Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

FM Forum Rules
Wedding Resource List
  

FM Forums | Wedding Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

1      
2
       3              5       6       end
  

Archive 2012 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)

  
 
lisy78
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


jared_irl wrote:
Ale - I can do that in LR, just by bringing down the highlight slider. I was going to do it for that shot, but left it alone for experimentation purposes. It's pretty nuts.


Ah I don't have LR4 yet.

Can you try something for me? Take a shot of a subject in a reasonably contrasty situation underexpose them by 2 stops (rather than 5) then in post push your shadows 2 to 2.5 stops, your midtones 2 stops and then transition to the highlights where you actually end up pulling maybe 1/2 to 1 stop but in a really curvy kind of way...

I'd love to see the results, compared to a "properly" exposed shot



May 11, 2012 at 10:14 AM
tonyhart
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Agreed this is ridiculous. It's falling apart a touch on his jacket, but amazing DR nonetheless. The D800 is clearly king in this respect.


May 11, 2012 at 10:15 AM
PhilDrinkwater
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


It is amazing. Those Sony Exmor sensors are astonishing for DR.



May 11, 2012 at 10:22 AM
maxwell1295
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


wow...


May 11, 2012 at 10:26 AM
AlexF
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Amazing DR ...


May 11, 2012 at 10:32 AM
canerino
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


i have a question. is this example a show of great dynamic range? or is it an example of shadow recovery? or are they both the same thing? sorry for my ignorance


May 11, 2012 at 11:47 AM
martinezphoto
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Phenomenal. I would love to see what the 5D3 would produce in this situation.




May 11, 2012 at 11:56 AM
LivLif
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.2 #8 · p.2 #8 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


canerino wrote:
i have a question. is this example a show of great dynamic range? or is it an example of shadow recovery? or are they both the same thing? sorry for my ignorance


Good question! I started to ask it myself.



May 11, 2012 at 11:56 AM
lamonica66
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #9 · p.2 #9 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Wowza






May 11, 2012 at 11:57 AM
Ziffl3
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #10 · p.2 #10 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


canerino wrote:
i have a question. is this example a show of great dynamic range? or is it an example of shadow recovery? or are they both the same thing? sorry for my ignorance


I would say a great example of shadow recovery.

Dynamic range would be the entire light spectrum.
Shadow recovery is a subset of dynamic range.



May 11, 2012 at 11:59 AM
mjoshi
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #11 · p.2 #11 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


wow that is incredible...


May 11, 2012 at 12:04 PM
Scott Clark
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #12 · p.2 #12 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Yea, I don't know if this exactly fits the definition of "dynamic range"...if you take a shot in bright sunlight exposed on a grey card, dynamic range will be determined by how much detail is present in the ends of the exposure spectrum. IIRC black and white film is somewhere around 10 stops...digital cameras have typically been around 6 I think (I'm going on memory here, so feel free to correct me). Would love to see what that camera can actually hold in terms of highlights and shadows...I'm sure it's very impressive.


May 11, 2012 at 12:07 PM
canerino
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #13 · p.2 #13 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Scott Clark wrote:
Yea, I don't know if this exactly fits the definition of "dynamic range"...if you take a shot in bright sunlight exposed on a grey card, dynamic range will be determined by how much detail is present in the ends of the exposure spectrum. IIRC black and white film is somewhere around 10 stops...digital cameras have typically been around 6 I think (I'm going on memory here, so feel free to correct me). Would love to see what that camera can actually hold in terms of highlights and shadows...I'm sure it's very impressive.



exactly my thoughts.

i'm only seeing examples claiming great dynamic range like the one in this thread. hell yea it impressive! but i started to actually think about 'dynamic range'. granted, i dont really know exactly what dynamic range is, but these examples seem more like 'amazing shadow recovery'.

i'd really like to see a scene of a bride getting ready in a room back lit by windows or a glass sliding door or something really bright. i think we'd be able to see how much highlight detail and shadow detail the d800 could handle. my guess it that it would handle it really well...but how well?



May 11, 2012 at 12:25 PM
canerino
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #14 · p.2 #14 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


lisy78 wrote:
Also you should clarify what you mean by "properly exposed"

Certainly you've heard of "shoot to the right" which isn't necessarily a mantra involving shooting "properly exposed" ... this sensor may in fact benefit (more than any other on the market) from "shooting to the left" ... provided that it gets you mind-boggling images we can agree to call that "properly" right?

Hum... artist types using the word "properly" in conversation... tsk tsk tsk




i'll try. the OP wrote: "Camera was set for the outside shot, then we went inside and immediately jumped on the ski-ball machine. I got a proper exposed shot two frames later, but this was a great test."

his exposure for the flubbed shot was 1/320th, f/2.8, ISO100. He then pushed it 5 stops in LR to produce the shot he hoped to produce originally. so, in this particular case, a 'proper' exposure would be 1/320th, f/2.8, ISO3200 (or close to it).

artistically speaking, is anything really 'proper'? no. but this seemed more of a technical thread.

i did a quick google search for 'proper exposure' and came to luminous landscapes. here is what they say (and I agree with):

"2 - The Importance of Proper Exposure
Exposing each photograph properly is of utmost importance in order to get the best print possible from this one image. This is because, whether you use film or digital capture, your original film or digital image contains all the information you will ever get of the scene you photographed.

