# Canon 50d Low light Noise



## Karloz (Aug 2, 2012)

HI

I have been using canon 50d for two years now an have been very disappointed with the hi level of image noise in low light conditions. I try where possible to shoot on 200 iso (50d Native ISO) despite this I still get what I consider to be a disappointing result.

I should be more clear on what I am using the camera for - I shoot night landscape and often have shutter open for up to 10 mins and it is very dark when I tale the photos.
Also shoot lot of "events" and wedding where lighting is low and would benefit from getting good images at around 1600 iso if possible.

I am looking at getting new camera soon and 50d will become spare camera. Its a toss up between 

1. 7d
2. 5d 11 perhaps second hand
3. 5d mark 111

Of course my preference would be a new 5d mark 111 but its looking like being out of my range at the moment - ant feed back on 7d and low light iso would be appreciated


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## jaomul (Aug 2, 2012)

Hi. I had a 50d as my first dslr and was disappointed with it also. I put this down to lack of knowledge until I bought a 550d as a backup second camera. Almost at once the 50d got very little use. I traded it for a 7d and am way happier with both noise control and general picture quality. Some people love the 50d and get great shots from it but I do think it has a very un flexible sensor which gives very little leeway for exposure being slightly off. I think without doubt the 5ds would be even better for noise control than the 7d


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## KenC (Aug 2, 2012)

Agree with everything jaomul said.  The sensors in all of the newer Canon bodies, including the Rebels (550D and above) and the 60D will give you noticeably better high-ISO results than the 50D.  Of course the full-frame models will be even better, but if price is an issue, any of these, even the 60D, would leave you more money for lenses.  The only reason to jump to the 7D, as far as I know, is for action photography.  It has better autofocus and can shoot more frames/second, but the uses you're describing don't seem to require those features.


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## aggieastrosfan (Aug 2, 2012)

One of the reasons I'd love to find a way to save enough money to upgrade my 50d to a 7d.  I seem to find myself in low lighting quite a bit, and while I can get good light at 1600, the picture is almost unusable. Very frustrating!


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## Dao (Aug 2, 2012)

aggieastrosfan said:


> One of the reasons I'd love to find a way to save enough money to upgrade my 50d to a 7d.  I seem to find myself in low lighting quite a bit, and while I can get good light at 1600, the picture is almost unusable. Very frustrating!



This photo is taken with my 40D at ISO 1600.  If it is exposed correctly and with noise reduce with LR (from raw), it is not too bad.


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## MLeeK (Aug 2, 2012)

Native ISO for canon is 100. However any FULL stop ISO will be cleaner than any incremental stop. The incremental stops are programmed or pulled from the full stops by programming in the software. It's after the fact. Whereas the full stops are a hardware change. The sensitivity is electrically changed. 
You will see less dynamic range in the incremental stops-highlights blown and less detail in the shadows. Shadows being prone to noise. 
With that having been said...
I shot with a 50D for several years and had no problems with it. And I am constantly maxing out the ISO on it. 
There is a lot you aren't saying here that has a huge bearing on the ISO issue. Are you trying to shoot at ISO 200 max? That'll cause you issues BIG TIME. 
If you  underexpose an image and raise it in post you're going to have noise problems even if it wasn't there in the original image. 

If you want awesome high ISO handling skip the others and go to the 5d3. I have the 5d2 and the 7D. The 7d definitely handles better than the 50d, but not THAT much better. The 5d2 is better, but the focus issues on it may give you a hard time in low light. It only has one cross type focus point and I hate it in low light situations because of it. 


I have probably posted this image a thousand times when this question comes up. This is the 50D at 3200 ISO (click for the large size)


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## scorpion_tyr (Aug 3, 2012)

Your noise is coming from extremely long exposures, not from ISO, but yes the 60D has much better noise reduction than the 50D. My best advise: Clean up the noise in PP.

Or if you're shooting those long exposures at ISO 200, bump it up to 800 and a 10min exposure becomes 2.5 minutes.


