p.4 #1Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
Lee Saxon wrote:
I understand why DPR and others test dynamic range in terms of examining the shadows in a severely pushed exposure, but IMHO that (or, relatedly, doing some kind of HDR tone-mapping, which OP alludes to disliking [as do I]) is not the real-world use case for extra dynamic range. The real world use case is being able to Expose To The Right as much as possible--to avoid *needing* to push shadow exposure, aka to capture as much clean data in the shadow areas as possible--while leaving the highlights not blown out and able to be pulled back down into non-HDR range. My last two cameras have been the D850 and GFX 100, and the difference in their ability to do that has been meaningfully useful. Now, sure, the A7r5 is somewhere between those cameras in DR, so you're not looking at as much of an upgrade, but I still sometimes use grad NDs and exposure bracketing at times with the GFX 100 so I'm a big proponent of there not being such a thing as too much dynamic range....Show more →
Agreed, which I why I recently started a thread on Dpreview arguing for a change to their "Exposure Latitude" methodology that factors in the highlight headroom the camera's default middle-gray metering / raw ADU placement, which is the information an ETTR strategy would use. Here's a link to the thread:
p.4 #2Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: chiron wroteI asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
--Claude answered:--
"Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
--End of Claude--
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.That's really interesting, I assumed the opposite that prints would have lessor dynamic range.
I think the reason a low dynamic range print/painting can look really good is that our eyes are adaptive. We adjust to the brightest white and blackest black within our visual field of view.
Once I was exhibiting a matt image of mine and placed it right next to a glossy. That didn't turn out well as the glossy made the matt image look flat and horrible, but by itself it was fine.
I think that part of what might have given you that impression about the relative dynamic ranges of paintings and photos is the way in which paintings can convey color that has more depth and luminosity than photographs do. For one thing, the colors in paintings are literally 3-dimensional because they are composed of brushstrokes that are raised above the surface, however slightly. So, they have some of the qualities of a solid object.
Also, traditional oil painters work with layers of colors that a viewer looks into and through. They start with a chosen color for the underlayer, which covers the entire canvas, then they build up layers of substantive paint over the underlayer (which colors everything) and then multiple colored glazes over the paint that the viewer looks into and in the combined effect of all the layers. This is how Vermeer gets beautiful color shadings in his shadows and highlights as well as in the middle tones. If you look at close-ups of Vermeer's painting, you see multiple colors and shades occurring together but separately in very close proximity, virtually never a single color by itself. This is the effect of the multiple layers overlapping each other to different degrees of overlap and transparency, some thin and some slightly thicker. The image is built of all of these multiple layers.
And because the glazes are semi-transparent to a greater or lesser degree, light can enter into them and then reflect from the deeper layers. With Vermeer's paintings, the light often seems to come from within the painting.
I think there must be ways to do something at least partly equivalent with photographic prints, but I am still not skilled enough in post-processing to approach it.
p.4 #3Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
snapsy wrote: ruthenium wrotechiron wrotesbay wrotechiron wroteYet, obviously, many paintings are spectacularly beautiful without doing anything like HDR and with a more limited dynamic and contrast range. That might teach us something about how much dynamic range we actually need to make a beautiful photograph.When you say dynamic range, are you talking about the dynamic range of the painting itself? or the scene that the painter captured?
A plein air painter will paint an outdoor scene and have to deal with the exact same dynamic range challenges that a photographer would have to handle. Except the painter relies on their eyes to "capture" the information in the scene and then translate it to the more limited dynamic range of the canvas. A photographer would have to rely on the sensor to do the same, and then during editing map it to the more limited dynamic range of the monitor, or paper.
For paper, people normally talk about contrast range. A matt paper might have a contrast ratio (darkest black to brightest white) of 100:1 and a glossy paper might have a ratio of 200:1. I guess that's roughly to 7 to 8 stops.