Ansel Adams was originally trained as a professional pianist. He often made comparisons between photography and music. In regard to exposure, he compared the negative to the score and the print to the performance. Today, we can extend this score to transparencies and Raw files. The performance, the print, has not changed. Neither has the overall idea behind Adams’ comparison. The better the score, the better the performance will be.

In order to get the best score possible, you want as much information from the scene you photographed recorded on film, or on the Raw file, as possible. Ideally, you want details everywhere in the scene. Since the two most important areas of this scene are the shadows and the highlights areas, you want to make sure that you have details in both.

The problem is that getting details in both shadow and highlight areas is difficult. This difficulty stems from the contrast range that can be captured by the specific film, or digital sensor, you are using. This contrast range, which is measured in f-stops, varies from film to film and from sensor to sensor. From this statement we can already deduce one of the most important tenets of exposure: in order to expose your film, or digital file, properly, you must know its contrast range."





Edited on May 11, 2012 at 01:13 PM · View previous versions



May 11, 2012 at 12:41 PM
Scott Clark
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #15 · p.2 #15 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


canerino wrote:
exactly my thoughts.

i'm only seeing examples claiming great dynamic range like the one in this thread. hell yea it impressive! but i started to actually think about 'dynamic range'. granted, i dont really know exactly what dynamic range is, but these examples seem more like 'amazing shadow recovery'.

i'd really like to see a scene of a bride getting ready in a room back lit by windows or a glass sliding door or something really bright. i think we'd be able to see how much highlight detail and shadow detail the d800 could handle. my guess it that it
...Show more

I've been wondering the same thing. I'd also like to see that comparison made with (cough) the 5D3.
If the sensor really does have 9, or 10 stops of DR, theoretically you shoot with the zone system...using highlight and shadow recovery in LR isn't technically that different from using development to control the same thing in a negative. Obviously nobody is going to want to use the full DR of a scene all the time, but knowing the information is there if you choose to bring it back would be a hell of a thing. Everything in photography is a compromise, but that would certainly open up more possibilities.



May 11, 2012 at 12:53 PM
Steve Tinetti
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #16 · p.2 #16 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


For all those interested, the over/under on how many posts it would take before someone mentioned Ansel Adams in a thread containing "Dynamic Range" in the title was 28.


May 11, 2012 at 12:55 PM
RobertLynn
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #17 · p.2 #17 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


He started at 100, and pushed it 5 stops.
It's Iso 3200 equiv.

By definition, it isn't a showcase of dynamic range. More the recovery of usable data from an underexposed shot. With that said, one could argue that it shows the dynamic range of a photo that underwent 5 stops of shadow recovery. One could also argue that it is the dynamic range of the captured image data in an underexposed image.



May 11, 2012 at 12:55 PM
ausemmao
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #18 · p.2 #18 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


canerino wrote:
exactly my thoughts.

i'm only seeing examples claiming great dynamic range like the one in this thread. hell yea it impressive! but i started to actually think about 'dynamic range'. granted, i dont really know exactly what dynamic range is, but these examples seem more like 'amazing shadow recovery'.

i'd really like to see a scene of a bride getting ready in a room back lit by windows or a glass sliding door or something really bright. i think we'd be able to see how much highlight detail and shadow detail the d800 could handle. my guess it that it
...Show more

They are the same thing (especially for digital where there is a hard clip for highlights).

The more DR you have, the more light levels within the scene that can be usefully captured in a single exposure. Someone mentioned it above - the D800 is a camera that you can happily "expose to the left" to protect highlights - at base ISO at least.

Deepbluejh's comment about a pushed exposure always being worse than an "in camera" one isn't actually true for Exmor sensors if you're wanting to preserve highlights.

I've got a couple of test shots from a wakeboarding session that I could send to you for you to play around with. Bits of sky peeking out behind clouds with some riders warming up, so it's kind of similar to what you'd have if you were shooting in a room lit by a window. It's on a D7000, so expect half to an additional full stop of dynamic range from a D800 doing the same thing.


DSC_5220ooc by ausemmao, on Flickr

Exposed for the sky, notice it's about right.


DSC_5220ooc2 by ausemmao, on Flickr

Notice that the blue in the sky still hasn't blown out and is still near ideal, even with the shadows pushed 5+ stops (those trees are registering 0,0,1 or 0,2,3 or 0,0,0 SOOC)

Snapsy has some done in a bar with a D800, with a TV as the highlight. So imagine that's the window in the dressing room with a bright day outside. That's what DR can come in handy for.

Display DR (print, screen, whatever) is always worse than capture DR for any even vaguely modern photographic method (except maybe slide film). Higher DR allows you to choose the relationship between different parts of a scene rather than having it imposed on you. Also bear in mind that increased capture DR isn't free. Increasing capture DR reduces contrast, making images appear flat because of the limitations of display media. You have to PP them in a way that you don't have to with lower DR capture.



May 11, 2012 at 12:59 PM
canerino
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #19 · p.2 #19 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Steve Tinetti wrote:
For all those interested, the over/under on how many posts it would take before someone mentioned Ansel Adams in a thread containing "Dynamic Range" in the title was 28.



lol.



May 11, 2012 at 01:07 PM
tobicus
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #20 · p.2 #20 · D800 dynamic range (at a wedding!)


Very impressive.


May 11, 2012 at 01:07 PM
1      
2
       3              5       6       end




FM Forums | Wedding Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

1      
2
       3              5       6       end
    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.