Dealing with high ISO noise

January 26, 2025  •  Leave a Comment

Years ago, I would not allow my camera to function above a certain level of high ISO (sensor's sensitivity to light). The noise (color dots or blotches) generated by too high of an ISO was just too ugly for me to look at or deal with. I hate noisy images; notice the present tense. The camera would obey my command and not go past that preset hated ISO. That would leave me with either too underexposed (dark) images, or lowering the shutter speed. Low shutter speeds do not work well with birds in flight. The underexposed image could be brightened up, but guess what, that would introduce noise. The slower shutter speed images of fast moving birds would be blurry and out of focus. So what would I choose, a noisy image or a blurry image?

          To my knowledge there is no saving an out of focus image. Due to modern technology noisy images can now be saved (somewhat). That makes the choice clear, I will take a noisy image any day before taking a blurry image. So how high of an ISO do I accept these days? The truth is that I no longer care. Yes, I still prefer to get as clean of an image as I can get. But I am not going to loose a shot because of ISO. Here is how I deal with too high ISO.

These two images were taken on the edge of the day. It was overcast and I did not have much light to work with. A fast shutter speed was required as these birds move quite quickly. The one image was taken at ISO 16,000 and the other at ISO 18,000. Yes, you read that correctly! The raw files are noisy, and years ago I would have just thrown these images away. Now I can look at this image at 100% magnification and it is clean. So how do I get noisy images clean?

          Firstly, I ran these images through DXO Photo Lab (DXO PureRaw would also work). Their noise reduction is probably some of the best noise reduction out there. This software creates DNG raw files which I then import into Photoshop. Since it is a raw file, Photoshop pulls these files into Adobe Camera Raw. Guess what? Adobe also now has AI noise reduction. This is where I run the file through noise reduction again (a second time). Voila, the image is clean.

          Don't give up on noisy files. Clean them. My priority in shooting fast moving wildlife now is shutter speed first, ISO second. I will not worry about the ISO but I must shoot at the right shutter speed.


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