I suspect paintings have greater contrast ratio than prints because they can use a wider variety of pigments. Apparently there are specialty paints, like Vanta Black, that can absorb 99.965% of light. I think that works out to a 3000:1 contrast ratio (11.5 stops). But even using something like Vanta Black, they are still mapping the scene they see with their eyes (maybe 15stops?) into the much reduced range of the canvas and paint. So I guess you could say they are still doing "HDR" except manually.I am definitely talking about the dynamic or tonal range of the painting itself. Here's what Claude 4.8 came up with, which is somewhat different from your figures and closer to my experience of viewing images (and I think closer to Dan's points). But I appreciate what you are saying and I know that I may be not understanding your points clearly.
From Claude 4.8:
I asked: "Do oil paintings have anything equivalent to dynamic range in photography?
--Claude answered:--
"Yes, though the equivalent is more constrained and works differently.
"The closest concept is tonal range or the value scale an oil painting can render. A photograph captured digitally might encode 10–14 stops of dynamic range, but any reflective print—oil paintings included—is bounded by the physics of pigment and surface. The brightest possible value is the reflectance of the lightest paint (titanium white, lead white) and the darkest is whatever the darkest pigment absorbs short of perfect blackness. In practice this gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces—comparable to a matte photographic print, and dramatically less than what a backlit screen or the original scene offers. So oil paint has a "dynamic range," but it's a narrow one, and the painter's entire craft of value management is essentially the problem of compressing a high-range world into that limited band."
--End of Claude--
What is interesting about painting's more limited dynamic-tonal and contrast range is how painters use it to create beautiful light and images. For example, Vermeer's rendering of light is exceptionally beautiful, yet the dynamic range in his images is very limited.I think this is clear now that what interests you (and I share this interest) is different from the dynamic range of a camera.
You are interested in how one can create a visual illusion while using pigments which reflectance "gives a contrast ratio of roughly 30:1 to 50:1 for most paint surfaces". I believe that the key to the understanding of this illusion is in the nature of human (and animal and bird) vision. Our eyes can only tell if one patch is lighter or darker than another. We are relatively indifferent (to a degree) to the exact amount of light reflected from each patch. Thus, as long as a reproduction (painting or photo) respects the tonal differences in a scene, this scene should create an illusion of being realistic, even when the tonal differences can be highly compressed.
The dynamic range of a camera is about the amount of light (photons) that can be captured, relative to the intrinsic camera noise. Although both the light and the noise are "two sides of the same coin", there is little we can do about the noise (except manipulating it digitally, or cooling the camera sensor). Thus, the principal way to improve the dynamic range is by developing sensors that can capture more light - that have a greater "full well capacity".
To answer the question on whether more dynamic range can be useful to a photographer, one should ask the direct question on whether this photographer should benefit from the ability to capture more light. Note that this is different from asking whether this photographer might be interested in deep shadow recovery.
In simplified terms, add a stop of DR, and your camera would double the number of photons it can capture. More DR means that one can capture more bright scenes without losing details in the highlights.
Is this always necessary? - obviously not, only when one has bright light in a scene.
Is this always feasible in practice? - no, for the simple reason that the increased exposure necessitates progressively lower ISO. The usual implementation of ISO in a camera is through the shutter speed or the aperture. A really low ISO may mean a really slow SS that is impractical if there is some movement that the photographer intends to capture.
It needs to be added that the subject of dynamic range of a camera sensor can be confused or conflated with the dynamic range (bit depth) of the analogue-to-digital converter in the camera. I think it is the later that is more important for shadow recovery than the former.Hmm, in my last reply I shared a PTOP link I generated showing the a7rVI's PDR advantage is from its lower read noise. I also previously described how DR/PDR is a full-range measurement and that shadows vs highlights is only a metering/exposure construct, so not sure what to make of your latest reply.
I believe you presumed that that post was about the A7RVI, while the post didn't mention this particular camera at all (I think this was Dave's problem with the post as well).
Regarding the A7RVI, I am aware of what you refer to, as I noted in post #4 on p.2 of this thread: "the PDR 12.55 of the A7RVI... is larger than that for A7RV (11.69), yet this is not achieved by capturing more light with the A7RVI. To the best of my understanding, this better PDR of A7RVI is the result of applying selectively a lower gain toward the "shadow signal" from the sensor."
