D7000 Grainy photos

[Bun-Bun]

I find price to quality ratio to not be linear or exactly quantitative. And typically price is for more then just the base quality of the image but rather features. Example D7000 vs D5100. But I digress...

I bought a D600 over lunch since I'm doing a shoot this weekend. Will see how things go with that. I can always return it.

 

[Bun-Bun]

Here is a better image to show the noise I am talking about.

(image from Nikon D7000 Review by Thom Hogan)



This is the noise that I see on all my images with the D7000 regardless of ISO.


I haven't done a lot of pixel peeping on shots with my new D600 yet but The shoot I did over the weekend had a much higher shot success rate then I have ever had previously. So I am definitely liking the photos more.

 

[Skytalker]

As a start make sure that ADL=OFF, that is mandatory, images will be properly exposed not underexposed.
Then make sure you expose towards the plus that means it is always better to overexpose a bit rather than underexpose.

 

[Bun-Bun]

I thought ADL applied only to jpegs?

 

[Skytalker]

ADL changes the behavior of Matrix metering and as ADL is turned up the camera decreases the exposure value (EV); Normal ADL decreased the EV by 1/3 of a stop and High ADL decreased the EV by 2/3 of a stop. This explains the widely reported increase in noise using ADL, as it is attempting to preserve highlights by essentially underexposing and correspondingly raising shadows.

So it has an impact both on RAW/TIF/Jpeg, whatever format you shoot.

May I suggest you do some tests with ADL=OFF and try to expose to the right (to the plus) ?

 

[Bun-Bun]

Well after further testing I have deduced that the D7000 just has a read/static noise that I just do not like.

And the D600 makes incredible photo's and I am keeping it.



100% mag crop