5D III Dynamic Range

[joshmurrah]

that means he is waiting for "flame war" with his pop corn... hic.. hic... i am getting tired of that too. however, back to your question. below is the link to show you the good way:

HDR Ep 115: Take & Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey: Adorama Photography TV

I just wanted to pop in and say THANKS for posting that! I open all image formats with ACR already for the controls, and saving as a 32-bit TIFF and reusing ACR for the controls is neat! I usually do the HDR Pro and save from that, but I'll try it this way from now on.

 

[ishdakuteb]

that means he is waiting for "flame war" with his pop corn... hic.. hic... i am getting tired of that too. however, back to your question. below is the link to show you the good way:

HDR Ep 115: Take & Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey: Adorama Photography TV

I just wanted to pop in and say THANKS for posting that! I open all image formats with ACR already for the controls, and saving as a 32-bit TIFF and reusing ACR for the controls is neat! I usually do the HDR Pro and save from that, but I'll try it this way from now on.

glad that i can help. for anyone being out there who has been wondered about bryan peterson's hair. got a message from mark wallace conforming that bryan is just fine, nothing to do with his health. he just lost a bet to his daughter so he had to shave...

 

[Hobby Shooter]

Many scenes have less than 11 stops of actual DR in the scene, in which case there's no 'deficiency'. Other scenes have more than 14 stops of DR, in which case all current dSLRs are 'deficient' and multiple bracketed exposures and HDR are the only way to capture the full scene DR, assuming you need to do so.
[/quote]
That is a very interesting perspective, never thought of that. Thanks.

I try to work with what I have, I am still far away from using my 5D3 to its limits.

 

[Dukinald]

that means he is waiting for "flame war" with his pop corn... hic.. hic... i am getting tired of that too. however, back to your question. below is the link to show you the good way:

HDR Ep 115: Take & Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey: Adorama Photography TV

I just wanted to pop in and say THANKS for posting that! I open all image formats with ACR already for the controls, and saving as a 32-bit TIFF and reusing ACR for the controls is neat! I usually do the HDR Pro and save from that, but I'll try it this way from now on.

+1

 

[rpt]

that means he is waiting for "flame war" with his pop corn... hic.. hic... i am getting tired of that too. however, back to your question. below is the link to show you the good way:

HDR Ep 115: Take & Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey: Adorama Photography TV

I just wanted to pop in and say THANKS for posting that! I open all image formats with ACR already for the controls, and saving as a 32-bit TIFF and reusing ACR for the controls is neat! I usually do the HDR Pro and save from that, but I'll try it this way from now on.

+1

@ishdakuteb, thanks. Great link.

 

[serendipidy]

The popcorn is popping as I type. :

The answer is simple, d800 has 14 stops DR compared to 11.5
This means that you from saturation and down to depest shadows have 2,5 stop better DR at base iso

See, there is the beginning of a pole - just like I predicted

So predictable - like math!

ROFL.... I love this Forum!

All around dynamic range
The Canon chased the Nikon;
The Canon thought 'twas all in fun,
Pop! goes the Nikon. ;D

 

[deleteme]

I have always struggled with DR... ever since my 4x5 zone system days. What I realized was that sometimes I just needed to add light to my shadows.

 

[kbmelb]

A little while ago a friend asked me what she needed to know about DSLRs in order to take "good" pictures.

I created an extensive list. I never mentioned dynamic range. Shame on me.

 

[CarlTN]

So far I have only done single shot HDR, in CS5. I found it helps a bit to pre adjust the clarity slider slightly to the negative side while in ACR, before opening the file in PS to begin the single shot HDR process. This might be wrong, but it sure seems to help. Anyone else notice this?

 

[rpt]

A little while ago a friend asked me what she needed to know about DSLRs in order to take "good" pictures.

I created an extensive list. I never mentioned dynamic range. Shame on me.

Not really. A good friend you are...
Like a number of people have said on this forum (and I am sure many have said so on other forums elsewhere too) that it is the finger that half clicks and then completes the click is all that matters...

They have not? Huh!

 

[CarlTN]

Bottom line, unless you are viewing the final result on some kind of very exotic, purpose-built, lighted device (whether back or front-lit)...then a picture with a lot of stops of DR...once it is printed on any kind of paper, will necessarily look "painterly". As in, you are reduced to seeing very few stops of DR with a printed image. However, even a printed image can in some ways exceed the information your computer monitor is able to display. It just looks less bright, less vivid...than a lighted display device. It gets dynamically compressed.