When dealing with the general (disconnected from the specifics of the A7RVI) question on whether a larger dynamic range is useful ("Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point", as in this thread title), my view is that it is useful, when it is achieved by increasing the ability of a camera to capture more light. Thus, the post that you refere to in "not sure what to make of your latest reply" was expressing my liking of the ability to capture more light with the extended dynamic range (such as that of the GFX100S II, for example).
p.4 #4Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
Cliff L. wrote:
I didn't read the entire thread, but the impression I got is that everyone is talking about dynamic range at a single point, typically the camera's base ISO (where most cameras are now "good enough"), but there's more to it than that.
What I'm more interested in is how well the camera's dynamic range holds up as ISO increases - since you can can now easily deal with high ISO noise in post-processing, but you can't bring back dynamic range that isn't there. That's where the real advantage of a sensor with high dynamic range lies.
The usual case when sensor A has a better dynamic range than sensor B is at the base ISO, or not far from that. This is because only at the base ISO sensor A can capture more light than sensor B (for example: the GFX100S II at ISO 80 vs A7RV at ISO 100).
At high ISO, the same two sensors should have practically the same dynamic range under the conditions of photographic equivalence (for example, GFX100SII at ISO 12800 and A7RV at ISO 8000), for the reason that these conditions ensure the same amount of light reaching the sensors.
All of the above, naturally, assumes that the camera noise is not reduced digitally (e.g. no denoising applied in raw, or no dual/two-level gain is used) in one of the two cameras.
At high ISO, there's relatively little light reaching the sensor; thus, the signal in the signal-to-noise ratio is small, hence the dynamic range is intrinsically low. The only way to improve on this is by reducing the noise. I am not aware of a consumer-oriented camera that has this advantage of significantly low noise at high ISO. If there is some - I would be interested in knowing that.
p.4 #5Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
RoamingScott wrote: guidostow wroteMost adults can see 24-25 stops. Matt paper can deliver 4-7.5 stops, glossy 6-8, jpeg 8-11 HDR ~17ish (last two are device dependent). Recording as many stops of noise free data as possible provides the most control over mapping shadow and highlight detail into the chosen output range.This is a good point that has been mostly glossed over. We are already well into the range of DR on modern cameras that only benefits the photographer in the editing room...your final JPEG that gets posted to Fred Miranda or IG or Flickr won't have as much range, and if you print, you're already in 3x overkill territory.
In practical terms, regarding how photography has been done for ages, we have what we need now. Unless some new form of taking and consuming photos emerges, there's no urgent "need" for more DR, just the desire of the pixel peepers and people who can't otherwise make an interesting image....Show more →
I fully agree with "We are already well into the range of DR on modern cameras that only benefits the photographer in the editing room". I think this is a correct answer to what is the "Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point". In other words, the added dynamic range is of interest to those who are shooting at the base (or close to) ISO, editing raw files, and dealing with the extremes (shadows and highlights) in the raw files.
On the other hand, "your final JPEG that gets posted to Fred Miranda or IG or Flickr won't have as much range, and if you print, you're already in 3x overkill territory" is irrelevant(!) in a discussion of the dynamic range of a camera.
The camera dynamic range and the bit depth of a container (e.g. jpg) used to fit the visual data are unrelated parameters. There is no need for the final product (jpg, print) to have a wide dynamic range for viewing, as this has been aptly illustrated by the example of painted art. However, a large dynamic range in a camera is needed to capture as much of the the visual content as possible, prior to fitting it into a smaller digital container jpg.
I don't find this useful when a discussion of the camera dynamic range is conflated with the discussion of the bit depth of the final product in print or viewed on an electronic device. Also, it is not useful to apply the terminology "dynamic range" to painted images. One can measure the tonal range of a painting, but referring to that as the "dynamic range" is confusing at best.
p.4 #6Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
^^^
Concerning the above, you are right that the DR of jpg files isn’t really directly relevant here, especially in light of the fact that (as mentioned earlier in this thread) the real value of large DR in cameras is to provide working space in post so that final images in DR limited formats (which all are) can include values form darkest and lightest areas.
