Noise - why??? please help

[slugger]

I got a new lense.....and perhaps it's the culprit...but not sure why or how. I took this picture with my Sigma 28-70mm DG lens, and when I printed it as an 8x10 it looked like absolute crap. I'm embarassed that I actually took money for it, and I don't want to give it to my client. Can anyone offer any reason as to why it looks like this??
Canon EOS rebel xsi
f/19
1/180
iso 100
J1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[OsmosisStudios]

For starters: your white balance is WAY off. Like, frighteningly so.

The LARGE version you have on Flickr isnt big enough to see anything wrong, especially noise.

[sk66]

Best guess without looking at a detailed image...diffraction. F/19 is too small for most lenses. F8 would have been much better,

[candleman]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

For starters: your white balance is WAY off. Like, frighteningly so.
.

yeah, it looks strange.
but the bit that confused me is the dress is pretty close to white (i didnt test it in PS)
was that just a purple background?


me thinks you used a purple background and an auto white balance..

i cant see any noise at this size..

[kirbinster]

I don't see the noise either, but the purple background is terrible. Why did you shoot at f/19?

[OsmosisStudios]

Judging from the EXIF, I would suggest that f/19 (or, likely, f/16) would have been the widest aperture useable to achieve a 1/200 shutterspeed for flash sync. Still, why not just tone the flash down.

I hope you dont mind, but I went ahead and corrected the white balance for you. Surprisingly simple. It might be a bit stark (could use a warming), but it's properly white.

See attached

[kencaleno]

Since when has a lens had anything to do with noise? -99.9% problems with noise are through incorrect exposure. The remaining 0.1% is due to inadequate lighting. Ken

[Jamesc359]

OsmosisStudios, you're pretty close but you're still off a hair. I know it looks white, but your brain is lying to you. Do a color sample, you'll see there's still to much purple in the dress.

[DogHeadGod]

I don't think the background was white to start with. I just tried using the dress as the white point and the background remains light purple.



Adjusted for white balance and i bit of dodging to even out parts of the background. As always, if you object to me editing your image let me know and I will remove it.

I don't notice any noise, but if you are seeing it on the original i would suggest it has been under exposed and pushed too far in post processing. but again, I don't see any noise.

edit-
As I said above I don't think the original background was white. But if it is you generally need to expose for the subject and overexposure the background by having more light on it to really make it appear white. Two stops of over exposure on the background would isolate the subject, as in a product shot, so tone it down depending on what you hope to achieve.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Jamesc359

OsmosisStudios, you're pretty close but you're still off a hair. I know it looks white, but your brain is lying to you. Do a color sample, you'll see there's still to much purple in the dress.

T'was a quick attempt at a new technique. Worked fairly well, actually, for a 3 second process.