Landscapes with GX100 or other small sensor cameras

I took this out of the "Surprising..."-thread, because I think this topic is a little far off that thread.

I find Wouter's, Mitchall's and other's landscapes taken with the GX100 beautiful. However, in order not to blow the highlights of the sky, all of them seem to be underexposed heavily, which gives many pictures a kind of gloomy atmosphere, and often takes away any details in the shadows. This may be interesting from an artistic point of view, but is not very close to the bright daylight in which these landscapes appear to the eye. Often I want to capture the landscape as bright as they appear to me (Luc probably jump on this one) and then I really am in trouble with the sky highlights. Does anyone have an idea how to solve this problem, namely retaining the "original" lighting without loosing too much of sky details? Maybe by combining two images with diferent exposures? How "natural" can it get?

Small sensor cameras do have a limited dynamic range (at most around 5 EV I think). So if you want to retain shadowdetails you don't underexpose, but you could have severe blown highlights. You make a decision based on your preferences. There are at least two methods to avoid it, but you have to do a lot of PP.

The first is bracketing. You make multiple images (at least 3) under-, over- and normally exposed while you placed the camera on tripod. Many cameras have a bracket function, but the GX100 has not. In PP you combine the best elements of these image. A lot of work preferably done in Photoshop, because you have to do a lot of masking.

The other method is HDR (high dynamic range). But I have to admit I never done HDR. Check this tread though: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1013&message=26122989
--
Wouter
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wouter28mm/

Wouters, thank you very much for your detailed answer and sharing many nice images. I'll read a little more about HDR. I like the picture found at the link you gave me. Maybe this is the way for me to go.

By the way, I found the GX100 does have EV bracketing (+-0.3 and +-0.5). I just got my camera and haven't had the time to try it enough, but I found it in the manual. Unfortunately the bracketing range is a little small. You are an experienced user of the GX100. Why do you say it does not have bracketing? Do you have an older model?

Film are much better than digital sensor regarding the dynamic range, size of the sensor is only one part of the equation, the next step is the analog to digital conversion process...

To get better results, there is no 'magical' solution, otherwise you would simply use the 'landscape' scene mode of the camera and get perfect results.

You must be extremly careful during the capture process as even the best post-processing software cannot invent missing informations.

First, it is better to set the AE Metering to 'CENTER' and to aim the camera were you want to keep detail in the image (see page 86 of the manual). Off course you lock this exposure by half-press of the shutter button and recompose you image.

Secondly, you must avoid as much blown highlight as possible, you check this during the quick review of the image with the 'White Saturation Highlights Display' mode (see page 60 of the manual). If you have a lot of blown highlights, you dial-in the correct amount of exposure compensation and take another picture.

Of course you could also use the AE Bracketing function of the camera (see page 93 of the manual), this would increase the dynamic range if have an HDR PP software available.

You can also increase the dynamic range in PP but again you cannot increase missing informations...

I thought the GX100 had no bracketing function. If it has than that is a good thing. My older Olympus C4000z had a bracketing funtion where you could take 3 or 5 autobracketed images between + - 2 EV, but I never used it. I agree that + - 0.5 EV is limiting.

Most importantly though is not to forget that we our eyes have a huge dynamic range. No camera can compete with our eyes. In my opinion many HDR images don't look natural. For more advanced blending of bracketed images check this: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/blended_exposures.shtml
--
Wouter
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wouter28mm/

Yes, the actual GRD/GX100 bracketing is unfortunately very limiting and not very useful for HDR photography. I believe that if there will be any feature enhancement FW upgrade for GX100, then the higher EV range will be one of the enhancing features.

--
Ricoh GR/GRD/GX100 Forum
http://www.ricohforum.com

I think the GX100 is capable of capturing a landscape scene as well as any other pro sumer or dslr camera, it is a matter of the time you shoot the direction of the sun etc, you should only really need hdr when shooting skies that are are brighter than the foreground by a significant number of stops eg sunset and sunrise when most foreground will be rendered as silhouette. mitchall uses his particular exposure values for the type of atmosphere/mood he likes to portray in his shots, notice he uses black and white where the contrast between light and dark areas creates elements of the picture. in a standard blue sky day situation with the sun behind or to one side your gx100 should render a pleasing landscape as much as the next camera, you can laways exposure compensate -.3 -.7 if you require it and rescue shadows with shadow highlight or levels in photoshop. winter is now ideal in our northern hemisphere for photography through the day as the sun is quite low most of the day giving pleasing shadows and clear blue skies with warm colors earlier than usual in the afternoon. best of luck with your photography ....paul
--
http://www.rockford-photography.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockford-photography/

Drafi said:

...
I find Wouter's, Mitchall's and other's landscapes taken with the
GX100 beautiful. However, in order not to blow the highlights of the
sky, all of them seem to be underexposed heavily, which gives many
pictures a kind of gloomy atmosphere, and often takes away any
details in the shadows. This may be interesting from an artistic
point of view, but is not very close to the bright daylight in which
these landscapes appear to the eye...