There are two ways, however, in this mentioning jpg DR in a thread about camera DR kind of makes sense:
1. Today’s cameras do a fair amount of (sometimes a lot of) internal processing of the initial raw data when they generate a JPG output, so I suppose that a camera JPG system might possibly use that larger range as a starting point. However…
2. … few (to no) photographers who shoot only JPG will ever see the full advantage of cameras that record high DR raw images. That advantage is there to be utilized by people who know how to work files in post.
p.4 #7Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
ruthenium wrote: Cliff L. wroteI didn't read the entire thread, but the impression I got is that everyone is talking about dynamic range at a single point, typically the camera's base ISO (where most cameras are now "good enough"), but there's more to it than that.
What I'm more interested in is how well the camera's dynamic range holds up as ISO increases - since you can can now easily deal with high ISO noise in post-processing, but you can't bring back dynamic range that isn't there. That's where the real advantage of a sensor with high dynamic range lies.The usual case when sensor A has a better dynamic range than sensor B is at the base ISO, or not far from that. This is because only at the base ISO sensor A can capture more light than sensor B (for example: the GFX100S II at ISO 80 vs A7RV at ISO 100).
At high ISO, the same two sensors should have practically the same dynamic range under the conditions of photographic equivalence (for example, GFX100SII at ISO 12800 and A7RV at ISO 8000), for the reason that these conditions ensure the same amount of light reaching the sensors.
All of the above, naturally, assumes that the camera noise is not reduced digitally (e.g. no denoising applied in raw, or no dual/two-level gain is used) in one of the two cameras.
At high ISO, there's relatively little light reaching the sensor; thus, the signal in the signal-to-noise ratio is small, hence the dynamic range is intrinsically low. The only way to improve on this is by reducing the noise. I am not aware of a consumer-oriented camera that has this advantage of significantly low noise at high ISO. If there is some - I would be interested in knowing that....Show more →
Some cameras are optimized for high ISO and do give higher DR at high ISO than general-purpose cameras or cameras optimized for base ISO. However, this difference today is not huge. I find the D6 (and D5 which has a similar sensor but slightly slower readout) is somehow giving more beautiful images in indoor sports lighting conditions (in my case, figure skating), less noise and more beautiful color vs. a general-purpose camera that is not specifically optimized for such conditions, such as D850 or Z8. Measurements by photonstophotos or dxomark support this. What technological solutions they used to achieve this, I don't know. Some people would say that the extra megapixels of the Z8 would lead to higher-quality final outcome but in my subjective perception the color and tonality are more important and fine detail is only relevant in cropping (necessitating an even faster shutter speed & correspondingly poorer SNR) and / or if making a very large print under very strong lighting conditions which are not really present in such circumstances. Yes, you can edit the colors but for high-volume photography it may not be that practical to spend a lot of time doing that, depending on the priorities of the photographer. Generally if the lens is f/2.8 or slower I prefer to use the D6 for this application and with the 200/2 I use the Z8 since the image quality is more manageable when I can keep the ISO at a moderate value with that camera. I use an ISO 64 optimal camera for landscape, architecture, and studio flash work and while it gives far superior results for that kind of work, I do not consider it or its close siblings to be in the running for high ISO image quality. People talk about AI noise reduction etc. but that doesn't actually add subject or scene information that was not captured in the image, it can result in a mannequin-like rendering of the subject with no flaws but also no subtle tonal information true to the subject, since it was not captured. For what it's worth NASA also used the D5 as the main camera for their Artemis moon flight while the Z9 was available, and while I don't know their exact reasons I recall they published some extremely high ISO images and my guess is that they did their testing and figured out which camera would perform best under the lighting conditions available when the Earth is mainly lit by the sunlight's reflection from the Moon etc.
