D7000 - How do YOU get best results in low light?

spraynpray

I tried the same shots that had failed to come out before, this time with LENR turned off and.... still the same. I think the problem is that the shot lacked contrast as it was a field full of red poppies in among green and yellow oil-seed Rape which seems to be the worst case scenario at any ISO for the D7K's sensor. Going back through my images and filtering the metadata, I believe that it is fair to say that shots made in good light at high ISO are excellent, but when the light fails and the tonal range of the shot isn't great, the results are rubbish. If anyone disagrees, please post a shot here via Flickr so we can see the Exif data. I will post an example of the problem tomorrow. The pics look like nothing is sharp, anywhere. A tripod was used for the shot of course.

I thought maybe I am expecting too much but a friends C**** did the job nicely, which really chafes me!

Ade

Did you mean Active D Lighting off? You almost always want LENR turned ON. Shoot RAW, don't underexpose, and use a good noise reduction algorithm in post. After that, there are of course limits of the sensor itself.

Ade

I didn't think that *any* of the noise reduction settings had any impact on RAW. Am I reading correctly LENR does impact RAW? Is this actually true?

Yes, I can verify that LENR applies to RAW (and that's probably a good thing). You can turn LENR off if you really don't want it.

spraynpray

Sorry Ade, I was on my way to bed - I shouldn't have posted. I meant ADL off didn't make a noticeable difference to the noise.

mtsmphoto

hi,

if i may suggest chaging for better glass like primes ... besides ... d7000 is a crop version ... which means noise begin to appear at iso 800 and higher ... for iso higher than 6400 and still get decent quality low noise may be u should go FX ...

bigeater

I've found that using a custom white balance helps, but so does using a tripod and mirror lockup. I've really noticed that the slightest bit of movement on my D7000 affects everything from noise to perceived sharpness. Newer versions of software are definitely better with noise. For me and my pix, Photoshop CS6 is almost two full stops better at removing noise than was CS2 or CS3. in the United States the NIK software products are now much cheaper and worth buying just because of the noise removal tools.

The other thing is you have to match your subject to your ISO. No one expects a shot at midnight to look like one shot at high noon. Watch how they do it in movies. Sometimes they consciously go for a grainy look to amplify the drama (it's usually in crime dramas or when a character is having psychological issues). If you're out there shooting at midnight, you must be going for some kind of atmosphere so embrace the grain. And unless the photo competition has a huge prize, who cares what the judges think. What matters is that you express your soul through photography.