XT2 dynamic range?

[lostnotstranded]

Hi guys,

So I've heard a lot about how Fuji is praised for the quality of their X-trans sensors, especially in terms of color, but as a photographer who is focusing on landscape, cityscape and travel photography, dynamic range is incredibly important to me.

In general, how well does the XT2 fair with high contrast scenes? For example, sometimes when I'm shooting landscapes, the scene may be overcast and thus the sky is bright but the ground is cast into shadow, to such extremes at times that detail cannot be recovered in post if I choose to preserve the highlights.

Essentially I'm looking into Fuji as it gives me everything Sony does not, for example weather sealing, dual card slots, actual compact size and good lenses (quite a few Sony lenses are plagued with issues).

Since I want to be able to travel by backpacking, I want to be able to fit everything into one backpack, including clothes, hygiene stuff etc... And Fuji packs a ton of quality into a smaller body than FF, even Sony FF mirrorless. However, I want to make sure I'm not giving up too much.

So what exactly do you feel is the dynamic range of the XT2? The X-trans sensor makes it impossible for DxOmark to test, so there's no info there, and Fuji is tight lipped as well.

Please share your thoughts on the XT2.

Thanks

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

My limited experience with my XT2 so far shows you have to be careful of high dynamic range scenes and its best to expose for the highlights and boost in post. Still somewhat of an issue whereas with Sony FF it is never an issue and not something I have to be careful of.

Its more the colours and the lenses. DR is still a weak spot.

Greg.

 

[Acrill]

First of all, there is no magic camera. You will always encounter some scenes in life, particularly outdoors scenes, where the sky is too bright and everything else is in shadow. No camera has the dynamic range to completely overcome this.

Secondly, greater dynamic range comes at the cost of lower contrast. This can be reduced or turned into an artistic advantage by clever post processing. The point is that post-processing is required if you want maximum dynamic range.

Third, the X-T2 is essentially the same sensor as the Sony A6300 with Fuji's circuitry, sensor stack and special processing added. The A6300 dynamic range score of 13.7 stops can be used as a rough guide for the X-T2 sensor, which should be slightly better. So, the T2 has excellent dynamic range that may be on par with the Sony A7Rii. Be aware that dynamic range can change drastically depending on the ISO you are shooting at. The camera does not have 14 stops of dynamic range for all scenes or ISO values.

Fourth, Fuji cameras have two extended dynamic range(DRO) settings that can be used with JPEG and in-camera RAW shooting. These extended modes, 200DRO and 400DRO can give you 1 or 2 stops more dynamic range but at the cost of shadow noise as they require ISO 400 and 800 for operation. The better option is to shoot at the base ISO of 200 and then post-process your shots.

Hope this helps.

 

[Acrill]

My limited experience with my XT2 so far shows you have to be careful of high dynamic range scenes and its best to expose for the highlights and boost in post.

Just like every camera ever made.

If there is a problem it lies in the T1/T2 metering which seems to be a bit careless about overexposing highlight data. Sony A7 series probably meters slightly lower values.

Easy to solve with the exposure compensation dial.

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

Good reply. Thanks for the post. Is it true that FF inherently has a dynamic range advantage due to larger light gathering area?

Thinking about it I don't think so. DR is read noise/well capacity. Well capacity is usually determined by the pixel size. So 24mp APSc has smaller pixels than its corresponding FF sensors where the pixels are larger. That puts more stress on a the APSc sensor to have lower read noise to offset the lower full well capacity of the pixels.

As in my case I mentioned both are Sony sensors and the larger pixel probably results in better DR due to larger full well capacity and I am assuming very similar read noise (it may not be similar though).

So yes there is a difference in shooting style here required. Just lowering the exposure comp dial is the preferred method? It only happens only sometimes not all the time. But if you do overexpose the highlights in my experience its not something you can correct in post - cyan coloured bright sky areas that is.

Greg.

