E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

[David Morison]

I've noticed for some time that noise in E-M5 ORF images is more difficult to deal with than noise in my Canon 7D. Early this morning I was trying to get some photos of a male Blackcap Warbler in my garden with both the E-M5/75-300mm and the 7D/400mm. The light was flat and pretty low level with the bird in the shade of a tree. At similar ISOs the E-M5 exhibited as much noise as the 7D but it appears to be more granular and wasn't as easy to deal with in LR - the resultant image was inferior noise-wise to the Canon. I have noticed at even higher ISOs (1600 +) the Canon, whilst showing more noise initially actually can be processed to produce a cleaner image. Has anyone else noticed this and could it just be with Lightroom or a factor with other software?

David

[Ian]

Re: E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

I just had a look at the DxOMark sensor measurement results for these two cameras and they are very close indeed:

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/en%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD%C2%8D/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/%28appareil1%29/793|0/%28brand%29/Olympus/%28appareil2%29/619|0/%28brand2%29/Canon

(You may need to click a link at the top right to navigate past an ad and then click on 'measurements')

Not having a 7D to hand it is difficult for me to verify your findings.

Have you tried printing a comparison? To me this is possibly the best test of all.

Ian

[Patrick]

Re: E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

I just had a look at the DxOMark sensor measurement results for these two cameras and they are very close indeed:

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/en%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD%C2%8D/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/%28appareil1%29/793|0/%28brand%29/Olympus/%28appareil2%29/619|0/%28brand2%29/Canon

(You may need to click a link at the top right to navigate past an ad and then click on 'measurements')

Not having a 7D to hand it is difficult for me to verify your findings.

Have you tried printing a comparison? To me this is possibly the best test of all.

Ian

I agree here with Ian, a print is the bet test, often noise/grain shows more on screen than in print.
Perhaps another noise control would help, both Nik & OnOne do noise control plugins, there is also NoiseNinga as a plug in or stand alone. Personally owning all four, I find light rooms own works perfectly well.

Patrick

[David Morison]

Re: E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

Thanks for all the constructive comments.
I have Neatimage and have tried Noise Ninja but neither give me anything better than LR4. I should say that I see more noise than most with my bird photography because images are often taken with poor lighting and are often cropped to 100% or more. With Landscape etc. I have no problem with noise from the E-M5 at high ISO or even from the Canon.

David

[Patrick]

Re: E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

Thanks for all the constructive comments.
I have Neatimage and have tried Noise Ninja but neither give me anything better than LR4. I should say that I see more noise than most with my bird photography because images are often taken with poor lighting and are often cropped to 100% or more. With Landscape etc. I have no problem with noise from the E-M5 at high ISO or even from the Canon.

David

[David Morison]

Re: E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

Thanks. I am well aware of the issue of noise at high ISO with large crops and as an opportunistic photographer I rarely use my hide. My question was about the difference in the ability to reduce noise from the E-M5 and 7D in LR4 and whether anyone else had experienced these differences with RAW images from brands other than Olympus.

Regards

David

[Patrick]

Re: E-M5 noise and Lightroom 4.3

Thanks. I am well aware of the issue of noise at high ISO with large crops and as an opportunistic photographer I rarely use my hide. My question was about the difference in the ability to reduce noise from the E-M5 and 7D in LR4 and whether anyone else had experienced these differences with RAW images from brands other than Olympus.

Regards

David

I understand what you are saying I can't comment on Olympus as I have not used one for many years, when I owned an E10, cannot remember any issues then. I was untill about six months ago a Canon user my last camera being a 7D and found the RAW files responded well to LR'sniose reduction.
If its the file format, have you thought of converting you're RAW files into DNG RAW files (software free from Adobe) this type of RAW file may respond to noise reduction a little better.

Patrick