Why You Should Not Leave NOISE REDUCTION On?

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OM System/Olympus cameras have a built in "Noise Reduction" setting, which technically is not noise reduction literally, but it is more accurately described as Dark Frame Subtraction Method to reduce Hot Pixels when doing long exposure photography. I explain what this means, and why you should not leave the Noise Reduction setting to "ON" at all times, or else it will slow down your camera significantly.
0:00 Intro
0:28 Why Is My Camera Slow?
1:31 Disclaimers
1:55 NOISE FILTER
3:13 What is Hot Pixel?
5:05 Dark Frame Subtraction Method
6:48 Noise Reduction Settings
10:15 Why Don't Turn ON?
12:01 Noise Reduction Slowing Down Camera
12:59 Conclusion/END
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Music in video:
"Weightless" by LiQWYD / liqwyd
Creative Commons - Attribution 3.0 Unported - CC BY 3.0
Download / Stream: hypeddit.com/link/ghiu91

[@robinwong]

The camera used for demonstration was Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III. For older cameras, eg E-M5 original or E-M1 (first version), the Noise Reduction being turned on will slow down the camera much more during normal, non long exposure shooting. It will feel like as if the camera was struggling to keep up with speed. The newer cameras are of course faster.

[@kcphotogeek6207]

For long expo with little to no movement I’ve found that the pixelshift mode on Pentax cleans up noise an hot pixels nicely, do you know if the high megapixel mode on Olympus has a similar impact?

[@garethdavies6094]

Brilliant as ever, Robin. OMDS has rocks in its head not to have you as an official ambassador.

[@TheNaught1]

Very helpful. OMDS should hire you to make a full blown series of instructional videos, but only after they patch the firmware to present a logical, informative menu system on all recent cameras. That would signal that they are paying attention to customer input. If they ever do.

[@sigsegv0x0b]

I do obsess about noise but with modern software like dxo photolab or topaz even my old E-P5 looks great at ISO6400 after running it through noise reduction. Because of this amazing modern NR software I upped the auto iso limit to 12,800 on my em1-2. I usually shoot in manual where I pick shutter and aperture and let the camera use ISO to pick the exposure and I find it this a revolution that people do not talk about enough. You essentially have complete creative freedom in terms of camera settings that actually matter for the image in terms of what you want the photo to look like which are shutter speed and aperture and the camera uses ISO as the exposure control. It's amazing, you can have whatever setting you want for your photo with auto iso and manual mode. Pop the raw into DXO PL or Topaz and regardless of what iso you used it comes out great. And I fully agree on body NR is not all that useful and just slows you down and you can get better results after in the digital darkroom anyway.

[@juliebeatrice1970]

Thank you so much for this explanation. It improved performance on my Olympus immediately.

[@elchinodelgado]

Very educational. Thanks a lot, Robin. You are the best.

[@andrear9500]

Thank you Robin, quite useful to know!

[@stephenfox5133]

Always amazed by how in depth your knowledge of Oly cameras is,… I don’t know anyone who explains these things as well as yourself.

[@acrummey85]

I bought you 3 coffee but missed my chance to leave a message. Thank you for your continued quality videos, they are much appreciated.

[@robinwong]

Thanks Ira, appreciate the coffee and glad you found the videos useful

[@senkawascott]

Thanks! That was so interesting. I normally shoot Panasonic M43 cameras but recently bought an EM-10 mk 3 and am learning the menu system. These tips are invaluable!

[@abchappell01]

That as a wonderful presentation Robin. Thank you 😊

[@robinwong]

Thanks Anthony! Glad you found it useful.

[@dougcooper4917]

GreT Video, and Excellent Information. Thank You Robin.

[@D0209962]

Very helpful. Thanks for sharing.

[@alfredmartinezifernandez9644]

Hi Robin, excelent video! I always have a confusion in this point and the olympus manual is not clear. Now I understand, thank you!

[@joeprete7424]

Always informative!

[@timothylee5824]

Educational as always. Thanks Robin

[@robinwong]

Thanks Timothy

[@1957PLATO]

As always well explained. Thank you very much.

[@robinwong]

Thanks Plato!

[@kigabuma]

Thanks for the information.

[@WMARUoriginal]

Great explanation! I always had it off, but this is handy to know.

[@robinwong]

Don't turn it off, leave it to Auto!

[@macwmcel8430]

Thanks Robin!!!

[@Rlancup]

Oh well... I was absolutely not aware of this. Thanks Robin, excellent presentation.

