High ISO noise reduction

chasgroh

...I shoot pageantry (read: marching band) tournaments usually held over a full day, morning to nite. Conditions vary, of course, daylight being the easiest by far, dusk a diceshoot, and night controllable under stadium lighting. I might get 8-10,000 shots in a day, so shooting jpeg is my choice. Working with a D5 (up from a D4) and really am digging it! One burning question that I can't seem to find a concrete answer to: When does the High ISO noise reduction kick-in? I know it's only for jpeg, and have used it with great results (processing in Lightroom, but am using auto-iso to help with the dark portions of a football field...set at 51,200 max. Just curious as to what iso value triggers the function, or is it on all the time regardless of dialed-in iso? Just for discussion, I'll usually set it at 6400 under the lites and let it fly from there...

Ironheart

High ISO NR is applied to some extent at almost all ISO values. If it is set to "off" it will still kick in above ISO 1600. If set to "high" it is probably on at base ISO.

Pistnbroke

Yes agree with the iso 1600 but if set to HI does it come in more aggressively above 1600 than if set to low .....anyone want to try a test at say iso 6400

chasgroh

...well, FWIW, here's a before/after from a recent shoot with the D5...iso 6400, 1/800th,350mm at F4...you'll see the comments at the bottom of the page(s). With High ISO NR on "Normal"...this is a link to one of my Smugmug galleries, I tried to make the images accessible, but don't know if it'll work...

http://www.marchingpix.com/Professional/Chino-Hills-test-shots/

chasgroh

I'm doing a show this weekend and will, if my head doesn't explode due to the extra detail, try to shoot a group or two at HI...I don't know the lighting conditions of the stadium, so the "base" I use may or may not be 6400...

Ironheart

@Pistnbroke 100% agree, High ISO NR is not binary by any means, it is gradually applied, and more increasing as ISO rises. The "High Medium Low Off" settings are there to to control how much gets applied, but regardless there is a ramp across all ISO values. My point is even if it is "Off" there is some applied at the higher ISO values.
@chasgroh the other setting you may want to look at is "Active D-Lighting" as this will give the same effect it looks like you have applied in LR, without the extra step. Basically optimizing high contrast images to restore the shadow and highlight details, kinda like cranking up both shadow and highlight sliders a bit. You can also control the level (High Medium, Low, Auto..)
A bit hard to see what you are getting at in the two photos you published there. What am I looking for? Thanks!

chasgroh

...sorry @Ironheart...the two I posted were a before/after thing...one straight out of camera and the other after LR adjustments (where I applied 35% NR and a few other enhancements)...I have many presets from different venues and generally will apply to the individual groups as I have them folderized, so it's per-group, then I may tweak individual shots along the way here and there...pretty efficient...I've been using Active D-Lighting in "Normal" mode under the lites but still run the shadow slider over a bit in LR...