Click to expand...

Drafi:

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you like the landscapes; and I must say that I like Wouter's a lot. However, the pictures of mine that you are referring to, which can be seen in the link below my signature, are not at all underexposed; rather, I have darkened them and increased the contrast in post-processing to bring out in B&W the deep and strong blue of the sky during those days. The brightness of the day is seen in how white the buidlings are.

If my ISP signal holds up later I'll try to post some pictures taken in extremely bright light.

—Mitch/Huahin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/sets/72157603089594785/show/

AFAIK , this is not just small sensor DC, but its simply the way digital work that work against this for the matter. Film had toe and shoulder response to extreme end of the brightness on the scene, Digital just either blown it or black out ...

For the matter it seems there really is only a few way to do that ... LOW ISO, shoot RAW, underexpose and compensate in the RAW development. OR do HDR ... The only Digital really approaching the capability to capture highlight / shadow as in good film is the FUJI s5 PRO and of course its no where near being a small DC

--

• Franka -

Dslr is much better for landscapes, but still not good as no sensor can manage the amount of differences we have in light when shooting landscapes.

For me the GX100 is blowing out highlights very fast and/or making darks too dark.

A second thing with small sensor cams is the fact that landscapes look quite flat.

I still use the old way with film and I never digitalise them. Just doing the oild fashion way seems the best for me and this with 6*6 camera (Bronica).

HDR, I do not like as I nearly never saw a landscape that looked normal to me and when I like to see pink elephants, I like to use coke instead of HDR .

Wouter is half-right. There is no auto-bracketing available on the GX100 when shooting RAW. But there are two auto-bracketing modes available when shooting JPGS: exposure and white balance (pp. 93-94 of the (English) manual).

Bob Yanal

Instead of reading Lucridders' blather have a look at the following shots of Paris, shot by Markus with the GX100. I don't see him complaining thet the GX100 cannot do landscapes, in this case cityscapes.:

http://markuspuustinen.com/galleriat/07/12/weekend_in_paris/

—Mitch/Paris
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

It is a curious business, for sure. I studied photography at a time when the 5"x4" ruled, and the Zone system was the holy grail of all landscapers; I have to say that I find the crippled dynamic range of Digital cameras difficult to deal with.....but not from an aesthetic viewpoint. I postponed the move from film untill now because of the slow progress to a decent level of resolution, and I am glad that I waited, and I'm glad that I have now made that move. So, what am I trying to say? Well...maybe the two media of film and digital photography are just that- two different mediums that should each be valued for their individual strengths, but compared only as one might compare an orange to an apple.

The dynamic range characteristics of digital cameras can be adapted to, or modified as one pleases, but the day that the digital camera accurately mimics the feel of the film camera is one that I think that I would rather not see. For me, (all manner of inconsistencies in my ramblings) that would be as technically brilliant and as creatively still-born as the Photo-realistic style in painting.

I hope that I've made some sort of sense!

Blend of 2 exposures, taken 1 stop apart.

HDR images look like 3D computer graphics or hand colored B&W more than photographs to me. This is so because HDR images apply the dynamic range equally throughout the image rather than selectively so that overall, the dynamic range is increased but contrast is decreased. It's nothing more than a global curves adjustment which messes up the contrast as seen by the eye. A better way is to do it the way the eye does it--adjust the pupils differently depending upon what you are looking at--i.e., local contrast adjustments. Am I making sense?
--
http://fotogenetic.dearingfilm.com

fotogenetic said:

Blend of 2 exposures, taken 1 stop apart.

HDR images look like 3D computer graphics or hand colored B&W more
than photographs to me. This is so because HDR images apply the
dynamic range equally throughout the image rather than selectively so
that overall, the dynamic range is increased but contrast is
decreased. It's nothing more than a global curves adjustment which
messes up the contrast as seen by the eye. A better way is to do it
the way the eye does it--adjust the pupils differently depending upon
what you are looking at--i.e., local contrast adjustments. Am I
making sense?
--
http://fotogenetic.dearingfilm.com

Click to expand...

You are making perfect sense. I have also asked myself why HDR images have the tendency to look so unreal. I think your explanation is very good. I would just say the eye does not make contrast but brightness adjustments, a kind of real time exposure compensation. HDR then combines images which the eye sees sequential. But apart from that, the eye's dynamic range in itself seems to be much larger than any camera's.

I would be interested to know if anyone has good ideas how to increase the "naturalness" of HDR-images.

An exemple is always better than lots of words. Here is a panorama I took on the summit of the Aconcagua (6962m) 2 years ago with a 3MP Coolpix 3700 camera.

Of course I would not have taken a more heavier camera like my XPAN on top of this mountain.

By the way, the picture were taken on the last day of 2005 so happy new year everybody, even to my new friend Lucridders...