Tag Archives: high ISO

*Sony a7II vs a7RII – A user comparison

by in General ramblings, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Camera tech is a fascinating thing.  What will companies provide us as customers, in hopes of luring us into their systems?  I mentioned in my previous article that I’d been awaiting announcements on the update to Sony’s full frame mirrorless cameras before deciding on my own upgrade path, and chose to jump on the discounted a7RII deal as an update to my longstanding a7II.  

My main interests were gaining an upgrade to image file quality in resolution, dynamic range and then overall performance upticks on the hardware side of things.

(*I’m selling a bunch of Sony FE gear!  Have a look HERE)

After a few months with the R, here is what I’ve found out…

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*Topaz DeNoise 6! New, on sale, reviewed and compared to DeNoise 5 w/@topazlabs

by in Photography Apps, Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

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Topaz has just released version 6 of their DeNoise software.  It may seem like I’m plugging a lot of software of late, but it just so happens that the software that I have chosen to use is getting updated, and offered on sale which is pretty awesome.

I have used most all noise reduction (NR) plugins out there over the years, and while DAM software like Lightroom and Capture One do a good to decent job for a lot of NR tasks, I have never found better noise reduction anywhere than I have with DeNoise.  So, what has changed with version 6?  I’ve been testing version 6 against version 5 all week to see if I can really tell where they’ve improved it, and I feel that comes in the way of interface primarily, a huge boost to developing, saving and grouping presets specific to cameras, and further allowing those of us using this plugin to streamline our workflow when batch processing.

Topaz DeNoise 6 is on sale now, $30 off through March 20th HERE at Topaz Labs Website for $49.99 (normally $79.99) or as a FREE UPGRADE (as seems to always be the case with Topaz) for DeNoise owners!  Use code “NOISEFREE” at checkout to get the sale price, and do so knowing that future upgrades will very, very likely be offered as a free upgrade as well.  You can always try it out for free too.  You can download a full free trial HERE if interested to see if it makes sense for you.

I chose DeNoise years ago because it beat the pants off of NIK Dfine for me (especially when correcting for noise banding), which I’d switched to after using Noise Ninja for years.  I’ve yet to see anything outdo DeNoise, and the new version is an upgrade to an already stellar program.

If you’d like to see a side by side comparison between DeNoise 5 and 6, along with my thoughts on what has been improved upon, come on in…

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*The Panasonic GX7, an Evolution, Part 2

by in General ramblings, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 57 Comments

Panasonic GX7

In part 1, I gave you my opinion and rundown on the physical, ergonomic changes along with a couple of the key, new features to the GX lineup.  Now, we can take a look at how this camera has evolved from a performance point of view compared to the GF1 and GX1.  C’mon in for some videos and comparisons…

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*Topaz DeNoise 5, like a fine wine.

by in Postprocessing techniques, Software tutorials / reviews and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 44 Comments

***UPDATE See the new Topaz DeNoise 6 reviewed and compared to DeNoise 5 HERE***

Smooth, yet refined with an impeccable attention to detail.

Noise has become less and less an issue for digital photographers over the last few years as sensor technology gets better, in camera processing is capable of shouldering more of that load than ever before and digital asset management software/RAW converters are up to the task for much of the noise reduction needs.  Still, with analog to digital information translation, there is an inherent signal:noise issue that can always be further helped by a good noise reduction software.  Add to that, pro-sumer 35mm format models breaching the Medium Format pixel counts, or compact sensors pushing the pixel pitch to near immeasurable dimensions, there is, and will be a need for a manual noise reduction control through post processing.  While Lightroom and Aperture have good noise reduction algorithms, they are the swiss army knife of image processing, giving you many handy tools, but what happens when you need a power tool?  That little Swiss army knife’s mini-saw ain’t gonna cut through that noise riddled log for you, you’ll need a chainsaw.   Enter, Topaz DeNoise5, your powerful, noise reducing chainsaw.  You can download a free trial, or purchase DeNoise.  If interested click HERE to go to Topazlabs.com.  I’ve used Noise Ninja and Nik Define in the past, and I think both of those have just been pushed out of my workflow.  Read on for examples and my take…

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*Lumix G3 vs Canon 5Dmk II

by in General ramblings, Photography gear and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

I know that on paper this is a crazy comparison.  It’s also not fair in that we have two very different sensors, one, a 21 mega pixel full frame at the end of it’s 3+ year life cycle and the other about a quarter of the size and which is not even 10 months into its own.  Well, these are the two cameras that I have and use on a regular basis.  As I’m contemplating leaving one home for an upcoming trip, I wanted to see just what I was going to be getting.  This is purely a fun/bored post, but one that I thought might be at least somewhat interesting to a few of us out there.  How does the new 16mp G3/GX1 sensor stack up?

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