Sony NEX-6 High ISO Noise Reduction
The Sony NEX-6 offers only two high ISO noise reduction settings for JPEGs: Low and Normal (default). The NEX-6 user manual does not say at what ISO noise reduction kicks in, so we've included crops starting from the base ISO of 100. We've also include Adobe Camera Raw conversions with noise reduction disabled so that you can see how images with no noise reduction (or sharpening) compare.
See for yourself how the two noise reduction settings work under daylight-balanced lighting. Click on any of the crops below to see the corresponding full-sized image.
| High ISO Noise Reduction Comparison Daylight-balanced illumination |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 1 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 2 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 4 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 8 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 1 6 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 3 2 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 6 4 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 1 2 8 0 0 |
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Normal
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Low
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Raw (no NR)
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S O 2 5 6 0 0 |
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It appears that the NEX-6 already applies "High ISO Noise Reduction" at the base ISO, as there are subtle differences in fine detail and chroma noise between the settings already at ISO 100. As you'd expect, the Normal setting produces the cleanest looking images, and you can see just how hard both settings work at moderate to high ISOs when you compare them to the converted raw files.
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