The impact of noise and its handling when raising the ISO sensitivity of the camera body are one of the most discussed and dominant aspects of digital photography. How to handle high ISOs?
In this article I dissect the problem, I present some tips to manage the noise both in the shooting phase and in post production; finally, I present a more holistic approach to the problem.
Noise in digital photos, its impact and its management are one of the most debated topics in digital photography. The noise I intend to talk about is the one that plagues the images when you go to raise the ISO sensitivity of the sensor. I find this term a bit fallacious: the sensitivity of the sensor is always the same, when you go to increase the ISO, it simply increases the amplification of the electrical signal that comes out of the sensor when it is excited by the light that hits it. This fact only amplifies the sensor noise in a more perceptible way and obviously also introduces some noise intrinsically due to the amplification. The sum of these two factors results in a much reviled loss of detail in the shots and on the rise of the so-called notorious “grain” of the shot (a term borrowed from analogue photography but which has a very different meaning and origin).
There are photographers who see this effect as smoke in the eyes, others who are commonly called “good mouth” and who accept it more willingly. Here I already feel like making the first distinction. In photography a lot can be measured (eg aperture times, ISO) and little is measured, with the result that measurable quantities are always described with qualitative adjectives such as “high” and “low” without placing them in a more quantitative context. Just to lead the discussion I will define as high the ISO sensitivities over 3200 ISO, that remembering the progression of the stops in base 2, correspond to 5 stops of difference compared to the usual ISO 100 which is the basis of modern digital sensors.
However, it is already time for a second distinction: if photography were only the mechanical repetition of certain parameters in certain places or with certain subjects it would be very simple to perform and perhaps even very boring. The control and the plus comes from the photographer who tries to communicate something to us with his shot. For this we need a more “philosophical” digression. The acceptance of noise in a shot is purely personal. My personal philosophy about it is that a shot with the noise of no shutter is always better. Finally, the impact it has on the result depends on the single shot, so it is very difficult to create a vademecum, but it is certainly possible to give some general rules to manage the noise.
These tips are useful for checking the effects of raising the ISO when shooting. Below instead I discuss some tips to reduce their impact on a shot already made in post production. I do my (little) post production with Rawtherapee, a multi-platform open source software that I feel I can recommend, but what is presented below is easily obtainable with any post production software.
However, I would like to shift the discussion to a slightly more poetic level. To do this correctly I must first pose a problem that at least deserves an article in itself: what is the destination of your shots? The impact that noise has on your shots depends heavily on what you intend to do with your shots, for example if you share them on social media rather than gazing at them on screen at 100% or printing them. In general, printing is a process that mitigates the problem but it depends a lot on the format being printed. Here too I would like to give some indications:
Since I’m not spending time looking at the details at 100% of their shots, I have personally decided to ignore the noise in the shots. My camera body is declared up to ISO 25600 and I use them all. 90% of the high ISO shots I take are indoors, in the evening, perhaps in winter, for my children. However, I do not intend to use the flash when I immortalize them often the only way to get the shot is to go up with the ISO. But since I’m looking for the expressions and not the purity of the result, I’m happy to give them up just to get the shot.
As you can see, this article ends exactly with the concept with which it was started: it is a personal matter. So, click and try, only then will you be able to find your way and your balance.
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