Not Happy

First off let me state up front that I am not knocking any camera company. So a year ago I made the jump from nikon to canon thinking it was the right move for me. My reasons were that I believed canon made pro class glass one stop slower for alot of there lenses that are more affordable to a working class stiff such as myself ie the 17-40L the 400 f5.6L and 100-400L. However I am thinking that I have made a huge mistake. My first love is bird and wildlife photography and living here in the great PNW as you all know the light is very often almost non exsistent and find myself wanting and NEEDING to shoot at higher ISO to get shutter speeds up but the canons just cant handle higher ISO's, I am not talking ISO 2500 or such but even ISO 400 looks terrible in the noise department. This pic was taken with my dads d7000 at ISO 1000 and my 50d at ISO 320 looks worse.
I have shot the 7d and the 40d side by side and its not much better. Do any of you think that canon is going to catch up to nikon in an affordable body in the next year or so?. Thanks for listening to my rant.

Wade - A few things :

-- First, I think you forgot to post the picture.
-- Second, yes, the 7D at a pixel level is pretty noisy... so is any sensor that size with that many pixels, although there is a range.
-- Certainly people go with Canon because of some of the very nice 5.6 lenses, and get great results with them.
-- The 50D is actually considered to be pretty bad for noise. The 60D or 7D should be better if doing a non-pixel level comparison.
-- The D7000 is Nikon's newest, and has the best technology sensor. Nikon and Canon have been continually getting better with each generation, and I'd expect Canon to continue to try to catch up.

That being said I'll ask this : How are you looking at noise? Are you viewing at 100%? If so, you might not be making a fair assessment. Higher resolution means smaller pixels means more noise at the pixel level. That's always true, and unavoidable. BUT, when you have more pixels, you also don't have to enlarge the image as much for a given size print or screen view. Sometimes, as each new higher res sensor comes out, it's noisier at a pixel level, but not so much that the increase in resolution doesn't make up for it. (That's been the case for a few cameras, but sometimes sensors are higher res, and cleaner at the pixel level.)

And if you really want to compare - make sure you're not letting one camera run noise reduction and the other not. Same goes for file processing - it would be easy to have that change your comparison.

To do some data comparison, using sensor test data from DxOMark, looking at the Nikon D7000 and Canon 7D :

-- The Nikon D7000 is about 1 stop better in noise than the 7D
-- The Nikon D7000 is 16MP, to the 7D's 18 MP
-- So that 1 stop gap closes a bit in a print or on screen to maybe half a stop

I doubt that half a stop of noise performance is a reason to say you made a bad choice if you're happier with the glass that Canon offers. Some people do say that the "look" of Nikon noise is less objectionable than Canon, which would make you like the NIkon more.

If low pixel level noise is what you really want, what you need is larger pixels, and then to get decent resolution, a larger sensor. That's why the full frame cameras are lower noise, and why the really low noise ones tend to be lower resolution as well.

David, thank you for your response. The picture is there it is a large version. Maybe it is the look of the nikons noise that I am liking. As I said I am not trying to knock one or the other. And yes in a money no object world I would be shooting a 1dmk4 or the new 1dx, but those cameras are out of my range, anyways thanks for replying and I will go back and look at the pics I got with the 7d.

ISO 400 looks "terrible"? I have a really hard time imagining that. We've had perfectly useable ISO 400 for what seems like a decade now (it's probably less than that, but still).

What is really funny (sorry, but for the bystander, it really is) is that before the introduction of the Nikon D3 and D300, people were ranting about how Nikon cameras sucked in low light, and wondering whether Nikon would ever catch up. So, whatever you do, don't switch systems again (unless money is really of no concern whatsoever). For some time, one brand will be ahead, and then, the other will pull ahead again, and so on, ad infinitum.

I assume that you do know that correct exposure is critical when shooting at high ISO, as underexposure will amplify noise. Also, make sure that when you compare shots, they were taken under identical light. Indoor lighting will always look worse than outdoors (well, in my experience at least). And finally, make sure that what's worrying you is really noise and not some other issue. For example, the shot you posted has no visible noise (to my eyes at least), but has a sharpness issue around the eye - either subject movement or slight backfocus (I think it's the latter). Make sure you're going after the right issues...

Basil, thanks for your reply. I am mainly talking about the noise in backgrounds and yes I know proper exposure is very important. Maybe it is what david said in the post above in that it is the LOOK of the noise from the nikon that I am liking.

I believe you meant to say I "am" knocking a camera company, it's OK, just say it. You never know maybe someone from Canon USA pays attention to these forums.

I typically shoot my D700 at iso 800, and at times much higher. If you nail the exposure iso 3200 is still pretty good. The new D4 should be even better. The newer Nikon camera iso capability is a world of difference from the older models.

Ah - I see the picture now... sorry about missing that link. In that post, the BG noise is completely not an issue and is almost non-existent in my opinion. It doesn't affect my enjoyment or judgement of the image at all. So the D7000 seems to be doing a great job there to me.

Of course, it's down-sized I assume? Reducing the resolution of an image will always greatly improve noise characteristics, since multiple pixels are averaged, which evens out noise. That's why it's really hard to see noise in most of the posts here.... and why if you do see noise, the original image is probably really noisy. (Assuming good post-processing.)

That's also why really high resolution camera might have worse pixel noise, but make up for it in prints or on screen. The D3X, for instance, is worse at the pixel level than the D3. But in a lot of cases, the huge increase in resolution can be used to smooth things out - either through down-sizing to match the D3, or in using noise reduction (as you have so much more detail to work with).

Wade, I think you've gotten your answer in the good responses so far. Noise is so subjective it's hard to be absolute. We just need to keep in mind that every sensor makes noise. How objectionable it ultimately turns out to be is controlled by (in this order) 1) our subjective perception of "bad" 2) the latest computing power of the camera, i.e. newer is better and sadly more expensive is better (usually) 3) you get what you pay for in photography (as with lenses and everything else, the more you pay, the better the performance).

I second Basil's counsel because yes, this horse race between Canon and Nikon will always sway back and forth and that's actually very good because they drive each other on. They both just need to watch for the Sony horse!!

Full disclosure, I am a devoted Canon shooter, love them all, shoot my 7D to 3200 and see noise but if I "nail it" at 1600 it's fine (to me!). Ditto my 5D Mark II which is actually quite long in the tooth now.

Noise Ninja works wonders as does the Topaz product and I'm told Nik Software's does too, all are very affordable.

Good luck, enjoy what you've got and don't let any drawbacks of any brand or model drag you down. Life's too short.
John

Noise? I did a screen capture of your photo Wade and blew it up to 300%. Now I know that you reduced the size to post it here but looking at the OOF background and the dark area of the eye, the places I would expect to find some noise, I found none. The tones and hues were smooth and clean. It could be that downsizing got rid of the noise, or that you applied noise reduction to the image when you processed it for posting. The other thing I wonder about is your monitor. If you're seeing noise that we aren't, could it be your monitor or perhaps the computer's video card?

To be honest, I think any further discussion will be fruitless unless we see what we're talking about. I'd like to see one of those 7D or 50D shots at ISO 400 with "terrible" noise. If we don't know what we're discussing, it's hard to offer anything but speculation. Just IMHO.

I'd like to see one of those 7D or 50D shots at ISO 400 with "terrible" noise.

Me too - especially with some proper comparison - resized to the same size, and both processed identically.