Noise in photos is a fact of life, you cannot avoid it. Thankfully there are good post processing tools available today and also the cameras themselves has improved significantly in this area by improving the optics and CCD and also by having powerful in-camera noise reduction software.
For those who aren’t fortunate enough to have a good enough camera that produce noise free images there are other options like post processing. The current package that is best for removing noise is Neat Image.
Traditionally to take photos in low light situation you would buy a “fast” film, a film with a high ISO rating. Digital cameras has a similar concept but is executed by amplifying the signals coming from the CCD, in both cases the advantage is slow shutter speed in low light with the draw back of more noise the higher the ISO rating.
My Nikon D70 has a Auto ISO setting where you instruct the camera the slowest shutter speed you want and it will manipulate the ISO according to the image you want to take, this is useful if you do not have a tripod or do not have time to set up a tripod but need to get the shots in low light. I fiddled with this once and noticed that on highest ISO ratings the noise was just too much to my liking but I am however keen to see this function become usable for some cases where I want to use the camera and so noise reduction is key.
I took a sample shot in my flat now with the D70 at ISO 1600, the room was nearly dark only a small desk lamp on the furthest corner from me, I would usually consider the shot to be impossible to do with hand holding due to the long shutter speed, but the ISO makes it trivial. I then fed the resulting image through Neat Image using their provided noise profile for the Nikon D70 and the results are amazing. I am including two 100% crops from the images as examples. View the extended entry for larger full scene examples.
Keep in mind the room was very dark, I can just about make out that writing with the naked eye in the same conditions, the noise removal obviously comes at a bit of a price, but neat image also has an excellent sharpening tool and if you view the full images you will see the improvement this has done. I will definately go try the Auto ISO again this weekend!
Full scene before Neat Image
Full scene after Neat Image
Look especially in the silver of the DVD player, the top bit of wood of the table, improved sharpness of the text on the DVD cases and on the silver in the large DVD holder bottom right. This completely enables you to take good low light shots without tripods, I think I will give this a go at the upcoming Wayne Hussey concert.
