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 p.1 #1 · X2Dii: HDR Mode and Why You Might Want to Use It | |
First, this mode of shooting was mostly ignored because I only shoot raw and pride myself in being able to select the best metering mode, shutter speed, aperture and ISO combination in order to provide my best shot at capturing sufficient information to easily produce a good print.
I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, with all trips and outings cancelled in order to provide care for my elderly standard poodle, so I started to play with HDR mode, while saving both RAW and a HEIF files, which has extra brightness mapping instructions. In the process, I’ve changed my approach to shooting and what I like as an end product.
Those that object to artificial intelligence automatically interceding in the shooting process can stop here..but make sure that you also stop using modern auto-focus.
X2Dii HDR implementation involves the following:
1. Only HDR metering mode can be used, which also means no manual mode.
2. In HDR mode the camera looks for the brightest part of the scene and reduces exposure to retain highlight. It then notes what it sees in the darkest part of the image and maps this information to what is essentially instructions to the display device as to how much to lift the shadows.
The downside is that your RAW files will have a bit more noise in the shadows and internal processing slows the camera a bit, so it isn’t used along with rapid bursts, nor with exposure bracketing. Also, your stored data will increase because you are storing RAW, HEIF and what is essentially sidecar brightness/tonal mapping data.
The upside is that the rear display acts as a professional HDR monitor and you have immediate feedback as to what your final image will look like.
Unlike video, the photosphere isn’t yet oriented towards HDR stills. Most new devices can easily display HDR. For example, all new Apple IPhones will display HDR HEIF files, but you can’t store them on Flickr. Google Photos will display HDR JPEG. What I have done is to store these files on my NAS and distribute the image to family and friends via the NAS photo app. Also, I can easily display the images on my HDR TVs, which have a maximum output of 4000nits. Of course, the downside here is that images must be processed separately when I want to display the image on paper.
After a few months of using this workflow, I’m finding that, at a minimum, the HDR HEIF files look much better than traditional JPEG and many times, to my eye, seem to have been properly edited.
The only other digital camera that I have is a Sony where HDR HEIF can be produced in editing software, but short of exposure bracketing, there is no real support for HDR in camera. Of course, I can intentionally expose so as to retain highlights. I’ve been without a Sony body for some time and just received my A7Rvi, so feel free to correct me here.
So, one advantage of using the X2Dii over other systems remains resolution (ability to crop, or print large), preferred colors with little work and now HDR.
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