# Is this level of noise acceptable or not?



## Jonsen (Aug 12, 2007)

Got a Pentax Optio A30 camera last christmas. Was at first impressed but now looking through pictures and zooming in on them there seems to be mega noise, even at low iso levels. Also parents old old Konika 4mpix camera seems to be much better.

In the reviews etc the pictures are mainly noise free (under iso 800) but I'm getting tons of noise at much lower iso.

Is the camera faulty / should I send it back? Was around £140 from Jessops IIRC.

Example is a (very random!) picture below - Its about 2.7mb so may take a while to load. Noise is clearly visible at "off camera" size with no zoom though. ISO is at 400 on that picture.

http://jonsen.co.uk/Pictures/noise/IMGP0676.JPG


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## lee. (Jan 16, 2008)

Has it always been like that then.

I'm not sure if you mean you are looking back at pictures from around newly bought time or if this is recent pictures.

Is that photo you have posted the original un-croped 1:1?

Lee.


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## chrisfr (May 25, 2008)

You really can't expect good results from a compact cam with it's small chip at ISO 400.
Some are better, some are worse (although it often only is internal denoising where details from the picture are lost what makes the picture look better) than this cam. 

To really rate yours, you should upload pictures at ISO 100 and maybe 200.

By the way, NoiseNinja, NeatImage etc. are good programs/plugins, if you want to improve the look.


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## Jonsen (Aug 12, 2007)

Another example, this time at ISO100.

http://jonsen.co.uk/Pictures/noise/IMGP0404.JPG


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## Jonsen (Aug 12, 2007)

lee. said:


> Has it always been like that then.
> 
> I'm not sure if you mean you are looking back at pictures from around newly bought time or if this is recent pictures.
> 
> ...


Both pictures are direct from the camera. It "seems" to be worse on more recent pictures, but I can dig out some pretty crap early ones.


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## Jonsen (Aug 12, 2007)

chrisfr said:


> You really can't expect good results from a compact cam with it's small chip at ISO 400.
> Some are better, some are worse (although it often only is internal denoising where details from the picture are lost what makes the picture look better) than this cam.
> 
> To really rate yours, you should upload pictures at ISO 100 and maybe 200.
> ...


Mine apparently has a noise reduction feature, well the reviews seem to say so and they rate it too. Mine seems to perform much more poorly than most of the review cameras. I'll dig out some reviews later, maybe some are updated versions and I've got a older version?


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## lee. (Jan 16, 2008)

I think if you are noticing it to be worse now than it was when you first got it and the settings are the same it has a fault of some sort.

Your second picture is hard to pick out the noise cause it's such a bust photo but you can certainly see it.

Lee.


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## chrisfr (May 25, 2008)

Well I think the level of noise is ok... quite normal for that size. It's no DSLR and not a 600€-compact with huge sensor and so on.
(Just my opinion, if it got worse and you didn't change anything of course something's wrong )

Just try to keep your ISO settings low, use a noise filter on the pc (try the demos, you will like them!), then do some standards like sharpening, colors, contrast...
And try to set anything, color saturation, noise reduction, sharpening as low as possible in the camera menu, as your computer will be doing this better and you don't want to lose details this way!
Of course, out-of-the-cam-pics will look worse then.


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

looks normal for that level of camera to me.


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## Jonsen (Aug 12, 2007)

Okay...well

Have been looking for a couple of days for the £199.99 EOS 400D with 18-55mm lense offer in Sainsburys.

Been out of stock everywhere I've tried, went in today and the shop assistant went into the back office, then came out with one in her hands!!!! Nearly fell over in shock :doublesho

So, basically, problem solved. Compacts are useless for decent photos it seems so I've now got the DSLR to take decent pictures with when I need to and the compact for use when the DSLR is too big 

Cheers for the input, I'll probaby be back asking how to use the 400D in no time :lol:


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## chrisfr (May 25, 2008)

Nice buy!

Hope you take the time to really work with the camera (manual settings, composition of the pictures). It would be sin to use this cam on Auto...

And don't forget: DSLRs are always set so that they don't optimize your pics internally (at least not so much), so out-of-the-cam-pics will look worse maybe, you have to do some more work on the computer.


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## ade33 (Jun 4, 2008)

Off such a tiny sensor packed with soooooo many pixels I reckon those pics are pretty reasonable.

Compact cameras are ok as long as you accept that an increase in the amount of pixels on a given sensor size will inevitably lead to more noise. The sensor on the A30 is about 7mm by 5mm so you can imagine how small the individual pixels are if there are 10 million of them!

Can't believe the 400D is only £200, blimey that's cracking value. You'll be fine with it. :wave: There's no going back though!


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