[@robinwong]

Glad I can share, Robert!

[@RoderickJMacdonald]

The lack of distinction between hot pixels and noise goes back a long way for Olympus. I found the following in the manual of my 2012 e-PL5: Noise in images While shooting at slow shutter speeds, noise may appear on screen. These phenomena occur when the temperature rises in the image pickup device or image pickup device internal drive circuit, causing current to be generated in those sections of the image pickup device that are not normally exposed to light. This can also occur when shooting with a high ISO setting in a high-temperature environment.

[@robinwong]

Yeah and they never bothred to fix this. Frustrating

[@paja13]

I do lightpainting for 6+ year with Olympus and I have the noise reduction off all the time. LR is doing great job imho and never had any issue with hot pixels :) and Im shooting for a minutes... :) LiveComposite can help also with this issue :) imagine to be outside in winter, its freezing and you shoot for 5 mins with noise reduction on :D you will become a snowman during the 5 mins of darkframe :D

[@emarshallp]

Thanks again Robin, you are an inspiration for all photographers and amateurs!!!! Greetings from Argentina! You rock!

[@robinwong]

Thanks Marcial, glad you found the video useful

[@robertverbeek9751]

Excellent info Robin.

[@robinwong]

Thanks Robert

[@kokhowe]

Thanks for the tips! I just got a EM5 III. Will check out the setting.

[@robinwong]

No worries, glad I can share

[@Bunnyisms]

I remember the first time when Noise Reduction turned itself on (it's on the auto setting) on my Olympus camera. I was a little confused because I had never seen it do that before. I always just set it to auto and leave it there so it only runs when I need it to

[@sabymondal]

Thanks! Learnt something new. I had noticed hot pixels before in some pics and thought my sensor was screwed up. But good to know that is not the case.

[@robinwong]

Thanks Saby, now you know!

[@UMS9695]

Thanks for the tip!

[@robinwong]

Glad I can share

[@christinecoughlan4699]

Thank you Robin👍🏼🏵.

[@robinwong]

Cheers Christine

[@PaulMansfield]

My Lumix G9 has a similar feature, long shutter noise reduction. However, it only does it when the shutter speed drops below a certain threshold, typically 1s, so I generally leave this on. However, it's useful to be aware that once the camera is taking the dark frame you can't stop it, and so you need to decide if you're going to be happy with the delays.

[@petermartinka9274]

This was great! Thank you very much for informations about on/off noise reduction.

[@robinwong]

Thanks Peter, appreciate the kind words

[@petermartinka9274]

@@robinwong You are welcome Robin. I have been watching your videos for a longer time now, and they are always very valuable information.

[@andrzejbojwojtowicz2731]

thanks

[@WhiteMFingRabbit]

Thank you!

[@macmannm]

Thanks!

[@robinwong]

Thanks so much, Mike!

[@leckywoznicki5393]

Thank you :)

[@spacelord1913]

Interesting - on the panasonic GH5 the '2nd frame' noise reduction feature, if turned on, only activates if above 2s shutter open time, but it runs the same time you set your shutter speed - annoying for 30s night time shots, but it does the job.

[@yukonchris]

Hey Robin, I looked for these settings on the original E-M1. The menu system looks quite a bit different from your camera, but both settings are indeed located under the gear icon > E submenu. "Noise filter" has the options: Off, Low, Standard, and High, There is no "Auto" option on this older model camera. I shoot RAW only, so the other option, "Noise Reduction" is greyed out and set to "Off" by default. I hope this help some of your viewers with older model cameras. Cheers for another very useful and thought provoking video.

[@robinwong]

Noise Filter did not have Auto. I recommended LOW in the video. There are multiple reasons why your Noise Reduction is disabled. For example, HDR mode was turned on, or you shoot in burst. If you use normal setting, it should be available especially when you do long exposure. So there must be something that disabled long exposure shooting. Also, the default for Noise Reduction is Auto, not Off. You must have changed that some time ago.

[@theYOFFLISES]

Very instructive. One question about 'Dark Frame Subtraction': is it also working with electronic shutter, I mean, is there a way to put the sensor in the dark without a mechanical shutter to prevent sensor form being exposed to light?

[@motor3603]

Muchas gracias como siempre por tus expliaciones y la forma tan familar en que las haces. Queria preguntarte, tengo un m1 mark II, he comprado un 100-400 y noto que tiene al ponerlo en cámara una pequeña holgura en la ballesta, gira un poco es normal? También saber si es conveniente tener activado el estabilizador tnto de la camar como del objetivo, escuche algo en un vdeo al respecto. Muchas gracias. Un saludo.