 

[Troubleshooter]

My 2Cents in pics:

Fujifilm X-T2

Explore this photo album by Jörg S. on Flickr!

flickr.com

Really happy with the DR!!

 

[photogeek123]

My 2Cents in pics:

https://flickr.com/photos/129065637@N03/sets/72157673678615885

Really happy with the DR!!

Great shots!

Any chance you could post the raw file for any of the sunset/sunrise shots? Want to see how flexible files are in lightroom. Thank you!

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

Fabulous photos. Where is that? Lake Tahoe/Sierra Nevadas?

Greg.

 

[the decent exposure]

my 2 cents ......

the DR in real life/work is good enough to get my jobs done.

I don't know how it will be in your case. In my eyes is DR a difficult field to discuss, cause everybody hase a different idea about that. Some like this HDR like style, where you really bright up the shadows by 5 f-stops as it is thechnically possible. In my eyes those pics looks flat and not naturall at all.

For my work, the x-t2 does it as good as a sony FF or nikon FF, but I don't go to the max.

good morning

morning light end of september

www.thedecentexposure.com

the morning sun

morning light end of september

www.thedecentexposure.com

morning sun Koenigsssee

Koenigssee in morning sun

www.thedecentexposure.com

in all three examples are many more details in the shadow available, but I does not wan tto have them brighter.

regards

eike

 

[steras]

according to Bill Claff's analysis:

 

[Advent1sam]

Hi guys,

So I've heard a lot about how Fuji is praised for the quality of their X-trans sensors, especially in terms of color, but as a photographer who is focusing on landscape, cityscape and travel photography, dynamic range is incredibly important to me.

In general, how well does the XT2 fair with high contrast scenes? For example, sometimes when I'm shooting landscapes, the scene may be overcast and thus the sky is bright but the ground is cast into shadow, to such extremes at times that detail cannot be recovered in post if I choose to preserve the highlights.

Essentially I'm looking into Fuji as it gives me everything Sony does not, for example weather sealing, dual card slots, actual compact size and good lenses (quite a few Sony lenses are plagued with issues).

Since I want to be able to travel by backpacking, I want to be able to fit everything into one backpack, including clothes, hygiene stuff etc... And Fuji packs a ton of quality into a smaller body than FF, even Sony FF mirrorless. However, I want to make sure I'm not giving up too much.

So what exactly do you feel is the dynamic range of the XT2? The X-trans sensor makes it impossible for DxOmark to test, so there's no info there, and Fuji is tight lipped as well.

Please share your thoughts on the XT2.

Thanks

 

[the decent exposure]

It has exactly the same real-world dr as the sony a6300, you can see and download the tests here between the a6300 and the xpro2. xpro2 =x-t2 btw!

http://www.mirrorlessons.com/2016/04/27/sony-a6300-vs-fuji-x-pro2/#IQ_Test_02_dynamic_range

The downloadable test scene for dr is at the end of the review.

thanks for that link, the test result is underlining my opinion about the DR measurements. Thechnically there ar x f-stop possible, but does it make ny sense to have at the end this greyish, flat image they show in their test? To get a usable result you would have to work on the curve and at teh end, you would have a lower DR but a better result.

 

[57even]

Good reply. Thanks for the post. Is it true that FF inherently has a dynamic range advantage due to larger light gathering area?

Thinking about it I don't think so. DR is read noise/well capacity. Well capacity is usually determined by the pixel size. So 24mp APSc has smaller pixels than its corresponding FF sensors where the pixels are larger. That puts more stress on a the APSc sensor to have lower read noise to offset the lower full well capacity of the pixels.

In general, smaller pixels also have lower read noise. This does not offset the reduction in capacity completely, but it does reduce the gap slightly.

As in my case I mentioned both are Sony sensors and the larger pixel probably results in better DR due to larger full well capacity and I am assuming very similar read noise (it may not be similar though).