Things may be slightly different for other brands but generally it seems possible to always optimize a camera for specific ISO ranges and lighting get a slightly better result than a camera optimized for base ISO, if the manufacturer chooses to prioritize applications that depend on and benefit from it.
p.4 #8Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
snapsy wrote: Lee Saxon wroteI understand why DPR and others test dynamic range in terms of examining the shadows in a severely pushed exposure, but IMHO that (or, relatedly, doing some kind of HDR tone-mapping, which OP alludes to disliking [as do I]) is not the real-world use case for extra dynamic range. The real world use case is being able to Expose To The Right as much as possible--to avoid *needing* to push shadow exposure, aka to capture as much clean data in the shadow areas as possible--while leaving the highlights not blown out and able to be pulled back down into non-HDR range. My last two cameras have been the D850 and GFX 100, and the difference in their ability to do that has been meaningfully useful. Now, sure, the A7r5 is somewhere between those cameras in DR, so you're not looking at as much of an upgrade, but I still sometimes use grad NDs and exposure bracketing at times with the GFX 100 so I'm a big proponent of there not being such a thing as too much dynamic range.Agreed, which I why I recently started a thread on Dpreview arguing for a change to their "Exposure Latitude" methodology that factors in the highlight headroom the camera's default middle-gray metering / raw ADU placement, which is the information an ETTR strategy would use. Here's a link to the thread:
p.4 #9Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
ilkka_nissila wrote:
Yes, you can edit the colors but for high-volume photography it may not be that practical to spend a lot of time doing that, depending on the priorities of the photographer.
On the other hand, if there is, as you suggest, a specific and objectively measurable difference in the color from the systems you should be able to simply create a preset (or some kind of profile) that could be applied in bulk with hardly any effort or time required.
In other words, making the color from camera A look like the color from camera B would not likely require a lot of image-specific processing at all, FWIw.
p.4 #10Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: racetratr wroteI rarely need more dynamic range from my camera when shooting at base ISO. Yeah, I like having more leeway in post production, but that's not absolutely critical. When I really could use more dynamic range is when doing fast-paced street photography at night at ISO 6400. Unfortunately, that isn't gonna happen, unless and until there are major reductions in sensor/camera noise.Sony cameras have wide ranges where they are ISO invariant. Instead of shooting at ISO 6400, keep the same shutter and aperture but drop the ISO to 800 and you'll have +3 stops of dynamic range.
Thanks for your suggestion.
I kind of understand the theory. I cap ISO in some situations for that reason, in better light. But would it be practical in the case I mentioned?
I often have to shoot at, say, 1/1000 sec and f1.8 on the street at night. I manually set those parameters--they are kind of inflexible. I set auto ISO for up to 6400 as the third part of the exposure triangle. I often have to push in post a bit anyhow, since 6400 may not be enough.
Looking at the A7RV's sensor measurements, changing from ISO 6400 to 800 would seem to add slightly more than two stops of dynamic range (not 3).
But meanwhile, my biggest problem is holding the shadows, not DR in the abstract. Doesn't increasing the ISO past 800 increase gain or sensitivity in the shadows?
If it is it true that I would lose nothing in the deep shadows if I set auto ISO to 800 instead of 6400 in the dark, I would reset my viewfinder, do it, and gain DR. But that doesn't match my experience.
p.4 #11Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
gdanmitchell wrote:
2. … few (to no) photographers who shoot only JPG will ever see the full advantage of cameras that record high DR raw images. That advantage is there to be utilized by people who know how to work files in post.
I suspect this will change soon. If/when camera makers wake up and realize that iPhone is a competitor, they will be making massive investments in their JPEG engines.
p.4 #12Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
Make sure that you are using a monitor that can display HDR material. These are just a sampling of images where I processed LRC X2D Tiff files generated by Phocus Desktop as HDR & SDR images. Zonerama stores HDR as a HDR JPG, so maybe not the best rendition of HDR. HDR seems to add to some images, cause distraction in others and for some really doesn’t make much of a difference.
p.4 #13Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
racetratr wrote:
I kind of understand the theory. I cap ISO in some situations for that reason, in better light. But would it be practical in the case I mentioned?
I often have to shoot at, say, 1/1000 sec and f1.8 on the street at night. I manually set those parameters--they are kind of inflexible. I set auto ISO for up to 6400 as the third part of the exposure triangle. I often have to push in post a bit anyhow, since 6400 may not be enough.