[@bakermantube]

Danke!

[@robinwong]

Thanks Andreas, much appreciated!

[@berniestang2616]

This video explains a lot, I have a question when I was shooting live composition, I had noise reduction to off but after live composition, the camera says noise reduction in progress, and it has that delay, so is that the Camera then removing hot pixels in live composition even though like I said, I had the noise reduction set to off???? Thank you for your videos. They are an absolute welcome help with the camera.!!! I was shooting with the OM-1 & shooting raw . I was doing 1 minute exposures on live comp for star trails & about 60 photos . Thx thx thx !!!!

[@ammadoux]

thanks so much.

[@robinwong]

No worries

[@feitheri200]

Hi Robin, Thanks for your very intresting videos. But on my camera, OMD 10 Mark 3 with german language. the fearure are not on „E“there are under „D“

[@jeffslade1892]

Thank you. Do you know how long the shutter speed has to be before it uses Noise Reduction (long shutter NR dark frame subtraction)?

[@Lordvader330]

I remember you saying this a while ago. I have had it off for years now.

[@robinwong]

yes it was in one of my OM-D tips videos. But do leave it to Auto, not off. You need it for long exposure

[@pauldeutsch2044]

I like the quality of this video in 4K. It is a great improvement.

[@robinwong]

How is this video different from any other video? All my videos from late 2019 till now are all in 4K! Or were these videos not in 4K in your KZbin?

[@colinmatheson832]

Adds a bit of time to image stacking when taking shots of the night sky? Looking forward to my trip to KL in the middle of December. Might spot some of Robin's photo locations.

[@robinwong]

You will love Kuala Lumpur!

[@colinmatheson832]

Born in Malacca. Left in 1960!

[@DrAgan_tortojed]

If there aren't too many of them, you can easily get rid of them by "clone/heal" tool(s), during post-processing. On some cameras, there is an option within the menu that is called "pixel mapping" (sometimes it is related to the LCD screen, other times it is related to sensor). This option should be used when/if you're suspecting your sensor has lots of dead pixels or hot pixels - it might help.

[@robinwong]

There are a lot. I was only showing a few spots. If you go through the entire frame, there could be tens of thousands of pixels, or more.

[@jeffslade1892]

Pixel mapping is in the Utility menu, it removes defective pixels. Pixels do die, usually loss of power, burnt out, and leave a black spot. The camera removes them and interpolates to fill in the gap.

[@ft20b_iwangariloputra92]

hi robin I'm from Indonesia. I want to ask how to use a manual lens on the Olympus Omd Em 1 MK 1 camera body, how do I do it, because I tried to install a black screen?

[@HR-wd6cw]

Personally i would turn off most in-camera processing if you're shooting RAW. This way it's not baked into your final image. Although things like NR typically only impact the JPEG files. But in some cases, for example with Nikons if you turn on D-Lighting in the camera, this causes products like Adobe to automatically boost shadows by default in post processing when the RAW file is opened because it interprets this flag. It's not permanent but can be a hassle if you're not paying attention.

[@robinwong]

Noise Reduction affects RAW, as explained in video.

[@harrison00xXx]

Same goes for many or most other cameras too. Noise reduction in post give better results in video and especially raw images.

[@robinwong]

I was not talking about video. Also, I did not recommend turning it off.

[@harrison00xXx]

@@robinwong and still you get better details and noise reduction in post especially when you are processing with Topaz Denoise AI etc… I dont use noise reduction in camera at all since raw processing has come that far

[@robinwong]

@@harrison00xXx I think you are very confused. And you did not watch the video, I assume? The last I checked, Topaz Denoise does not remove Hot PIxel (due to long exposure). If it does, then that's good. You need Dark Frame Subtraction to do that. I was NOT talking about Noise in this video, and I don't understand why you bring up noise processing software.

[@harrison00xXx]

@@robinwong imagine making a video about noise reduction setting but dont talk about noise reduction You are confusing, confuzius!

[@kcphotogeek6207]

Darktable is a free software that does a great job in removing hot pixels. Even with NR my Lumix GH5 had so many hot pixels it looked like a ticker tape parade, Darktable cleared it right up. Interesting though that the Olympus seems to suffer a lot less from hot pixels 🤓

[@xmeda]

Do pixel mapping instead.

