Cameras and noise etc.

[hardingbr]

I have reached a plateau in my photography and I don't know which way to turn - better lenses or better cameras.  My XT/350D was a very good camera for my uses, but had a bad tendency to blow out high contrast scenes.  My Xsi/450D is in every way a far superior camera to the XT, with one exception, and that being noise.  It is far noisier than the XT but the colors and contrasts are superb.  Most of my editing in my images is removing the noise.  That is the biggest reason I am looking at the 5D.  From everything I've read, there is almost no noise with it even in low light conditions.  I spend hours editing every photo and sometimes I get tired of that and don't want to upload any more images.  My 200mm lens cost me approx. $700 but to move up to a 300mm costs thousands.  If the costs of the 5D continue to drop, shuld I upgrade to solve the noise issue?
I must go to work now, but I have one more comment about sensor cleaning since that issue was raised.  The 5D is probably the same as the XT in that regards.  Don't cringe, but I clean my XT sensor with a dry cotton swab, but I don't really touch the sensor.  I just let the very tip of the cotton brush the sensor to move the dust aside.

[JamesC]

Do you remove noise in Photoshop? If you shoot raw Canons Digital Photo Professional software has a very good noise reduction command in the tool section. If you own a 450D I assume the software came bundled with the camera?

[hardingbr]

Hi James,
Yes Canons Digital Photo Professional does a great job up to a point.  Like most of us, my budget is limited, so I mostly use free editing software.  I use the Gimp software which is very good and is similar to Photoshop and it also allows Photoshop plugins, (speaking of which there is a plugin by Darla that I use to remove chromatic aberrations and it works quite well).  I also use Photofilter to easily adjust brightness and contrast and color saturation.  I also occasionally use Neat Image for noise reduction, but it often makes the file size too small to upload to Yaketti.  To solve that I blend the original image with the second image in layers to get my megabytes up to par.
My original question for those of you that own the expensive professional cameras (the XT and XSI are considered amateur cameras), is this - if I get a second mortgage on my house to buy one of these cameras, will my photos be proportionately cleaner?  In other words, I don't think I'll become a National Geographic photographer with the equipment I've got.  Yes/no?
Finally, my favorite photos were taken with a Kodak Z740.  Point and shoots are so much fun for capturing unexpected situations.  Unfortunately, technically these images don't compete wit the newer cameras I own.

[JamesC]

This is a tough one. My 5d is excellent up to ISO 400 and gets a bit noisy after that. Long exposures at high ISO can get very grainy and NR softens up the image quite a bit to compensate. Don't think that buying a 5D will make noise go away. Things like increasing saturation and brightness soon introduce noise no matter what your using. I sometimes get a lot of noise in shadow areas but resetting the black point in levels or just increasing contrast usually gets rid of it.

The 5D is superb in general when matched with top notch lenses but I can't tell whether it would meet your expectations or not. Its still a lot of money to spend. Other opinions needed here.

[JamesC]

While long exposures and higher ISO generate more noise on a sensor so does heat. Maybe taking a camera from a warm house or car and snapping right away isn't the best option. If you let it cool down a bit or keep it cool before you shoot it might help a bit. CCD cameras for astronomical imaging are cooled by fans or liquid nitrogen but this is a bit extreme .

[hardingbr]

Thanks James,
I think Syman hit the nail on the head.  Increasing the pixel count without changing the physical size of the sensor = more noise.  The 5D is a medium format camera which means the pixels are larger and receive more light even though it is the same pixel count as the Xsi.  I think Canan messed up on the Xsi judging by all the complaints I am reading about.

[Syman]

If noise is your issue then go for Nikon. (up to ISO 25600). They have always been leaps and bound ahead of Canon in that area. And that's coming from a Canon user.  I use a canon 1dm3 and noise is still an issue above about 800 iso, although the noise is more reminiscent of film grain, sometimes its even quite nice
Also in terms of software, noiseware pro 3 is the best i have come across. Thanks to Pete for showing me that one.

Also the canon 5dmark2 is out which I believe does a very good job with noise. The 5D range is also full frame 35mm, not medium format

[Pete W]

Tut, Tut, Tut Syman

How dare you Dis Canon.....  I am always using ISO 800 and 1600 and the noise is minimal, however I do not shoot weddings.....

[hardingbr]

Unfortunately for me, I can rarely take my Xsi of of iso 100.  With the Xt that I gave my daughter I could often get good shots at iso 400, but not wit the Xsi.  There have been a lot of dis-satisfied people with the Xsi with most of the problems being reported as focus issues.  Many have sent their cameras back to Canon for repairs with varying degrees of success, but I have heard that Canon is charging for the repairs, claiming that the camera is within specs.  Yet, sometimes my photos come out perfectly. Don't know what the problem is.

[Syman]

Hey, I'm still with canon but for other reasons....(subject for another post i feel) you got to admit Pete that Nikon deals with noise far better that Canon???

[Pete W]

Hey, I'm still with canon but for other reasons....(subject for another post i feel) you got to admit Pete that Nikon deals with noise far better that Canon???

Never used Nikon so can not comment really....

However if Nikon want to swap my kit out like for like I will give it a try

[JamesC]

I would love to see some real world examples of high ISO stuff from the 5D2 compared to the D3/D700. Some of my astronomy stuff needs long exposures and noise is always an issue. I had also considered the unthinkable (for a Canon user) of changing sides but didn't fancy getting into a new system. Lets see if Canon can claw back some ground.