Looking at the A7RV's sensor measurements, changing from ISO 6400 to 800 would seem to add slightly more than two stops of dynamic range (not 3). ...Show more →
Looking at photonstophotons, I see the following for A7RV
* ISO 6400 -- PDR 6.22
* ISO 800 -- PDR 9.19
So almost exactly 3 stops, difference is probably within the margin of error.
But meanwhile, my biggest problem is holding the shadows, not DR in the abstract. Doesn't increasing the ISO past 800 increase gain or sensitivity in the shadows?
Increasing ISO makes the shadows brighter but they won't be any cleaner than bumping the exposure the same amount in editing. This is true for Sony cameras that are ISO invariant (once past the second gain threshold which is at ISO 320 for the a7RV). But for a camera that is not iso invariant, like the canon 6d, increasing the ISO does result in cleaner shadows at the higher ISO settings.
If it is it true that I would lose nothing in the deep shadows if I set auto ISO to 800 instead of 6400 in the dark, I would reset my viewfinder, do it, and gain DR. But that doesn't match my experience.
That's correct. If you keep shutter and aperture constant but drop ISO, you do gain dynamic range but this is from increasing the brightest object you can record without clipping at the top. The noise level of the shadows doesn't change (they have the same amount of total light recorded and the read noise doesn't change) which is what you observed.
What you can do in this case is drop the ISO to 800 and then increase the exposure by 3 stops to 1/125. Your shadows will be 3 stops cleaner because you actually increased the amount of light recorded. You will also have the same blown highlights as the ISO 6400 shot at 1/1000 shutter speed because you counteracted the increased shutter time with lower amplification from ISO.
However, this only works if 1/125 shutter speed is fast enough to freeze subject motion for you.
p.4 #14Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
sbay wrote: racetratr wroteI kind of understand the theory. I cap ISO in some situations for that reason, in better light. But would it be practical in the case I mentioned?
I often have to shoot at, say, 1/1000 sec and f1.8 on the street at night. I manually set those parameters--they are kind of inflexible. I set auto ISO for up to 6400 as the third part of the exposure triangle. I often have to push in post a bit anyhow, since 6400 may not be enough.
Looking at the A7RV's sensor measurements, changing from ISO 6400 to 800 would seem to add slightly more than two stops of dynamic range (not 3).Looking at photonstophotons, I see the following for A7RV
* ISO 6400 -- PDR 6.22
* ISO 800 -- PDR 9.19
So almost exactly 3 stops, difference is probably within the margin of error.
Earlier quoteBut meanwhile, my biggest problem is holding the shadows, not DR in the abstract. Doesn't increasing the ISO past 800 increase gain or sensitivity in the shadows?Increasing ISO makes the shadows brighter but they won't be any cleaner than bumping the exposure the same amount in editing. This is true for Sony cameras that are ISO invariant (once past the second gain threshold which is at ISO 320 for the a7RV). But for a camera that is not iso invariant, like the canon 6d, increasing the ISO does result in cleaner shadows at the higher ISO settings.
That's correct. If you keep shutter and aperture constant but drop ISO, you do gain dynamic range but this is from increasing the brightest object you can record without clipping at the top. The noise level of the shadows doesn't change (they have the same amount of total light recorded and the read noise doesn't change) which is what you observed.
What you can do in this case is drop the ISO to 800 and then increase the exposure by 3 stops to 1/125. Your shadows will be 3 stops cleaner because you actually increased the amount of light recorded. You will also have the same blown highlights as the ISO 6400 shot at 1/1000 shutter speed because you counteracted the increased shutter time with lower amplification from ISO.
However, this only works if 1/125 shutter speed is fast enough to freeze subject motion for you. ...Show more →Earlier quoteIf it is it true that I would lose nothing in the deep shadows if I set auto ISO to 800 instead of 6400 in the dark, I would reset my viewfinder, do it, and gain DR. But that doesn't match my experience.
Thanks again. Interesting.
I can't use a slower shutter speed most of the time, unfortunately.
I could use the improvement in the highlights, but I also want to be able to see through the viewfinder. And noise in the shadows is my biggest concern.
I'll experiment with the ISO tradeoffs again; maybe compromise somewhere in between.
