When I got my D800, I did the slider thing and was wowed by how much dynamic range there was. I've also read a many postings that show samples going from dark to light with the same image.

Still, I haven't really taken advantage of it, and have continued to bracket images and blend them in post. But this morning, I was reviewing some sunrise shots, and noticed that one shot had the full histogram in range. So just for fun, in LR, I did the following:

Lowered the exposure down to the point of properly exposing the background (sunrise), then hit command E to bring it in to PS.
Then I did the reverse, (expose up) to lighten up the rocks in the foreground. Again, hitting command E to bring it into PS.

In PS I blended the two exposures just as I would normally do if I had two separate images that were exposed at different shutter speeds.

The result is below. Remember this is ONE image with NO GND filter.

Impressive indeed.

Better raw converter technologies have done lots of heavy-lifting behind the scene too.

and now imagine to use some better developer then LR, you get another stop for free No need to use PS also. With capture one you can do it directly

and shame the high lights are still burnt out

No offense, but that's easily done with my canon rebel. I have files to back it up. LR4 allows you to lift shadows like a mofo. I'm sure this is true with plenty of other modern DSLRs.

So I get a kick out of all the people running around showing off their lifted shadow shots on the d800 -- that itself isn't anything amazing.

Here's where the d800 will distinguish itself, though: it lifts shadows cleanly. At least I can only assume. It's the quality moreso than the ability that impresses me here.

moonpeep wrote:
No offense, but that's easily done with my canon rebel. I have files to back it up. LR4 allows you to lift shadows like a mofo. I'm sure this is true with plenty of other modern DSLRs.

So I get a kick out of all the people running around showing off their lifted shadow shots on the d800 -- that itself isn't anything amazing.

Here's where the d800 will distinguish itself, though: it lifts shadows cleanly. At least I can only assume. It's the quality moreso than the ability that impresses me here.



I guess the fact the D800 has three stops greater dynamic range than the Canon Rebel doesn't really mean anything. Glad you straightened us all out...

moonpeep wrote:
No offense, but that's easily done with my canon rebel. I have files to back it up. LR4 allows you to lift shadows like a mofo. I'm sure this is true with plenty of other modern DSLRs.

So I get a kick out of all the people running around showing off their lifted shadow shots on the d800 -- that itself isn't anything amazing.

Here's where the d800 will distinguish itself, though: it lifts shadows cleanly. At least I can only assume. It's the quality moreso than the ability that impresses me here.


I wouldn't call the shadow lifting from a rebel (at least my t1i) an ability, more like a disability. HA!

Seriously though, if you can't lift them cleanly, is it really an ability? Sure I can lift shadows from cell phone pictures, but they're not clean!

moonpeep wrote:
No offense, but that's easily done with my canon rebel. I have files to back it up. LR4 allows you to lift shadows like a mofo. I'm sure this is true with plenty of other modern DSLRs.

So I get a kick out of all the people running around showing off their lifted shadow shots on the d800 -- that itself isn't anything amazing.

Here's where the d800 will distinguish itself, though: it lifts shadows cleanly. At least I can only assume. It's the quality moreso than the ability that impresses me here.





That's just a bunch of nonsense.....

form wrote:

You guys missed my point.

My point was that the d800 -- and its dynamic range -- allow for much better *quality* shadow lifting.

And that's why it's much better.

At least given what I've seen.

I was stating that many people seem to think the d800 is great because it can extract a lot of information from shadows ... they show low res examples from LR4 of lifted shadows and people marvel.

That's more LR4 than the d800. Show a higher res copy between d800 and the rebel and people would see the real difference.

Fred Miranda pointed this out quite well in his test comparing 5dIII lifted shadows vs d800... 5DIII was noisy and d800 had minimal noise.

This make sense?

NickHenderson wrote:
moonpeep wrote:
No offense, but that's easily done with my canon rebel. I have files to back it up. LR4 allows you to lift shadows like a mofo. I'm sure this is true with plenty of other modern DSLRs.

So I get a kick out of all the people running around showing off their lifted shadow shots on the d800 -- that itself isn't anything amazing.

Here's where the d800 will distinguish itself, though: it lifts shadows cleanly. At least I can only assume. It's the quality moreso than the ability that impresses me here.


I wouldn't call the shadow lifting from a rebel (at least my t1i) an ability, more like a disability. HA!

Seriously though, if you can't lift them cleanly, is it really an ability? Sure I can lift shadows from cell phone pictures, but they're not clean!

Exactly... that was my whole point. D800 is great because of quality of the lifting, not so much that it can lift. I pointed this out because i've seen many people wowed on photography forums over simple LR4 work on low res images. Nevermind the quality of the image!

form wrote:


As an aside, if I had shot this with my 5d2 and decided I wanted to change it from a silhouette to having them exposed properly, I would have had no chance of recovering this image.

just post one of your silhouette images taken with 5D2. see whether or not we can do something about it.

moonpeep wrote:
You guys missed my point.


I'm not sure anyone missed the point...but you.

well here is 1dx and d800 from today and difference in results in lowest levels. The 2 Cameras are exactly the same exposed regarding time, f-stop and 100iso , the low levels lifted equal in CR http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50055625
How can I post pictures at Fred Miranda?

I am curious as to why you could not have done this all in LR. Just lower the highlights and bring up the shadows. If you wanted more control in those areas you could have just used the adjustment brush.

Steve

As a few have mentioned, you could probably have done all this in LR just bringing up the shadows slider or using a bush. Combing two differently exposed shots will still probably give the ultimate result though - lower noise in the shadows.

mshi wrote:
Better raw converter technologies have done lots of heavy-lifting behind the scene too.

I noticed I could pull out huge amounts more details from my D700 files with LR4. Here is a good comparison of the progress made from (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/techniques/tonal_adjustments_in_the_age_of_lightroom_4.shtml)


+50 Fill Light in Lightroom 2 (PV2003)


+90 Fill Light in Lightroom 3 (PV2010)


+100 Shadows in Lightroom 4 (PV2012)

LR 4 is awesome.