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## Karloz (Aug 4, 2012)

Hi  - Thanks a lot for your feedback on this issue - not sure I have decided what to do - but all great info to mull over in the man time - One again thanks for your feedback .


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## MLeeK (Aug 4, 2012)

Karloz said:


> Hi  - Thanks a lot for your feedback on this issue - not sure I have decided what to do - but all great info to mull over in the man time - One again thanks for your feedback .


If the images on the front of your website, on your studio and your commercial pages are any indication you will have major noise problems no matter what camera you own. They're all underexposed. Your portrait page is better in exposure. 
You need to learn how to properly expose an image or upgrading your camera to the hilt will still result in a problem for you.


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## PhotoBrody (Aug 6, 2012)

I've been shooting with a 50D for a while and get great results - and clients are happy. Full frame cameras will give better results in noise, so I'd opt for either a used 5D mkii or even an original 5D - which you can find for fairly close to what 50D's are selling for.


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## PhotoBrody (Aug 6, 2012)

MLeeK said:


> The 7d definitely handles better than the 50d, but not THAT much better.




I agree with this, I don't own a 7D but have many friends that do.. 7D is better than the 50D for many other reasons but ISO noise isn't a huge difference. Opt for a full sensor.


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## jvansanten (Jun 9, 2013)

I've used the 50D on a hobbyist and semi-pro basis for about 5 years. It does have its idiosyncracies and limitations, particularly compared to today's technology. And yet, for available light photography, I'd never want to go back to film.

I've been able to use a Tokina 50-135mm f2.8 zoom to do some fun event photography for a band that I know. Of course, ISO's are rather arbitrary in scenes with a huge range of contrast -- you just basically choose something that "works." In this situation, I set the ISO at 6400 and underexposed by 2 stops. This controlled highlights, but, of course, with the extraordinarily poor light setup, black was black.



There are several keys in post processing. 

I use Lightroom. What I've found is that by using Vibrance in the opposite way it is supposed to be used, you can achieve very good noise reduction. Vibrance adds contrast to pixels of significantly different color or luminance. So, if you have noise in the image, you'll simply enhance that. By removing the default noise reduction settings, reducing Vibrance to about -75, you have significantly softened, blurred and reduced the contrast. If you apply noise reduction at this point, then much of the noise disappears. Then bumping up vibrance to about +30 reveals a lot of the original texture of the image.

The other key is to increase "Blacks" to eliminate the random noise generated pixels.

Here are a couple more images, this time in color, from the same shoot.


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## iolair (Jun 10, 2013)

As one poster indicated, the 'noise' is due to the ten minute exposure, NOT the noise inherent in the 50D's sensor or the ISO you were using.  Run a sensor much more than 30-60 seconds without a rest and you get 'hot pixels' that dramatically add unpleasant coloured pixels, seemingly like noise, to the image.

You will get this same issue with a ten minute exposure with ANY sensor, even the 5D mk III.

To fix it, use an interval timer to take a number of 30 second exposures (with a few seconds break in between) to prevent the hot pixel issue, then combine these exposures using software.

There's more of an explanation here: http://www.shutterphoto.net/article/photo-stacking-and-long-exposures-part-1-introduction/


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## Surfwooder (Jun 19, 2013)

aggieastrosfan said:


> One of the reasons I'd love to find a way to save enough money to upgrade my 50d to a 7d.  I seem to find myself in low lighting quite a bit, and while I can get good light at 1600, the picture is almost unusable. Very frustrating!



I found a great deal at B&H on a refurbished 7D.  They are selling the 7D, for only $959 for Canon refurbished units.  I got mine just 2 days ago.  I've given my 50D a well deserved rest as a backup.  The transition to the 7D is easy so far.  The buttons on the back are about the same, but in different locations.  The camera is heavier, but more ergo friendly.  I bought mine with AMX, and they double the warranty, to 6 months for refurbished.  I haven't done any low light yet, but I may do some later in the week.  Yesterday I took it to New Orleans, City Park.  It was bright, hot and sunny.  Not a good day for good photos, but I got some good swan photos in the lagoons.  

B


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