[@robinwong]

pixel mapping is a completely different tool for a diferent problem - dead pixels. I think we are VERY lost here.

[@kcphotogeek6207]

@@robinwong Dark table has a specific plugin for hot pixels I don’t think I’m lost

[@numbersix8919]

No live view during a long exposure? No way! By the way Olympus, such confusing nomenclature. Another little irritating avoidable Olympus quirk. Thank you Robin for explaining: Noise Reductionist is really hot pixel extraction! I had no idea.

[@robinwong]

If you want live view then use Live Time.

[@numbersix8919]

@@robinwong Thanks! I hear you can watch you image building and close the when you want -- on Bulb, I guess. Stay good my dear friend.

[@charlottecarlton-moss1045]

Does noise reduction work on neighbours??? Good vid. x

[@robinwong]

Thanks, I wish they could!

[@moustafaaziz1033]

Hi Robin, when i'm using live composit the noise reduction is always ON, there is a way to get ride of that?? i want to turn it OFF when taking photos in live composit mode so how to do it, i'm using OMD 1 Mark III, It seams that Olympus put it ON ALL the time when using livecomp, many thanks for your help.

[@robinwong]

I don't think there is a way to turn it off. Since they are already compositing, they added another frame to get rid of hot pixels, makes sense to me. I'd suggest having it to Auto (which means it will turn on for live composite, shooting long exposure anyway)

[@moustafaaziz1033]

​@@robinwong Many thanks for your answer, waiting your video next week

[@user-tv6py7mv7j]

все шумодавы отключаю! Делаю резкость в самый минус (минимальный) и снимаю только в Raw на Olympus! А и контраст можно уменьшить - на посте уже в редакторе подтягиваю точку черного до нужного объема

[@OAlBraun]

На 16мп Олимпусах был очень крутой джипег, на 20мп он отвратно цифровой, словно в старом Кэноне😢 Даже немного неприятно влить столько денег в ем1м3 и лишиться такой простой вещи, как нормальный джипег

[@user-tv6py7mv7j]

@@OAlBraun абсолютно согласен! Тут остаётся только работать с raw.

[@mrlau630]

first:))

[@robinwong]

Amazebals

[@xmeda]

Hi Robin, hot pixels are still in same spot and are removed by pixel mapping, same like dead pixels. Do it time to time at least few times a year. That is different story. Dark frame is used for long exposure random noise reduction, not for stable hotpix. It is there to remove excessive RANDOM noise that comes mainly from sensor overheating during long exposure. The cost is, that if you need sequence of lets say 30s exposures, you'll have to wait another 30s between each captured picture. Sometimes it is not possible to wait that long for every shot. For example while shooting fireworks it will waste half of the event just watching camera doing blank exposure.

[@robinwong]

I think you are very confused. Pixel mapping is for DEAD pixels, not hot pixels. The pixels are already dead, you can't fix it even with dark frame subtraction method. I suggest you read up on Dark Frame Subtraction. It explains what Olympus Noise Reduction is. I even SHOWED you the hot pixels, did you watch the video? If t was dead pixel, they will show even without long exposure. They get hot when sensor is exposed for too long. Pixel mapping CANNOT fix hot pixels. Try it yourself!

[@robinwong]

Summary if it gets too confusing. Hot pixel is NOT dead pixel. Random noise is NOT hot pixel. Pixel mapping fixes Dead Pixels. Pixel mapping cannot fix Hot Pixels. Random noise happens when use of high ISO. Hot pixels happen when shooting long exposure, even with low ISO (100, 200). Hot pixel is not at random position, hot pixel is fixed. Noise happens at random position, hence dark frame subtraction cannot work for noise.

[@MegaNovem]

why don't you use pixel re-mapping to fix hot pixel?

[@robinwong]

Pixel mapping fixes dead pixel, not hot pixel. The camera had no dead pixels the last I checked.

[@robinwong]

In case there is any confusion, dead pixel happens even without being hot, you don't need long exposure. Say that you shoot at 1/100s if the pixel is dead you get dead pixel. However hot pixels only happen when you shoot long exposure. At 1/100s you won't get hot pixels. They happen at very long exposures, say 10 seconds or more. Hot pixels cannot be fixed with pixel mapping. Likewise dead pixels cannot be fixed with dark frame subtraction. Hot pixel is not dead pixel. I hope that clears up the confusion.

[@frankaltobelli]

Thanks!

[@robinwong]

Thanks Frank, much appreciated!