Noise at ISO 200

[MikeH]

Maybe I'm being over-sensitive but the E-M1 seems far noisier than my old Pentax at ISO 200.

Here's a 100% crop of a normal exposed photograph



The sky looks grainy and noisy to me. But it gets even worse with an underexposed photograph at -2Ev



I'm shooting RAW and JPEG but using the RAW in Photoshop

Am I being over-sensitive or do I have a problem?

[OlyPaul]

Re: Noise at ISO 200

Looking at my K-30 files I see little difference in them from my E-M5 files but then I would not expect to as they have virtually the same sensor. The only difference being that I can see is the Oly files give a bit more detail at perhaps a tad more noise which I prefer.

Pixel peeped noise rarely shows up in a print but lack of sharpness does, saying that I can easily process both the K-30 and E-M5 raw files in LR5 to look the same if need be, so yes I'd say you are being oversensitive and perhaps it's just a matter of tweeking your processing

A couple of examples of the E-M5 ISO 200 files, I do not do jpeg so raw quickly processed in LR5. Not my best work.

[andym]

Re: Noise at ISO 200

Hi

How have you got your gradation set? If it's on Auto it will try a lift the shadows
and can cause noise.

I normally leave it set to normal.

[MikeH]

Re: Noise at ISO 200

JPEG settings are as follows

I use Natural Picture Mode with the default settings

Contrast - 0
Sharpness - 0
Saturation - 0
Gradation - Normal

Normally though I use the RAW files and just keep the JPEG's for quick viewing

[pdk42]

Re: Noise at ISO 200

Noise at base ISO is a "feature" of the Oly 16Mp sensors. It's most obvious on blue sky. In truth, it's only really an issue if you go pixel peeking. Some selective NR in LR will remove it though if it bothers you, but I doubt you'd see it in a print. It's there in RAW files, so JPEG settings (such as gradation) won't help.

It's worth noting too that this type of noise almost completely disappears at ISO 100 ("Low") at the expense of slightly poorer DR. The DR loss isn't great though so it might be worth you playing around with it. In fact, the DR on the Oly 16Mp sensors is, IMHO, extremely good. I've recently picked up a Sigma DP1m and that is just terrible at handling overexposed areas (OTOH, noise isn't a problem in lifted shadows so it's just a case of underexposing).