Jun 12, 2026 at 02:29 PM
RoamingScott
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p.4 #15Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
ruthenium wrote: RoamingScott wroteguidostow wroteMost adults can see 24-25 stops. Matt paper can deliver 4-7.5 stops, glossy 6-8, jpeg 8-11 HDR ~17ish (last two are device dependent). Recording as many stops of noise free data as possible provides the most control over mapping shadow and highlight detail into the chosen output range.This is a good point that has been mostly glossed over. We are already well into the range of DR on modern cameras that only benefits the photographer in the editing room...your final JPEG that gets posted to Fred Miranda or IG or Flickr won't have as much range, and if you print, you're already in 3x overkill territory.
In practical terms, regarding how photography has been done for ages, we have what we need now. Unless some new form of taking and consuming photos emerges, there's no urgent "need" for more DR, just the desire of the pixel peepers and people who can't otherwise make an interesting image.I fully agree with "We are already well into the range of DR on modern cameras that only benefits the photographer in the editing room". I think this is a correct answer to what is the "Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point". In other words, the added dynamic range is of interest to those who are shooting at the base (or close to) ISO, editing raw files, and dealing with the extremes (shadows and highlights) in the raw files.
On the other hand, "your final JPEG that gets posted to Fred Miranda or IG or Flickr won't have as much range, and if you print, you're already in 3x overkill territory" is irrelevant(!) in a discussion of the dynamic range of a camera.
The camera dynamic range and the bit depth of a container (e.g. jpg) used to fit the visual data are unrelated parameters. There is no need for the final product (jpg, print) to have a wide dynamic range for viewing, as this has been aptly illustrated by the example of painted art. However, a large dynamic range in a camera is needed to capture as much of the the visual content as possible, prior to fitting it into a smaller digital container jpg.
I don't find this useful when a discussion of the camera dynamic range is conflated with the discussion of the bit depth of the final product in print or viewed on an electronic device. Also, it is not useful to apply the terminology "dynamic range" to painted images. One can measure the tonal range of a painting, but referring to that as the "dynamic range" is confusing at best....Show more →
Your argument of "I'd rather capture 20 gallons of water instead of 15 before I use it to fill this 5 gallon bucket" is humorous.
p.4 #16Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
racetratr wrote: sbay wroteracetratr wroteI rarely need more dynamic range from my camera when shooting at base ISO. Yeah, I like having more leeway in post production, but that's not absolutely critical. When I really could use more dynamic range is when doing fast-paced street photography at night at ISO 6400. Unfortunately, that isn't gonna happen, unless and until there are major reductions in sensor/camera noise.Sony cameras have wide ranges where they are ISO invariant. Instead of shooting at ISO 6400, keep the same shutter and aperture but drop the ISO to 800 and you'll have +3 stops of dynamic range.Thanks for your suggestion.
I kind of understand the theory. I cap ISO in some situations for that reason, in better light. But would it be practical in the case I mentioned?
I often have to shoot at, say, 1/1000 sec and f1.8 on the street at night. I manually set those parameters--they are kind of inflexible. I set auto ISO for up to 6400 as the third part of the exposure triangle. I often have to push in post a bit anyhow, since 6400 may not be enough.
Looking at the A7RV's sensor measurements, changing from ISO 6400 to 800 would seem to add slightly more than two stops of dynamic range (not 3).
But meanwhile, my biggest problem is holding the shadows, not DR in the abstract. Doesn't increasing the ISO past 800 increase gain or sensitivity in the shadows?
If it is it true that I would lose nothing in the deep shadows if I set auto ISO to 800 instead of 6400 in the dark, I would reset my viewfinder, do it, and gain DR. But that doesn't match my experience.
The "exposure triangle" is an incorrect construct. Only two settings directly decide the exposure: the shutter speed and the aperture. The ISO has no direct effect on the exposure; neither the sensitivity of the sensor changes when changing the ISO.
In practical terms (that is ignoring the question on what the ISO actually does in camera), the ISO is an indicator. In Auto-ISO, seeing one stop change in ISO, e.g., from 100 to 200, indicates that the exposure decreased by 1 stop.