Under normal room lighting, my prints usually look a lot darker, duller, and less colorful, than they did on the computer screen (let alone if the room lighting isn't of neutral color temperature). Hold the print up close to a good light, and it looks a lot closer to what was on the screen. View it outdoors in the sunlight (preferably slightly diffuse), and it can also look close.

It's important when editing (and then printing) pictures, to allow for how they will usually be lit, wherever they wind up being hung, or displayed. If the final destination is only electronic on the web, then you have one less variable...but of course other considerations.

But you're never going to see 14 stops of DR, no matter what it is viewed on. Your eye saw more than that as you took the shot, so just try to remeber that as you ponder the picture, and enjoy it.

 

[mrmarks]

Bottom line, unless you are viewing the final result on some kind of very exotic, purpose-built, lighted device (whether back or front-lit)...then a picture with a lot of stops of DR...once it is printed on any kind of paper, will necessarily look "painterly". As in, you are reduced to seeing very few stops of DR with a printed image. However, even a printed image can in some ways exceed the information your computer monitor is able to display. It just looks less bright, less vivid...than a lighted display device. It gets dynamically compressed.

Under normal room lighting, my prints usually look a lot darker, duller, and less colorful, than they did on the computer screen (let alone if the room lighting isn't of neutral color temperature). Hold the print up close to a good light, and it looks a lot closer to what was on the screen. View it outdoors in the sunlight (preferably slightly diffuse), and it can also look close.

It's important when editing (and then printing) pictures, to allow for how they will usually be lit, wherever they wind up being hung, or displayed. If the final destination is only electronic on the web, then you have one less variable...but of course other considerations.

But you're never going to see 14 stops of DR, no matter what it is viewed on. Your eye saw more than that as you took the shot, so just try to remember that as you ponder the picture, and enjoy it.

So what would be a typical DR range of a LCD display and a print?

 

[Txema]

In my experience Hdr with only one shot is a very destructive process if you start up with just one shot on a limited dr camera as my 5D mark III. So, for me, HDR only works well on static subjects. I wish my 5D III would ha 14 stops DR.

Anyone knows the real difference in DR on the 5DIII between ISO 100 normal and 200 with hilight tone priority?

 

[CarlTN]

So what would be a typical DR range of a LCD display and a print?

I have no idea exactly, supposedly the photo-editing approved monitors are better than the cheap ones. Supposedly prints can display 10 stops (I think I read that somewhere). But that is 10 stops that is effectively compressed by the net result of the reflectivity of the print and whatever constitutes its emulsion, ink, or pigment...in direct light.

And people are editing 32 bit HDR files on monitors that can't even display a 16 bit file. And when that HDR file gets printed, it looks like a painting. Paintings, however, look nice. They just can't be mistaken for seeing the original event with your eye. This is especially true, when someone produces an image that looks worse than a cheesy cartoon, drawn with spray cans.

I would dare say, that the main reason a (good) HDR image looks nice, when printed, is precisely because it has been artistically altered and arranged, to compress the overall DR, and highlight the parts that make the color and/or the composition look good. I'm sure I'm not stating anything new by saying that.

This is why I don't understand the obsession with dynamic range at the low ISO end. Sure, it gives you more lattitude. However, for those of us who actually prefer to shoot things that aren't lit by a strobe, or the midday sun...the dynamic range recorded by the camera as the sensitivity is boosted, is what really affects image quality. In which case, Nikon and Canon aren't that far apart. They will both get better as time goes on. Maybe Canon will surpass overall, maybe they won't. Either way, it's better just to pick a system and go out and take pictures, and enjoy. Otherwise, you will never catch up to the world class shooters.

 

[David Hull]

Many scenes have less than 11 stops of actual DR in the scene, in which case there's no 'deficiency'. Other scenes have more than 14 stops of DR, in which case all current dSLRs are 'deficient' and multiple bracketed exposures and HDR are the only way to capture the full scene DR, assuming you need to do so.

While not false, I think this description is misleading.

A given scene usually have dark parts and bright parts. When we do image processing we might want to "dodge & burn", apply curves and levels or whatever to make the scene look "pleasing", to direct the viewers attention to something, to overcome the limitations of printers etc.

If your camera has 2 stops more of DR, then it is an indication that (depending on how you choose to expose your scene), you will have 2 stops more of highlight information, 2 stops more of shadow information, or some combination of those two. If a scene has "15 stops of DR" you will be able to make more of it with a 14-stop camera than an 11-stop camera.

