The Sigma SD14 Wakeup Call
When Sigma SD14 on Vacation was published, one of the features discussed was photographs that tried to use the noise of the Sigma Foveon sensor at ISO 800 and even 400 as a creative tool. Like others, we assumed this noise issue at sensitivities that are a non-issue with other cameras is a problem of the Foveon sensor.
We received a very interesting email from a Gary Mercer, one of the professional photographers featured in the Popular Photography December 2007 Sigma SD14 promotion. He provided us with useful insight to the SD14 noise "problem" and a suggestion:
"I've been using Sigma DSLRs from the very humble beginning of the SD9 to the current SD14. There is a lot of controversy concerning the low light performance of the SD14 and also higher ISO 400 and up noise issue. I've found that other DSLR systems use in camera noise programs that produce soft, but less noisy images right out of the camera even when shooting raw. The supposedly raw images produced by most Bayer-sensor cameras are in fact heavily edited images prior to downloading them to the computer. The SD14 doesn't do any serious noise reduction in the image coming out of the camera. In fact, the SPP 3.2 and 2.5 versions of the Sigma Software barely address noise after the fact.
So how does someone who wants to shoot at higher ISOs with the SD14 deal with this? Imagenomic's Noiseware program is the best solution I've found to date. It is superb. If you sent me the raw images of the pictures you posted shot at ISO 800, I'm sure that Noiseware would take care of the noise in these images easily, salvaging them for you. I found this out after a helicopter shoot of the Hawaiian Islands with the SD14. We couldn't remove the doors off the helicopter, so I had to shoot through the canopy which lowered the light about two F-stops and also needed to use a polarizing filter which further lowered the light. It was a disaster in the making, forcing me to shoot at ISO 800. But after spending all this money on the helicopter, I was going to try to get my money's worth. When I got back to Florida and post processed the images, I thought the shoot was a complete bust, until a pro buddy of mine suggested Noiseware from Imagenomic. Even Noise Ninja couldn't clean up those images. Noiseware saved my shoot and I was able to save the images and use them in my latest gallery exhibition of my photography at www.pmgallery.info.
Moral of the story? The SD14 works just fine when you know the nature of the best and have the right tools to pull the results you want from this camera. It isn't super speedy, but I've got model test shots I've shot with it and lots of sample images on my SD14 test images website at pbase.com if someone wants to really see what is possible with the SD14 in real life."
Gary certainly has the credentials that persuaded us to try his suggestion and we were frankly astounded at the results we achieved by processing the Sigma JPEG files with Noiseware. The results were so impressive we tried the Noiseware processing with other camera images. Some cameras showed dramatic improvement in noise and others, like Nikon and Canon cameras, showed very little improvement with Noiseware processing. A large selection of images has been Noiseware-processed in the last few weeks. With this experience with a wide range of digital images from a cross-section of cameras, it is time to discuss the impact of Noiseware in more detail.
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whatthehey - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
Is it just me, or is the whole point of that DPreview article just a way to try and get people to purchase the training course off of the linked website?I also have to wonder at the number of "new" users commenting on the photography articles. I recognize some of the names, but the vast majority appear to be people that have only registered to complain about this one article. Anyone want to bet that several of these "anonymous" users happen to write for other websites? "Bitch bitch bitch, moan moan moan, you guys aren't like DPreview, which is just awesome! [link]"
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FYI, this is more a comment on the original poster and is not meant as an attack on kmmatney or yyrkoon, who are at least regulars here as I see posts from them all the time. It appears half of the commenters are relative unkowns. As for me, I tend to lurk more than post, but if you look around at previous articles, I've been here for about a year now and appreciate the variety of articles. It would be interesting to see a comparative review of several of the top noise removal programs, including customized results rather than just blanket "remove noise everywhere" auto settings.
yyrkoon - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
It would be nice if people like you would stop telling others what they should / should not do. If you do not like their 'photography' article(which I would probably consider this more of a retouching article), then do not read them.aguilpa1 - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
the big sensor helps the D3 considerably at high ISO but there is a great deal of luminance noise in the picture that is characteristic of Nikon cameras that focus mainly on chroma noise reduction. This makes the picture grainy but not blotchy colored (chroma noise)which is more acceptable but its not a smooth toned image. Most professional digital SLR's can achieve similar results although with luminance noise reduction applied to RAW in post processing and not in camera as Nikon does.gmarcus - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
To make a clear example of the noise processing, you should show a cutout of the main picture at full resolution. At the image size shown, it is not possible to see the noise effect. Also, as mharris points out, the JPEG compression kills all in the comparison.I also think you can check other Noise Reduction tools, like Noise Ninja.
Wesley Fink - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
1:1 crops from a larger image, with and without Noiseware processing, are shown on pages 7, 8, and 9. Clicking on any smaller image brings up the full image, with and without processing.The full ISO range was included for comparison, although we would never recommend using software noise reduction on lower ISO images. As stated in the article all noise reduction is a balancing act between image detail and softening/smearing. If you don't like the Noiseware auto processing you caa fortunately dial in other presets with different NR parameters or create your own based on parameters that are most important to you as a photographer.
I found Noiseware to be an extremely useful and flexible tool, but there are many other noise reduction programs and plug-ins available.
Wesley Fink - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
We did try Noise Ninja on the SD14 images. The results were very poor. This article was not conceived as a comparison of all the available software noise reduction programs or plug-ins. The idea was to show that post-processing can sometimes salvage high-noise images.Noiseware also worked best on the images that needed the most help. Used sparingly software noise reduction like Noiseware can be a useful tool. This is particularly true with images from cameras like the SD14, K20D, and A350. At the other end of the spectrum is a camera like the Nikon D3, with exceptionally low noise at high ISO.
sejer - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
I just tried running Noise Ninja on your original with the Sigma SD14 profile from picturecodes homepage, and i must say that it gives a much better result than what you show here.I don't understand why you say that it gives poor results. With default settings it gives much more detail, and if i want the "plastic look" that you show in your examples it's just a matter of cranking up filter strength and smoothness...
yyrkoon - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
I would have to agree with others here in that the reduced noise images look terrible in a lot of cases - especially the shots with water in them. However, some people here may fancy themselves professional photographers, but its obvious they know very little about image retouching. Point #1, if you care about an image you NEVER use a filters auto settings UNLESS they just so happen to work the best(very rare). Point #2 - a professional image retoucher will hardly ever use a single layer when 'correcting' an image. You keep the original layer, apply separate filters to copies of the original, and blend as appropriate.I would however have to disagree that noise ninja would do a worse job here. Noise ninja is known as one of the best noise filters out there, and from personal experience I'd have to agree. It however is *not* the end all be all of image retouching, and does require some finessing. Either way, running noise filters on a JPEG image is NOT the way to go . . .
yyrkoon - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
Oh, and I just noticed that a lot of that 'smearing' people were talking about was actually done in camera. Take another look if you do not believe me.strikeback03 - Monday, July 28, 2008 - link
I bought Neat Image primarily because when I was shopping they were the only one to offer a useful trial. I'm happy with the results.