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D2x Dynamic Range Thoughts...continued

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Steven S

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Here's a shot taken in bright sun, using Matrix metering, in which I set the EV Comp to -.7 after a couple test shots. (brought it back up +.16 in NC). Looks pretty darn good to me!



Nikon D2X
Focal Length: 400mm
Optimize Image:
Color Mode: Mode II (Adobe RGB)
Long Exposure NR: Off
High ISO NR: Off
2005/03/13 17:15:32.1
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
White Balance: Direct sunlight
Tone Comp.: Normal
Compressed RAW (12-bit)
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
AF Mode: AF-C
Hue Adjustment: +3°
Image Size: Large (4288 x 2848)
1/2000 sec - F/5.6
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Saturation: Normal
Exposure Comp.: -0.7 EV
Sharpening: Medium high
Lens: VR 200-400mm F/4 G
Sensitivity: ISO 400

--
Steve S
http://www.pbase.com/sshyone
 
Steven S said:
Here's a shot taken in bright sun, using Matrix metering, in which
I set the EV Comp to -.7 after a couple test shots. (brought it
back up +.16 in NC). Looks pretty darn good to me!

Click to expand...
I think once people learn (like you have) how to use this particular camera the DR question will be put to rest. I personally thought the DR of the D2X was great, much better than my D1X.

Dennis D

 
Hmmm... This doesn't strike me as an example that I would want to use to demonstrate good dynamic range. The noise seems to be eating away at the details in the darker areas.

One of the things that people seem to be forgetting in the discussions about DR is the impact of noise. DR is often defined as the ratio of the well capacity of your pixels to the noise, so high noise eats away at your DR (or high visible noise is evidence of low SNR and low DR). For example, a camera with high noise and high DR would need big pixels to have enough well capacity to compensate for the high noise.

As an extreme example of the relationship beteen DR and noise, here's a link to an ISO 1600 20D shot that I pushed 1 stop:

http://bellman.cs.duke.edu/~parr/train/20D/push1/IMG_9081.JPG

Look at the shadow area between the two rear wheels of the train and compare this with, say, an unpushed ISO 100 shot:

http://bellman.cs.duke.edu/~parr/train/20D/normal/IMG_9071.JPG

In the second shot, you can see where the bottom of the train ends and hits the shadow from the metal covering the wheels, but in the first this distinction is lost. This is an example of how noise reduces DR by affecting the denominator of the DR equation since ISO 1600 essentially uses only 1/16th of your well capacity.

Definition of DR:

http://www.ccd.com/ccd111.html

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
David Chin said:
I had always wondered about the relative lack of bird-in-flight
shots on the Nikon DSLR forums - it seems they've become the norm
with the introduction of the D2X.

Thanks for sharing!
Steven S said:
--
Steve S
http://www.pbase.com/sshyone
Click to expand...
--
Regards, David
(D.7.0. & C.P.4.5.0.0.)
N i k o n D 7 0 Links :> http://www.pbase.com/dlcmh/dslr_links
Click to expand...
David, my D70 does pretty well is flying bird shots, disregard the spots in the sky, my sensor was dirty at that time, has been cleaned since.

 
cybertec69 said:
David Chin said:
I had always wondered about the relative lack of bird-in-flight
shots on the Nikon DSLR forums - it seems they've become the norm
with the introduction of the D2X.

Thanks for sharing!
Steven S said:
--
Steve S
http://www.pbase.com/sshyone
Click to expand...
--
Regards, David
(D.7.0. & C.P.4.5.0.0.)
N i k o n D 7 0 Links :> http://www.pbase.com/dlcmh/dslr_links
Click to expand...
David, my D70 does pretty well is flying bird shots, disregard the
spots in the sky, my sensor was dirty at that time, has been
cleaned since.

Click to expand...
and I am a newby with DSLR cameras, lens that was used is 70-200VR2.8, great piece of glass.
 
agreed Ron. not the best example. but results are typical of most current dslrs except fuji and maybee the kodak is alittle better here. In the the previous thread a few forum visitors were insisting that a grossly overexposed photo of an eagle was the result of the the d2x's lousey DR.

Afew users report the d2x to be on par or slighly better than the d70 as far as DR is concerned. not really a bad thing.
Ron Parr said:
Hmmm... This doesn't strike me as an example that I would want to
use to demonstrate good dynamic range. The noise seems to be
eating away at the details in the darker areas.

One of the things that people seem to be forgetting in the
discussions about DR is the impact of noise. DR is often defined
as the ratio of the well capacity of your pixels to the noise, so
high noise eats away at your DR (or high visible noise is evidence
of low SNR and low DR). For example, a camera with high noise and
high DR would need big pixels to have enough well capacity to
compensate for the high noise.

As an extreme example of the relationship beteen DR and noise,
here's a link to an ISO 1600 20D shot that I pushed 1 stop:

http://bellman.cs.duke.edu/~parr/train/20D/push1/IMG_9081.JPG

Look at the shadow area between the two rear wheels of the train
and compare this with, say, an unpushed ISO 100 shot:

http://bellman.cs.duke.edu/~parr/train/20D/normal/IMG_9071.JPG

In the second shot, you can see where the bottom of the train ends
and hits the shadow from the metal covering the wheels, but in the
first this distinction is lost. This is an example of how noise
reduces DR by affecting the denominator of the DR equation since
ISO 1600 essentially uses only 1/16th of your well capacity.

Definition of DR:

http://www.ccd.com/ccd111.html

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
Click to expand...
--
Craig H. north jersey
 
These shots are not as close up as the one you started this thread with but pheasant can't be lured in as close as seagulls, particularly when your shooting at them. South Dakota also offers some great evening skies.

