Noise issues Canon S95

[Wiggsy]

I've just edited a whole batch of photos I've taken in the Philippines and, while there is a lot I love about this little camera, I'm a little disappointed with the amount of noise I see evident in some photos. My last camera was an Olympus C5000z, and while only 5 megapixels, yielded fantastic results (with a lot of shutter delay!). Noise was never an issue - I shoot manual and rarely go over 100 ISO. Same with the S95 and yet I see a fair bit of backscatter type grain in some images. It may be that the sharper image highlights everything. I was using a Dyron Wide Angle 20mm lens and everything is sharp so every bit of plankton seems to feature. I use an external strobe (Inon 180d) and haven't done anything different as regards strobe position. I have been shooting on Av with the S95 (as the strobe wouldn't synch on manual {damn}) but have ISO set at 100 at the most. I ended up in some program finding a noise filter function which takes the edge of noise (but also just softens focus a little at times.) So just interested if anyone else experienced this. The conditions I was taking shots in were not quite ideal - about 20-25 metre visibility in the Philippines, but with a lot of fine plankton in the water column. But nothing I haven't experienced before.

 

[ozziworld]

Can you post some images?

On my S90, I find that if over sharpened, the noise gets more noticeable as well.

How much post processing do you do?

 

[Wiggsy]

I have a gallery of images on Picasaweb at https://picasaweb.google.com/104209...erwaterJuly2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCLffjZf5u7_RHg# and I'd love you to have a look. Not all were taken with the S95 - but the first half are. I think you may be right...as I did sharpen them a little (not a lot), but probably made the mistake of doing it on my rather ordinary laptop LCD screen. It is tempting to try to harden edges with a sharpener in Picasa...but maybe this is the problem. I'll go back to the original images and compare. Thanks for the tip - I feel better about the camera already.
Mind you, I did have a very minor leak on dive 6 (1/2 teaspoon of water) which was enough to incapacitate the camera for the rest of the trip (which I meant I went back to the old trusty Olympus C5000z in an Olympus housing (which has never leaked one drop over 500 dives!!) Glad I was overseas as travel insurance happily paid the claim - every cent. I was just glad the data card was intact. I had opened the camera on the boat out at Apo Island (Philippines) to change batteries, and I must admit I have always avoided that in the past. Not a good idea - just wish I could find a high capacity battery.
Thanks again for the tip.

 

[Nemrod]

Back scatter from plankton and debris in the water is not noise. I noticed the same phenomena going from my Canon 570 to the S90. The S90 has improved dynamic range and resolution and as a result the small stuff shows that used to go unseen.

N

 

[Wiggsy]

Back scatter from plankton and debris in the water is not noise. I noticed the same phenomena going from my Canon 570 to the S90. The S90 has improved dynamic range and resolution and as a result the small stuff shows that used to go unseen.

N

Thanks Nemrod...yes I suspected as much....I just really notice how the blue water background is more blotchy and uneven - but upon a closer look I agree that it probably is just hundreds of particles refracting blue light at varying intensities. And the improved dynamic range and resolution highlights that as well as everything else. I suppose even though we had 20-25 metres visibiity, there were a lot of particles interfering. So I'll just have to hope for gin clear water next time. Thanks again.

 

[Tigerman]

In general, one thing to keep in mind is that increasing the megapixels is not by itself a good thing.
If you increase the megapixels without increasing the sensor size accordingly (which is often the case especially on compact/semi-compact cameras) you are prone to more noise due to the fact that you get too many pixels on a too small area.
Its like trying to paint 10 million small dots on a fingernail..

Not saying this is the issue in your case, but its a general issue with increasing the megapixel count on digital cameras.

 

[ozziworld]

Checked out your photos. Those are not over sharpened and they are indeed some back scatter. Not that bad really. . . . easy to eliminate with cloning tool.

 

[Nemrod]

Film really shows back scatter, to bad you cannot experience that.

The S90/95 is only a 10MP camera and has a fairly large sensor for a P&S, it is known to be relatively low noise and test results on several website confirm this.

N

 

[Wiggsy]

Film really shows back scatter, to bad you cannot experience that.

The S90/95 is only a 10MP camera and has a fairly large sensor for a P&S, it is known to be relatively low noise and test results on several website confirm this.

N

15 years with a Nikons IVA means I've had plenty of experience with film - and 38 articles published in Sportdiving and Scuba Diver magazines (most of them pre-digital era) to boot. I never went beyond 100 ASA and preferred Kodachrome 64 or Fuji Velvia. Imagine going back to just 36 shots in a dive? But agree that the dynamic range of the S95 is possibly a factor - I certainly do find the resultant images higher in contrast that I was used to with the Olympus C5000z. And the colour balance also seems to lean more towards the red tones (not that this is a bad thing...) Just different. But thanks for all the input folks - a new camera is a new learning curve. I went for the S95 on the basis of better wet lens options and better wide angle wet lens performance. With this I am incredibly impressed. Macro is a little more difficult, as focus tends to hunt a fair bit. I will have to play around with manual focus when in macro.

 

[JanPie]

What kind of travel insurance pays for your camera dying because of water damage? By the way, was it dead forever or were you able to fix it?

I had a G9 that just stopped working on the first night dive of my trip (about 4 dives into the trip). There was no leak, but it appeared that it heated up a lot and then moisture appeared causing it to die (I had enough desicant in the Canaon housing). Repair would have cost more than a new camera, so, since I still had the housing, I bought a used G9 to replace it. On my next trip, it worked beautifully and then on the following trip it stopped working on the first day - again no leak. I don't know what what went wrong or if I did something wrong. Any ideas?