Long Exposure Noise Reduction

© Adobe Stock/Colin & Linda McKie

Many cameras have a feature called Long Exposure Noise Reduction and as tempting as that name may sound, I don’t recommend using it. The first downside is that the noise reduction is applied in your camera immediately after you take the shot, and it doubles the amount of time needed before you can take another shot (or in many cases, before you can even see your shot on the back of the camera). For example, if you took a 6 1/2-minute exposure with Long Exposure Noise Reduction turned on, you’ll have to wait an additional 6 1/2 minutes for the noise reduction to be applied, so now you’re waiting 13 minutes to see if your shot came out okay. Worse yet, the noise it reduces is a slightly different kind of noise than you’re used to, so you might have to do some regular noise reduction afterward in post-processing anyway. So, in short, I don’t turn this feature on in my camera. If I have to do some noise reduction, I do it in Lightroom or Photoshop’s Camera Raw. I apply the noise reduction to the original RAW image, and then only in the spots where it really needs it (see page 173), which is something your camera can’t do—it’s going to apply that noise reduction to the entire image.