In camera NR vs. PP

[v8moneypit]

Does anyone use in-camera noise reduction (both long exposure and/or high ISO) or would you normally ignore it and do it in PP?

Is there any benefit in the in-camera NR or will it simply slow down the file saving?

 

[Nod]

To me, the major benefit of the in camera long exposure NR is that it means I don't have to do any PP. I don't bother with high ISO NR - it's only a problem at ISO bleedin' 'eck that's high on my D700. If I do get an unacceptably noisy image, I use Noiseware (Community Edition) to deal with it - free download (? Imagenomic ?). Any NR can reduce the level of fine detail, so I try not to use it unless necessary.

The downside of using the in-camera long exposure NR is the downtime while the camera takes the dark exposure and does its stuff - usually a second or 2 over the original exposure time. If that downtime is going to be a problem, it's easy enough to turn the NR off.

 

[Jaffster]

If you have the time to spend cleaning up the noise on an individual image then I would say do it during PP.

If you're taking hundreds of shots in low light then I would just use the in-camera NR and Lightroom 4+ does a good, but simple job of clearing up noisy images.

 

[v8moneypit]

So no specific technical advantages either way? Apart from convenience.

Thanks. I've never used in camera NR, but wondered.

 

[Nawty]

I don't know why as you'd think Nikon and the likes would know a thing or two about it but shooting in raw and using PP noise reduction seems to give much better results...

 

[v8moneypit]

I don't know why as you'd think Nikon and the likes would know a thing or two about it but shooting in raw and using PP noise reduction seems to give much better results...

I guess it's got to be more flexible with the amount of NR applied. I don't know whether the camera applies a fixed amount or if it's rather more clever than that.