Jack Flesher
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 Re: Utility of dynamic range beyond a certain point | |
chez wrote:
Jack Flesher wrote:
chez wrote:
Jack Flesher wrote:
sbay wrote:
Jack Flesher wrote:
I’d appreciate seeing a real world example of where properly-exposed images from a camera with 13 stops of DR makes a notably better image than one with only 12. Seriously, when cameras passed 10 stops of DR was when I started editing black back into most of images. Today for me, that’s a de-rigueur adjustment.
Are you excluding landscape shots into the sun?
For me, I expect to take advantage in things like night cityscapes (after blue hour), moon shots with landscape with timing maybe 15 min after sunset or later, abandoned buildings (or I guess the more common task for photographers would be real estate shots), cave shots, etc. These latter use cases are very niche, so maybe only apply to me.
Yes. While I have occasionally done "Sun in my landscape, I let the Sun blow and go for the Sunstar because that's the only way it looks right to me, YMMV.
I've shot a lot of dimmer indoors with bright outdoor windows. Bodie interiors are a good example for me if you've ever shot there. Here I had no problems with Nikon Z7ii, Z9, Leica SL3 or Fuji XH2 raw files keeping enough detail in a single raw to be able to tune the highlight slider down to recover outside details in the windows, and raise the shadow slider enough to maintain great shadow detail in the interiors without generating excessive noise. This was using C1 as my raw converter and I've since switched to Sony and abandoned C1, so I am only assuming ACR will allow me to do similar. If it doesn't, I will be back to C1 in a nano...
I actually looked at some of those shots and it seems the highlights are quite often just a mass of pure white…no details. I will take any extra dynamic range I can get just for those special cases. YMMV.
Hmmm. Perhaps you could link to them so we can discuss directly what you see as blown?
Here are a few examples where the white areas have gone to featureless white.
https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1925842/0#16944947
https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1909132/0#16852120
Alas I was perhaps baiting you a bit... Keep in mind the images you linked to are all what? Yes, jpegs. Need I be more specific? Perhaps I do for thread posterity. How many stops of DR can you replicate in an 8-bit, sRGB jpeg? That's not a rhetorical question, look it up if you don't already know. You can stretch them to almost 9 stops with a careful reversed curve, but 8 is generally a practical maximum. Beyond that it takes an HDR blend to render more into them. Next, I edited these images for this forum knowing I was outputting jpegs. Could I have HDR'd them to get the look perhaps you seem to be looking for? Yes. However, I personally cannot stand jpeg HDR nor the generally associated tone-mapping that goes along with them to make them look more credible, because they simply never do to me. I accept YMMV, but to my eyes that style image simply sucks unless done very subtly and expertly, which rarely happens. I can do it, and have done it, but I simply don't find the results as believable as what I output in these very examples. Your preferences may vary and that's fine, but I personally don't enjoy that fake look...
Now to the specifics of the above sets you linked. Firstly, the Christmas shots are taken here in Northern California, and of course in late December when the Sun is at its furthest South and lowest on the horizon. Also here in coastal NorCal during the winter months, we regularly have full skies of heavy overcast, as was the case this day, so there is zero blue in any part of the sky. Hence the sun is behind overcast and low enough to be directly behind a couple of the windows in my backgrounds. Even the exterior shot the gray sky is not blown if you dropper it; because it was in fact a gray sky. On the interior shots where the Sun though a layer of overcast is the direct light source through the window, that is blown per my earlier comment of realism. Even still, you will note that in many of the windows I did in fact edit back hints of outdoor details to *my* tastes which are perhaps far subtler than yours... Additionally, I did edit these to include a bit of nostalgic "glow" which probably adds to the impression of being blown. I suspect the differences here between you and me is I edit to my standards of believability and/or impressionism where you prefer fuller, more complete total visual information to make your own artistic points? That or possibly you have your monitor set so bright you can't see the highest details in my images, which along with no concept of color management is unfortunately a fairly common issue with participants in this forum -- but I digress as this is a divergent discussion...
Now to the Bodie set. In that, you will also in fact notice similar hints of exterior detail in many of the windows. Not a lot, because again I am editing to *my* tastes specifically for monitor jpeg viewing. Again if you pull them into a good editing program and dropper them, you'll see most of those are not yet fully blown -- unless of course the Sun is hitting them directly. To wit, Bodie windows are literally covered in a thick layer of dust and scum both inside and out, so are for all practical purposes thin scrims to begin with, and if even just slightly side-lit they blow naturally; and here I choose to treat them as I said earlier as I do for any other specular or direct, into-the-camera lighting source as nearly pure white.
Hope this clarifies *my* personal editing pov...
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