A detailed good article debunking the "the fetishistic “exposure triangle,” which, as makes sense with fetishes, is not just unnecessary and not just incorrect – it is, in point of fact, extremely harmful" is
The Unbearable Lightness of Mystic "Exposure" Triangle https://share.google/tQcbXDELqRTsw2POb
In your case, when the aperture is already at f/1.8, the only way to improve the dynamic range, that is the signal-to-noise ratio, is by increasing the signal by using a slower than 1/1000 shutter speed. I don't know your reasons for using this fast shutter speed, but it is this setting that you may want to decrease, to 1/500, then more, to get as close as possible to the shutter speed that should give acceptable results most times.
(Edit: perhaps this is obvious, nevertheless, while the photographic dynamic range is presented as a function of ISO, this dynamic range cannot be changed by changing the ISO directly, only by changing the exposure by changing the shutter speed and aperture. In practical terms, the only reason to manually change the ISO is when one suspects that the gain was excessive and resulted in ADC overflow - but this is rare, I believe. For sensors with "dual gain", of course, it helps to know the ISO when it kicks in, but this is a special point.)
p.4 #17Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
Oh, yeah.
Have seen already that with my A7RIII - the main DR issues now is 'fake' shadows hdr-ish-look and light leaks and flare inside lens, even modern ones ('cause it's so complicated today). Yes, for extreme lightning conditions i.e. underexposed blue channel for Tungesten lamps etc. is still a noise issue affecting DR, but almost no for daylight balance (except for interior shots with window opening not for light but for view).
p.4 #18Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
gdanmitchell wrote: ilkka_nissila wroteYes, you can edit the colors but for high-volume photography it may not be that practical to spend a lot of time doing that, depending on the priorities of the photographer.On the other hand, if there is, as you suggest, a specific and objectively measurable difference in the color from the systems you should be able to simply create a preset (or some kind of profile) that could be applied in bulk with hardly any effort or time required.
In other words, making the color from camera A look like the color from camera B would not likely require a lot of image-specific processing at all, FWIw.
I agree here. But you might miss the ‘look’ from your 5DSr. I know I did that’s why my 5Ds is back on the rotation.
p.4 #19Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
I moved happily from my 5DSR to Sony A7RIVA and have never regretted the move. The "look" of the 5DSR was not worth the frustrating lack of DR (and miserable live view / rear LCD screen). I still use my Canon TS-E lenses on my Sonys, but the zooms were quickly replaced with much better Sigma glass.
p.4 #20Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point
old-gregg wrote:
Everyone is excited about the increased dynamic range of the Sony A7RVI at nominal ISO. Meanwhile, I am asking myself whether I ever bump into the DR limitations of my existing cameras in practice?
When I look at my favorite landscape shots, for example, I see that - while there's plenty of unused room to lift shadows - lifting them even further results in unrealistic "HDR" look. I think you all are familiar with that look. In other words, at least in my work, there's a natural limit of how much the luminance range of a scene can be "compressed" into an 8-bit JPEG (or into a 200:1 print) by lifting the shadows. Sure, there are 10-bit screens and true HDR HEIC, but that shit looks garish to me.
In other words, the Nikon Z8 and the Sony A7RVI offer the same practical dynamic rangne for my landscapes, and I can't see how I can use the extra 2EV of the Sony. Which brings my question: what makes you excited about the additional stop of DR at ISO 100, and where are you **practically** bumping into DR limits of your current camera?
P.S. I forgot to mention the highlights. On that front my experience is the opposite: comparing A7RV to cameras with 2EV less DR, I do not see much "unused room" there, and there aren't any meaningful differences in highlight recovery across models. I suspect that the metering systems in all cameras have gotten pretty reliable at nailing exposure within ~1EV of highlight clipping, which means you get 1EV of highlight recovery regardless of a camera....Show more →
Most of the time I have enough or I need more than the sensor will provide. It's rarely that a single stop or so will save the day. At ISO 100 we want the best IQ and it looks like the a7rVI delivers. It's not much to complain about. I have not tried bracketing with the a7rVI yet.