I think that all of the above is relevant and fair information about camera vs scene DR. Now there are many views on the importance of DR > 10 stops. For some reason it is deemed highly important to some Nikon users, while some Canon users find it utterly unimportant. I expect that situation to flip if ever Canon release a 15-stop DR DSLR.

-h

What really matters is what sort of photography you can do with it and so far we haven't been treated to any earth shattering breakthroughs in image making as a result of these two stops of additional DR. If it was as significant as some would have us believe, then we would easily be able to walk into any gallery and pick out the Nikon images from the Canon ones – but we cannot. We continue to be treated to the same me tired, contrived examples that are completely devoid of any artistic value whatsoever and I doubt that THIS will change even if Canon were to come out with a 15 stop camera.

 

[mrmarks]

The human eye is estimated to be able to see detail across a range of 12 stops, or so, but that is estimated as without the iris adjusting, so a fair comparison to a single image. Our inbuilt aperture works so well, fast and automatically, that we can actually see detail in scenes far wider than that.

Cameras, in a single shot in RAW, can record detail across around 12 stops, some a little better, some a little worse. Now if you shoot jpeg you can only record 8 stops. When you shoot RAW 12 bit you get a potential 12 stops. True 14 bit has a ceiling of 14 stops. No camera that records in 14 bits can possibly record detail across more than 14 stops. Until camera manufacturers start releasing true 16 bit RAW files we won't see any genuine increases in DR.

Monitors display around 8 stops, very close to jpegs hence the standard. Monitor range is very dependent on ambient light, if your monitor is in a bright room it loses DR, if it is in a dark room it gets some of that lose back, but never more than the 8 or so stops.

Prints are down in the 6 stop range, this is entirely dependent on paper reflectivity and the amount of light thrown onto the print. Think about it, in a dark room a print has zero stops of discernible data!

Now this is just a very brief generalisation, each minutia could be argued about ad nausea. I am not interested.

Further to say 32 bit prints must look painterly is not true, it all depends where the ranges of interesting detail fall within the scene. For instance, if you shoot an interior but are interested in holding detail outside in the sunlight, the detail outside might be 5 stops higher, but there will be very little info between the two, you can then compress the area between the inside and outside without introducing painterly qualities. Very few scenes with huge dynamic range have smooth histograms, most have several peaks where the interesting stuff is, all you are doing is bringing those interesting bits back within displayable ranges.

This is an example of that, to retain the clouds and sky I have lowered the top end, but there are very few tones between the room and the outside that were compressed, so no "un-natural" look.

Thanks for the great info!

 

[mrmarks]

What really matters is what sort of photography you can do with it and so far we haven't been treated to any earth shattering breakthroughs in image making as a result of these two stops of additional DR. If it was as significant as some would have us believe, then we would easily be able to walk into any gallery and pick out the Nikon images from the Canon ones – but we cannot. We continue to be treated to the same me tired, contrived examples that are completely devoid of any artistic value whatsoever and I doubt that THIS will change even if Canon were to come out with a 15 stop camera.

You hit the nail on the head.

 

[well_dunno]

Is Don Quixote over? Which is the one we are watching now?

*hands out some more popcorn*

 

[DanielW]

A little while ago a friend asked me what she needed to know about DSLRs in order to take "good" pictures.

I created an extensive list. I never mentioned dynamic range. Shame on me.

Not really. A good friend you are...
Like a number of people have said on this forum (and I am sure many have said so on other forums elsewhere too) that it is the finger that half clicks and then completes the click is all that matters...

They have not? Huh!

 

[Aglet]

.. For some reason it is deemed highly important to some Nikon users, while some Canon users find it utterly unimportant. I expect that situation to flip if ever Canon release a 15-stop DR DSLR.

+1
but I aint waitin' for Canon to produce such. Even 11 or 12 stops of CLEAN DR provides a workable imaging tool.

The aspect that's constantly under-rated by most who crow about the adequacy of Canon in comparison to the sensor superiority of other mfrs is the damn pattern noise.
I'd have kept my 5d2 and 7d with the DR they had if only the base iso noise didn't look like a plaid overlay or picket fence, respectively.

..We continue to be treated to the same me tired, contrived examples that are completely devoid of any artistic value ..

Use your imagination.
I'ts nice to know you have gear that CAN do whatever you want in a challenging situation or to allow recovery from an under exposure error than to have gear which has technical limitations that would require more labor and effort to overcome.
If you're gonna pound that DR nail you could beat on it with that model 5d3 wrench or you could smack it down in one clean blow with a d800 hammer.