Upstream read noise should be about half, but it depends on true ISO.

So yes there is a difference in shooting style here required. Just lowering the exposure comp dial is the preferred method? It only happens only sometimes not all the time. But if you do overexpose the highlights in my experience its not something you can correct in post - cyan coloured bright sky areas that is.

Not a DR issue. Just Fuji's matrix metering default is very biased to the focus point. I use 'average' and adjust the EV if I need to. I can recover about as much shadow depth as I can on my D800. There is less chroma noise in the Fuji's shadows and less magenta colour cast.

Also, most Fuji film simulations use quite an aggressive tone curve, so lots of compression of highlights and shadows, but a nice contrasty image.

 

[Advent1sam]

according to Bill Claff's analysis:

That's probably technically correct, but you soon wake up to the fact with fuji to use the histo and not obliterate the hl, which in reality you shouldn't do anyway but becuase in the past shadows have been a problem for Canon and others with noise and banding, the original a6000 had apparently great dr but man if you'd of seen the horrible banding and colour shift that camera had, it was horrible. The fuji shadows are very very clean so you can pull them a lot more than others, so protect the hl, a bit, and pull shadows in post.

 

[Advent1sam]

It has exactly the same real-world dr as the sony a6300, you can see and download the tests here between the a6300 and the xpro2. xpro2 =x-t2 btw!

http://www.mirrorlessons.com/2016/04/27/sony-a6300-vs-fuji-x-pro2/#IQ_Test_02_dynamic_range

The downloadable test scene for dr is at the end of the review.

thanks for that link, the test result is underlining my opinion about the DR measurements. Thechnically there ar x f-stop possible, but does it make ny sense to have at the end this greyish, flat image they show in their test? To get a usable result you would have to work on the curve and at teh end, you would have a lower DR but a better result.

 

[Troubleshooter]

I can put some of them in a Dropbox later - if you send me your email per PN...

Compressed RAW!

 

[Troubleshooter]

Depends... Regarding Landscapes etc. most of them were shot around Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria, or on the Passo Stelvio in northern Italy

 

[nixda]

Fourth, Fuji cameras have two extended dynamic range(DRO) settings that can be used with JPEG and in-camera RAW shooting. These extended modes, 200DRO and 400DRO can give you 1 or 2 stops more dynamic range but at the cost of shadow noise as they require ISO 400 and 800 for operation. The better option is to shoot at the base ISO of 200 and then post-process your shots.

No, no, no, no, no!

The DR expansion modes do not give more DR than base ISO has. When shooting at an ISO of 400, DR200 uses the analog amplification of ISO200 (base ISO) and thus has the DR of base ISO. Generally, DR200 uses analog amplification of 1EV less than what the set ISO would indicate, therefore the requirement for setting that ISO to at least 400. For DR400, the adjustment is 2EV, and the lowest possible ISO the camera must be set to is thus 800.

 

[vlado29]

Here is the (shadows only!) mirrorless DR check I have done myself - I have taken the -4 EV underexposed RAWs from Dpreview tests (thanks for those, this is a great opportunity to test DR with new cameras @ home) and then pushed them back 4EV in CaptureOne, zero sharpening, zero luminance NR.

All cameras at base ISO - Sonys at 100, others at 200. 1:1 crop.

There are no RAWs from X-T2 for this test yet (underexposed by 4EV), but I have compared normal RAWs from X-Pro2 and X-T2 and I could see absolutely no difference regarding DR/Noise at ISO200 between those 2 Fujis.

At least in CaptureOne, the DR seems to be more or less consistent with sensor size, A7R2 best, A7II almost the same, A6300 slightly less noisy than X-Pro2, m4/3 significantly behind (what strikes me is how bad PEN-F - bad color shift, not present on GX8)

 

[rich07]

My 2Cents in pics:

https://flickr.com/photos/129065637@N03/sets/72157673678615885

Really happy with the DR!!

Great images, thanks