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I don't know why, but no matter which English seaside resort you visit (Southend-on-Sea in this instance), you'll find stalls and shops that sell hideously tacky and cheap sunglasses. Anywhere else in the country, and you'll normally find that they are more expensive and better made. Not that that's overly interesting, but it's all I could think of to say about this shot other than that I quite like it's 'pop-art' feel.

Actually, the main reason I put this one up is that it uses some software that I haven't tried before – Noise Ninja from PicureCode. As all of you who shoot digital images will be aware (particularly those of you with compact digitals like mine), digital noise is often a problem, and nearly always ugly. Noise Ninja is a software solution for removing noise (other products include Neat Image, which I haven't tried as there isn't a Mac version) and it does seem to do a good job.

If you're interested the original noisy version of this image can be seen here. Oh, and the fact that the final version is brighter than the noisy one has nothing to do with Noise Ninja. I did some more work on the image after running Noise Ninja and didn't have time to alter the original too.

camera
capture date
aperture
shutter speed
shooting mode
exposure bias
metering mode
ISO
focal length
image quality
white balance
cropped?
Canon G5
4.32pm on 30/6/04
f5.0
1/640
aperture priority
+0.0
evaluative
50
23.0mm
RAW
auto
minor/rotated
 
4x3 + self-portrait
comment by WE at 01:05 PM (GMT) on 3 July, 2004

It's like a colour pallette, excellent shot.

comment by Tudy at 03:34 PM (GMT) on 3 July, 2004

I'll give that program a try.. Im still learning how to use Neat Image. I love this image and would like to purchase the 3rd pair on the bottom.

comment by Tristan at 05:58 PM (GMT) on 3 July, 2004

Interesting shot. I like seeing the white board that they're hanging on through the different lenses.

comment by tiffany at 08:05 PM (GMT) on 3 July, 2004

nice! Thanks for showing us the original image... a few people have mentioned noise and I hadn't noticed it in my own pics except for grainy shots in dim lighting. But wow - the difference here is so striking I may need to look into this a little more.

comment by djn1 at 08:27 PM (GMT) on 3 July, 2004

Tiffany: normally (as I shoot RAW images rather than jpeg's) I don't have too much trouble with noise, but this image really didn't work in its original form. And I was quite surprised by the extent of the difference too.

comment by myla at 02:35 AM (GMT) on 4 July, 2004

Now *this* is a classic Mirror Project shot =)
love it.

comment by Brian Poulsen at 10:08 AM (GMT) on 4 July, 2004

Yup - Noise Ninja is one sweet piece of software.
Lovely photo by the way.

comment by Stephen at 12:42 PM (GMT) on 6 July, 2004

I love seaside tat - this shot just makes me want to head down to Clacton right now and buy some shades.

comment by Andrea at 02:31 PM (GMT) on 6 July, 2004

Very cool and unique! I find it so great that you always find more than just a sentence to write about your images. I never know what to say about mine...more than just "this caught my eye." Nice!

comment by mark at 08:42 PM (GMT) on 14 July, 2004

Wow, yeah, the original did have a fair amount of noise that noise ninja fixed quite nicely....I have gotten very used to Neat Imagine, but am always looking for other product. This has convinced me to go check it out tonight..

I am surprised though at the amount of noise you got at "50". Did you have some sorta sharpening in camera or something, or was it after sharpening with USM?