A710 Pano and DR Question

My wife and I have been enjoying our A710 IS immensely for a month and a half now, and we've captured thousands of pictures- even including a few nice ones.

There are a number of problems I've had getting "that perfect shot", but I think that the troubles I am having are usually my fault and not the A710's.

From other forum user's pictures, I can see that this camera is capable of good IQ in the hands of a good photographer. See the sample photos in the A710 review here at dpreview.

However, one thing I can't seem to do anything about is dynamic range of my exposures. I understand that digital cameras are just more limited than most people's eyesight (especially P&S cameras), but without exposure bracketing or extensive post processing, can anyone suggest any techniques for getting the most DR out of my A710?

This pano I made yesterday is an example of what I'm running up against. The 710 locks the exposure for pano shots, but even within each single-exposure section, there are blown highlights AND underexposed dark areas.

Can anyone suggest ways to minimize this?



It seemed like any attempt to get the clouds' exposure right made the rest of the picture way too dark, and vice versa.

This example is one of the better ones for decent DR, but it just feels like it's close enough to keep trying, but it's not "there" yet...

Any help?

Freddo

Be sure to use your histogram, you want the brightest part of the photo at the far right, but NOTHING off the right side of the histogram.

HTH
Hermit

HandShakes said:

HandShakes wrote:
Can anyone suggest any techniques for getting the most DR out of my
A710?
Freddo

Click to expand...

--
Lost in the Colorado Mountains!!!

HandShakes said:

This example is one of the better ones for decent DR, but it just
feels like it's close enough to keep trying, but it's not "there"
yet...

Click to expand...

It will never be: the camera is unable to capture a scene with such a difference in light intensity in shadows and higlights. You could chose to expose so that the clouds are not blown out, but then, shadow detail would be completely lost.

This is not specific to the A710 at all, and is a limit of all compact digicams, and really, most digital and film cameras (when shooting slides).

The solution to get good results in avoiding to shoot, as you did, people wearing black being backlit by the sun, with white, puffy clouds in the background.

In you case, it would have meant placing yourself to the left, with the sun in your back and not more or less in front of you. This way, you will get more intense colours, and less trouble with DR.

• Armand

Generally, the best way to handle scenes with very wide contrast like this is to expose for the brightest parts and then use PP to bring up the detail in the shadows. You just can't get it all without some PP. I would have set this one to -2/3 perhaps and then after it's all stitched together, use PP to bring up the shadow areas.

In stitch, the camera locks the exposure and that's that. There's nothing to do about the setting.

That said, though, I have two suggestions. The first is to simply take each photo individually and use different software to stitch them together. There's a free piece of software out there that does this but I can't remember the name of it now.

Another option is to use the My Colors feature and set to Neutral. P&S cameras tend to make colors slightly more vivid than life, simply because that's how people prefer them (these are for the masses.) You can eliminate this effect by selecting the Neutral setting. This should reduce the blown-out bright sections and should restore some detail in the dark sections.

But really...there’s no substitution for proper exposure. The first option is probably the best.

In the DSLR world, you'd be able to do exposure bracketing, and then do exposure blending or ake a HDR from it.

I recommend shooting 3 pics of the same place with different exposures. for panoramic shots it's complicated, but possible. biggest problem is motion - the world doesn't keep still.

Nobody's mentioned going into the "My Colours" mode and setting the contrast to minimum. That will get you a little bit more range, but the other posters are right - no digital (or film camera, for that matter) has anywhere near the dynamic range of your eye. It's especially challenging for landscape panorama shots because one end of the panorama is often in sunlight and the other in shadow.