digic 5 processor to handle the images. My two 7D are also 18MP cameras and they use dual Digic 4 (primarily to support a faster frame rate and AF system that was advanced for its day).

I almost exclusively shoot RAW images, which means no noise reduction was being applied in the camera. While I would use ISO 1600 and 3200 when needed, sometimes even ISO 6400, I would always need to use some noise reduction to finish images. The NR software I used was Imagenomic Noiseware, as a Photoshop plug-in.

It is also critical to avoid underexposure. If your images are too dark and need to be brightened up in post processing, that will amplfy the noise a lot. As Trevor suggested, one thing that can help with this is Expose To The Right (ETTR), which basically means dial in some + Exposure Compensation when using any of the auto exposure modes or slightly overexpose fully manual settings. In Av, Tv or P (rarely used) I would dial in +2/3 stop for ISO 1600 and +1 to +1.33 stops of E.C. with ISO 3200, With fully manual settings, I'd try to overexpose by about 1/3 stop, but a wee bit more was okay. I always found it better to "pull back" images from being too bright, than to "push" image that were too dark. With these settings I would even use higher ISO 6400 if needed (same settings as ISO 3200).

I learned to use ETTR with older Canon DSLRs. I think it would help you too, The original 7D were the last model I had to do very much of it. I now shoot with 7D Mark II and find they don't need very much of this kind of tweaking.

Oh, and don't be silly when reviewing and evaluating your images on your computer monitor. An images from an 18MP camera "at 100%" on the typical monitor will be like making a 50 inch wide print, then viewing it from 18 or 20 inches away. That's something you'd never actually do. If you made a print over four feet wide, you'd stand a lot farther back to view it. 

While it's okay to zoom in to 100% or even higher to do careful retouching to images. But the noise you see.... among other things... will disappear when you view the image at more normal sizes. Back off to 25 or 33%... If you don't see noise then, you sure won't see it in a print that size or in a reduced resolution image to be posted online.

Finally, when post-processing images, always do noise reduction before doing any sharpening. In fact, sharpening is usually best left to one of the last steps, after any resizing has been done.

***********


Alan Myers
San Jose, Calif., USA
"Walk softly and carry a big lens."
GEAR: 5DII, 7DII (x2), 7D(x2) some other cameras, various lenses & accessories
FLICKR & ZENFOLIO 

jrhoffman75
Legend
Legend

@summerp wrote:

Am I missing something? I'm photographing an event and I find my photos are much too grainy once I open them up my Mac. I'm using a 24-70mm with my Rebel T5i. My ISO is anywhere from 800 to 3200 (though I try to keep it lower), aperture at 2.8, shutter speed around 1/125-1/200.

Is there another setting I could adjust for less grain? Or is it really just due to the poor lighting?


Post a link to Dropbox or One Drive where you have stored some out of camera images so we can look at them.

John Hoffman
Conway, NH

1D X Mark III, M200, Many lenses, Pixma PRO-100, Pixma TR8620a, Lr Classic

Tintype_18
Authority
Authority

Interesting for future reference.

John
Canon EOS T7; EF-S 18-55mm IS; EF 28-135mm IS; EF 75-300mm; Sigma 150-600mm DG

johnrmoyer
Whiz
Whiz

@summerp wrote:

Am I missing something? I'm photographing an event and I find my photos are much too grainy once I open them up my Mac. I'm using a 24-70mm with my Rebel T5i. My ISO is anywhere from 800 to 3200 (though I try to keep it lower), aperture at 2.8, shutter speed around 1/125-1/200.

Is there another setting I could adjust for less grain? Or is it really just due to the poor lighting?


I suggest setting the camera to save a raw file at a cost of using more storage space. Then, I suggest using the free Canon DPP software on your mac and go to the noise reduction menu. There one may trade detail for noise reduction. Losing detail to get rid of noise will not matter much if the photo is not printed large or if it is only displayed on screens. Using the DPP "sharpness" control will make the image appear more detailed even though it does not actually add detail.

The photos.app that comes with macOS can do the same things as the Canon DPP software, but not quite in the same way. Reduce noise and increase sharpness. If one starts with a raw file instead of a JPEG file, then there is more information for the software to work with.

 

 

ebiggs1
Legend
Legend

"I suggest setting the camera to save a raw file at a cost of using more storage space. Then, I suggest using the free Canon DPP software on your mac and go to the noise reduction menu."

 

Best possible solution.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!
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