14nx .jpg, noise reduction - a plea from the heart

[jono_slack]

Hi there
I have a trip to Greece at the end of June - no chance of taking a computer, and nothing like enough CF cards to last the trip.

I experimented with 13mp .jpg on the 14nx, and lo - as long as you get the exposure right (which you can, of course, check) the results are excellent . . . . . . except that the enforced noise reduction means that the dreaded 'painterly' effect makes it all impossible.

It seems to me that this has perhaps not really been thought about since the early days of the 14n, when noise really was an issue, but as we all know, noise isn't much of an issue these days.

Surely it would be worth giving an option for no noise reduction - and if this were enough to remove this effect from .jpg files, they would become very useable, and very useful (in some circumstances).

Of course, I know it's best to shoot RAW if possible, but if the camera could produce good .jpg (assuming that the photographer controlled the exposure properly) I really feel that this would be useful for many, and would also make the camera much more saleable.

Maybe there are reasons for keeping noise reduction switched on, but writing software myself, I know that it's only too easy to leave in restrictive features which are no longer necessary.

What do you think?

[JosephMills]

Jono,

I was in London for a week and then Paris for a week last fall. I shot everyday and in the evening I would download images to my laptop. Using two 1 gig cards, which gave me about 140 raw images, I always ran out of storage before the day was over. A few days I was close to our apartment and could download and go back out.

In my opinion, if you shoot jpg.'s you're still going to cut it way short memory wise. Plus probably be dissappointed with many of the jpg.'s when you get back home.

Maybe it would be worth the investment for a portable hard drive. It would allow you to stay with raw files. It would be usable for future trips. It could act as a temporary backup storage system when desired. It can, at times, be a convenient way to transport files. Wish I could think of more reasons [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Could you fedX your laptop to your destination? Just hate to see you shooting jpg.'s with this camera!

[Quentin_Bargate]

Jono,

My away from home solution is to take one of those cute little Sony Vaio picturebook laptops - the really small ones. Mine has a 15GB hard drive, so its not as big as I'd like, but I have Photodesk on it so I can review and delete dud material in the evening.

Forget jpegs, you'll regret it if your masterpiece looks like a Monet through noise reduction. Good point though, Kodak should look at allowing NR to be turned off completely in firmware.

Quentin

[Bertil_Lindgren]

Portable harddisk...
a very simple and useful way to go.
I use an ARCHOS Jukebox multimedia 20 It's quite old now and can be bought for rather low price.

You can not see you images as it does not read .dcr files but you can download them to the 20Gb disk and lates transfer them to your computer. Emptying a 512 Mb card is not fast but if you are shoting (as in people in studio) one card there will be enought time to empty the other.. You can also use it as an Mp3 player and even watch Mpeg1 movies on it.. (but it's quite painful to rip thje movies to the right format)

It is not so big, you can hold it in the palm of you hand and mine have worked day out day in mostly playng mp3s for about 2 years with very little problem. They have many similar products I do not know much aboout these but the JMB20 has worked for me..

check it out

/b

(ok it is made in france but... it do work..

[Kevin_Allen]

Hi Jono,
As you know I will be getting my SLR/n this week. I do not go anywhere without my 12inch powerbook, even on holliday. I sat on a beach at the Med last year, downloaded my images from a Canon S50, connected to my UK server via my mobile and sent almost live postcards to everyone. I took calls from clients that wanted images from my library and emailed low res, from mountain tops, restaurants and my tent. We watched DVD's and listened to music and children played games in the car on it. The small Rucksac I carry it in is designed for laptops, so is strong, has lots of compartments and comfortable to wear. To me it's a business in a bag, I can go anywhere in the world nearly with this and still run a business. Wi-fi is the best thing since sliced bread, bluetooth is pretty good too.
Not a direct answer to your question, maybe an answer to your problem. If you are staying in a Hotel, you could leave it with them during the day.
After a time you don't notice you are carrying it, and it's much more usfull than a portable storage device, plus it burns CD/DVD's as extra backup. I could quite easily get a Slr/n in with it and carry it on an aircraft as hand luggage, or camera around the neck and extra lens with computer.
The only problem with this is, if there is a third party that insists a computer is not brought along.
Regards,
Kevin.

[jono_slack]

Hi Everyone

Many Thanks For all the suggestions.

We have a 12" powerbook knocking around, and I even have an ipod with a Belkin CF card reader (if I don't mind taking an hour per download).

My point really was that having tried out the .jpg, it nearly nearly produces great shots (and there are times when .jpg files are useful - in fact, the ones from my D1X were so good that I often used them).

It seems to me that everyone has just given up on .jpg files from this camera. The very fact that all the answers are simply about how to store large numbers of photos rather bears out this fact. I wondered if allowing zero noise reduction would make them useable.

I would also have thought that from Kodak's point of view, the ability to shoot sensible jpg files would, at the very least, prevent the angry howls from first time users, and might allow them to sell more cameras.

Don't forget that the jpegs from kodak offer almost the same flexibility as raw, as far as noise I'm not sure, it's been awhile since since I've shot jpegs on my kodak cameras.