A handy thing for those who use LR for RAW processing 
I found even ISO800 shots can be made to look like ISO400-200 without much effort (providing original exposure levels were good of course!)
The key to it is the Luminance noise reduction slider, the more you go up the smoother the luminance level evens out the noise and unlike other RAW editors the sharpness of the image is only affected a tiny amount which can then be fixed by a simple increase of the sharpness slider which once again does not increase the noise levels like other RAW editors and keeps luminance noise at the current minimised level
Here's the settings I used in an iso800 example:
Settings used:
Before Noise reduction:
After Noise Reduction (luminance slider) and sharpen:
Some more time spent tweaking the sliders gets even better results too of course.
My 350D may not be as good as a 30 or 40D at iso800 but this feature in LR can certainly bring it close to those sensors at least until I upgrade
I found even ISO800 shots can be made to look like ISO400-200 without much effort (providing original exposure levels were good of course!)
The key to it is the Luminance noise reduction slider, the more you go up the smoother the luminance level evens out the noise and unlike other RAW editors the sharpness of the image is only affected a tiny amount which can then be fixed by a simple increase of the sharpness slider which once again does not increase the noise levels like other RAW editors and keeps luminance noise at the current minimised level
Here's the settings I used in an iso800 example:
Settings used:
Before Noise reduction:
After Noise Reduction (luminance slider) and sharpen:
Some more time spent tweaking the sliders gets even better results too of course.
My 350D may not be as good as a 30 or 40D at iso800 but this feature in LR can certainly bring it close to those sensors at least until I upgrade