Charles









 
Ron Parr said:
One of the things that people seem to be forgetting in the
discussions about DR is the impact of noise. DR is often defined
as the ratio of the well capacity of your pixels to the noise, so
high noise eats away at your DR (or high visible noise is evidence
of low SNR and low DR). For example, a camera with high noise and
high DR would need big pixels to have enough well capacity to
compensate for the high noise.
Click to expand...
Hi Ron,

Could you give your thoughts on DR as compared to film, slide and print? I've read numerous references that state Nikon sensors have 6 - 7 stops of DR, which is compared to slide film and that print film has about 10 or more stops of DR.

I just read another article by a scientist that states that current digital sensors already give 10 or more stops of DR and exceed the capabilities of either film type.

Given that this goes against what seems to be conventional wisdom, I'm rather confused as to how such a large discrepancy in DR could exist.

thanks.

--
my gallery of so-so photos
http://www.pbase.com/kerrypierce/root
 
Nice shots but it looks like you have a lot of dust on your sensor. Also, the clouds have definitely helped you out by softening the light.

Greg
 
Kerry Pierce said:
Could you give your thoughts on DR as compared to film, slide and
print? I've read numerous references that state Nikon sensors have
6 - 7 stops of DR, which is compared to slide film and that print
film has about 10 or more stops of DR.

I just read another article by a scientist that states that current
digital sensors already give 10 or more stops of DR and exceed the
capabilities of either film type.

Given that this goes against what seems to be conventional wisdom,
I'm rather confused as to how such a large discrepancy in DR could
exist.
Click to expand...
The problem is that there is, AFAIK, no generally agreed upon method for measuring sensor DR from images, so the conflicting results can all be correct in a sense.

This is why discussions about DR tend to be so confusing.

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
Sorry to get back to you so late.

1) I hope to see more posting in the canon forum. So that we can see more demonstrations of the friendships you mentioned. Perhaps, you could start the ball rolling with your own pic?

2) BTW, I'm afraid that the photo doesn't impress. You are entitled to take whatever you like. But, you don't have a right to tell photographers how to conduct their photography. No, John Shaw won't be looking over his shoulders in fear.

Thanks for the laugh!

--
Jim
 
Ron Parr said:
The problem is that there is, AFAIK, no generally agreed upon
method for measuring sensor DR from images, so the conflicting
results can all be correct in a sense.

This is why discussions about DR tend to be so confusing.
Click to expand...
I was afraid you'd say something like that. I'd gone to your FAQ site, in search of the answer, but that goes back to 2001 and has a broken link to the LL site.

The problem, as I see it, is that graphs and charts can tell a story, but are meaningless to a layman such as I. I no longer have a film camera, so I can't make my own tests, to judge prints taken from the same scene, at the same time. I'm sure there are a lot of variables that would make such a test shoot, not fully valid, but I'd think that it would be in the ballpark.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I'll continue to look around to see what I can find.

--
my gallery of so-so photos
http://www.pbase.com/kerrypierce/root
 
are the absolute test target for any camera. I am thinking in a new specie that will have the complete gamut and gray scale. I will be rich very soon.

Kindest regards

Raul
David Chin said:
I had always wondered about the relative lack of bird-in-flight
shots on the Nikon DSLR forums - it seems they've become the norm
with the introduction of the D2X.

Thanks for sharing!
Steven S said:
--
Steve S
http://www.pbase.com/sshyone
Click to expand...
--
Regards, David
(D.7.0. & C.P.4.5.0.0.)
N i k o n D 7 0 Links :> http://www.pbase.com/dlcmh/dslr_links
Click to expand...
 
Kerry Pierce said:
I was afraid you'd say something like that. I'd gone to your FAQ
site, in search of the answer, but that goes back to 2001 and has a
broken link to the LL site.
Click to expand...
I've made updates to the FAQ as recently as a few months ago, but yes, it is overdue for some more heavy revisions.

If I had a more detailed description in the FAQ, I would certainly have pointed you to it.
Kerry Pierce said:
The problem, as I see it, is that graphs and charts can tell a
story, but are meaningless to a layman such as I. I no longer have
a film camera, so I can't make my own tests, to judge prints taken
from the same scene, at the same time. I'm sure there are a lot of
variables that would make such a test shoot, not fully valid, but
I'd think that it would be in the ballpark.
Click to expand...
Of course, people like what they like, so if you like the results there's no argument against that.

One of the tricky things about comparing cameras this way is how to evaluate the information that you don't immediately see but might want to get at later. Lots of variables such as the tone curve applied by the software influence this. This is why the best DR comparisons, IMO, work with the RAW/NEF files and try to figure out how much information is lurking in there.

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
Jim T H said:
1) I hope to see more posting in the canon forum. So that we can
see more demonstrations of the friendships you mentioned. Perhaps,
you could start the ball rolling with your own pic?
Click to expand...
I still don't understand this comment.

What do you want to see a photo of and how is this relevant?
Jim T H said:
2) BTW, I'm afraid that the photo doesn't impress. You are
entitled to take whatever you like. But, you don't have a right to
tell photographers how to conduct their photography. No, John Shaw
won't be looking over his shoulders in fear.

Thanks for the laugh!
Click to expand...
Is this some misguided attempt at an insult? If thought that I posted the shot for your critique, then you really missed the whole point of the discussion. Your evaluation of the photographic merits has no value to me and, most importantly, is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

The photo demonstrates what I said it demonstrates. You don't judge who has the "right" to makes points around here, but my authority to make the particular point that I made flows from the fact that I am correct.

--
Ron Parr
FAQ: http://www.cs.duke.edu/~parr/photography/faq.html
Gallery: http://www.pbase.com/parr/
 
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