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Should You Turn Noise Reduction On Or Off For Astrophotography? https://ift.tt/2JRUdg1 With the ever-increasing popularity in astrophotography, photographers are constantly on the lookout for information on getting the best night sky photograph that they possibly can. One of the settings that can be confusing for most photographers is the camera's inbuilt noise reduction. Should you turn noise reduction on or off for astrophotography? Read to find more about this setting. Night sky photography or astrophotography involves long exposures and higher iso values than normal daylight photography. As a result of these two factors, “long exposure” and high iso” there are high chances that an astrophotograph can have evident noise which can be quite an unwanted thing for anyone looking to create a neat photograph free of noise. Also taking into account some factors like the possibility of shooting the Milky Way, when you have a limited time period each year when the Milky Way is above the horizon for you to photograph, looking for the few days with clear skies in this time period when you can photograph the Milky Way, etc. it is important you do your best to get everything right in the images you are creating. Not only that, some photographers may travel miles away from their home in search of dark skies and so whatever the situation, getting your images clean without much evidence of noise is essential in astrophotography. With the advancement in camera technologies, photographers are able to make astrophotography with cameras of almost all levels and types. These cameras come with better low light performance, allowing the photographer to shoot at higher iso values, but one of the biggest challenges faced during astrophotography is thermal and digital noise. During long exposures, the camera's sensor is exposed for a longer period of time and higher iso values are used to get the correct shutter speed without causing star trails in images (not taking into account any tracking). Exposing the sensor for long periods of time heats up the sensor causing more noise (thermal) in the form of hot pixels and using higher iso values will increase the sensitivity of the sensor also leading to more noise (digital). What is the solution to rectify this problem? Obviously, noise reduction either in camera or while post processing! Cameras These Days Come With “Noise Reduction” Features:
Long exposure noise reduction can be applied to raw files in camera whereas high iso noise reduction is only applied to jpeg files in camera. With astrophotography, the advice is to shoot only raw files. So if you are just shooting a couple of jpeg files, then you can turn on high iso noise reduction and it is better to keep it normal. Bear in mind, this can take away the sharp details from your stars. The same with long exposure noise reduction – keep it on if you are shooting a couple of jpegs. The question is – should you turn noise reduction on or off for astrophotography. Before going into whether you should turn this feature on or off, let us quickly look at what this feature does. What Does The Long Exposure Noise Reduction Feature Do In The Camera:
Here Are Some Disadvantages Of Turning On Noise Reduction For Astrophotography:
The best thing to do is, have high iso noise reduction to normal and turn off long exposure noise reduction for jpeg images. This will still consume some time while processing your images and is not recommended when you shoot star trails. For raw files, turn both “High iso noise reduction” and long exposure noise reduction” off, as you can shoot dark frames manually and remove thermal noise and digital noise can be removed while post-processing. If you are willing to wait between shots, then you can turn noise reduction on, but be warned again that sometimes the camera can render the faint stars as noise and eliminate them. Since there are some amazing applications like Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. that can perform noise reduction, it is highly recommended to shoot in raw and reduce noise while post-processing. Or, you can manually shoot the dark frames yourself by covering the lens and subtract the noise from the light frames while post-processing. This way, you do not need to shoot a dark frame after each exposure, but rather a few at the start and end of the shoot. Bear in mind that the dark frame needs to be taken at the same temperature as the light frame as the noise levels in the sensor varies with camera temperature. Another method to reduce noise in astro-photographs is to use image stacking method where you shoot a number of images at least 5 to 10 images and stack them during post-processing. The images are aligned and averaged while stacking. This way since noise is recorded in different areas in each frame, they are subtracted or eliminated in the final image. You can also use noise reduction plugins/applications like Nik DFine or Topaz DeNoise (works as a standalone application too!) for Lightroom and Photoshop. To conclude, for astrophotography, noise reduction in camera is not advisable, be it high iso or long exposure noise reduction. Do you shoot photographs of the night sky? If yes, do you use the noise reduction feature in the camera or not? Please let us know why, in the comments section below! Further Resources:
The post Should You Turn Noise Reduction On Or Off For Astrophotography? appeared first on Light Stalking. Photography News via Light Stalking https://ift.tt/2kwTW5i March 31, 2019 at 10:27AM
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