Use Pixel Shift Shooting to Cure High ISO Image Noise

Here’s a great use of the ‘pixel-shift’ feature, such as what’s available on my Nikon Z8 camera. Pixel shift is only advertised to create high-resolution shots, but here’s something that is just as useful. Camera manufacturers that offer pixel-shift capabilities on some of their models include Fuifilm, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, and Hasselblad. I tested making some shots at really, really, high ISO values. Normally, I don’t ever go there, because the quality is so terrible at extremely high ISOs. Sometimes, for instance shooting after dark, you would really like to be able to crank up the ISO to capture whatever tiny sliver of light that exists.

The digital camera sensor gets moved by fractions of a pixel in each subsequent shot during pixel-shift shooting. Special software can then combine these pixel-shifted shots together to enhance both resolution and image noise.

I did some testing using my Meike 85mm f/1.8 lens at f/2.8 on my Nikon Z8 camera.

ISO 25,600 raw-format crop from Nikon Z8: looks terrible

The shot above is an extreme crop from a shot taken 5.455 meters away. I shot from this distance to force some of the bars in the label to basically disappear, due to the high ISO and resulting image noise.

ISO 25,600 pixel-shift shot using 32 photos: Amazing

The same distance, without any re-focus, was used for my 32-shot pixel-shift shot shown above. There’s hardly any image noise, even without using my usual noise-removal software Topaz Photo. I combined the 32 shots using the Nikon NX Studio, which made an ‘NEFX’ format. The NEFX is short for “NEF-extended”. I converted the NEFX format shot into DNG using Adobe DNG Converter, which then allows me to process the shot further in almost any photo editor.

This pixel-shifted photo is 11,008 X 16,512 resolution, or 181MB.

Now I got greedy. What would happen at ISO 102,400??

ISO 102,400 raw-format from Nikon Z8: Awful

A single raw-format shot from the 32-shot sequence at ISO 102,400 looks horrible, as expected. The text can’t be read, and the bar-code wouldn’t be able to be successfully scanned.

ISO 102,400 pixel-shift shot using 32 photos

Incredibly, the ISO 102,400 32-shot pixel-shifted photo looks pretty good. Again, this shot is un-retouched without any noise removal or sharpening applied.

Pixel-shift photography costs quite a bit in terms of disk storage; a typical 32-shot NEFX shot by itself is 916 MB. After converting into DNG format, the size shrinks down to 683 MB. Huge. I generally delete the individual raw-format shots comprising the pixel-shift shot after creating my NEFX photo. After converting NEFX into DNG, I can then also delete the NEFX shot.

ISO 102,400 at E.V. -3.4, 1/10s f/2.8 85mm lens

The shot above was done in extremely low light, where your eyes could barely see anything. Grain is just plain terrible at this ISO.

Pixel-shift 32 shots, ISO 102,400 at E.V. -3.4, 1/10s f/2.8 85mm lens

The 32-shot pixel-shift at ISO 102,400 shown above just looks like a “normal” shot. You’d never know that it was shot basically in the dark. Also, this photo hasn’t had any editor processing to enhance sharpness or remove any image noise.

Some noise removal and sharpening, ISO 102,400 with 32-shot pixel-shift

I used Topaz Photo on the shot, and the results are shown above. I used ‘strong noise removal’ and ‘standard sharpening’. Aside from a few hot pixels (easy to rid with a healing brush), most people would be none the wiser about the extreme conditions under which this photo was taken.

This kind of photography is definitely niche, but if you really, really need to shoot a (static) subject at a super-high ISO, here’s a technique that’s unbeatable. It isn’t some subtle enhancement; it’s night-and-day different.