ADL - Is it really necessary?

From the little bit I have done, I find the D5000 takes shots with good balanced colurs and dynamic range without AD Lighting.

I also think it seems to increase noise if used, is that correct or incorrect.

I turned it fully of Saturday at sports and the results were fine, I cropped some shots a bit and had no issues with noise etc. Previously I have not been happy with noise at the long end (using an 18-200 only).

What do you think? Is ADL necesarry, overrated or only for specific circumstances?

Thanks
--
.....Just from an amateur......

It is meant for harsh light, it mainly lifts shadows.

It does increase noise in the lifted shadows (less of a problem with the newest sensors).
Use it only when required.

In harsh light you can get better results than with ADL by shooting raw, exposing properly, with a HDR or pseudo-HDR technique. Harsh light is not the best point of the Nikon raw converters; DxO OP or LR3 work better. With raw, ADL works only in conjunction with Nikon raw converters; with 3rd-party converters you will only find it underexposes images (up to one stop).

Yes I agree. After studying the matter in my own images, and consulting with some technical types, I've concluded you're better off underexposing scenes that have highlight detail you might lose, and lifting shadows later. Essentially thats what ADL does but without you knowing what's going on.

Bajerunner said:

From the little bit I have done, I find the D5000 takes shots with good balanced colurs and dynamic range without AD Lighting.

I also think it seems to increase noise if used, is that correct or incorrect.

Click to expand...

With regards the D5000 that may not be a totally inaccurate statement, depending the situation. If ADL is not upping the ISO the actual noise levels shouldn't be rising. In manual mode with auto ISO "on" that could be the case in some situations when you are already starting at a high ISO point.

Member said:

I turned it fully of Saturday at sports and the results were fine, I cropped some shots a bit and had no issues with noise etc. Previously I have not been happy with noise at the long end (using an 18-200 only).

Click to expand...

Remember you have no way of knowing if the shots you took were high enough in dynamic range to actually cause ADL to engage had it been on. If the histogram shows a bit of open room on each side, chances are ADL would not have affected the images anyways.

Member said:

What do you think? Is ADL necesarry, overrated or only for specific circumstances?

Click to expand...

I shoot with the D7000 so the inherent DR of that camera makes for a different ADL experience. I also shoot RAW and find that when a particular scenes has deep area of shadow and bight highlights, ADL may often provide a better starting point to begin PP from. Sometimes, if the scene warrants it, I'll bracket ADL to see which setting may be best to work in. In low DR shots, ADL doesn't kick in anyways so having it "on" makes no diffrence in that case. Using CaptureNX2, the affects can be totally reversed if desired, but I find that rarely the case. ADL is another tool in the bag.....knowing when to pull it out is the trick

I much prefer to add D Lighting, which is similar to ADL after the fact to the raw in ViewNX2 or CNX2 because of the noise factor.

If you are shooting in JPEG as opposed to RAW then turning on the ADL can be quite helpful in lifting details. The D5100 handles this superbly.

Reilly Diefenbach said:

I much prefer to add D Lighting, which is similar to ADL after the fact to the raw in ViewNX2 or CNX2 because of the noise factor.

Click to expand...

I've done a lot of comparisons with the D7000 and don't really see any significant noise penalty unless you're starting from a base ISO above 1600 or so. Even then, ADL doesn't often raise ISO and noise stays mostly unchanged. What has been your experience and what types of noise are you most concerned with. Thanks in advance for the help.

+1 (nt)

Xhinzo said:

If you are shooting in JPEG as opposed to RAW then turning on the ADL can be quite helpful in lifting details. The D5100 handles this superbly.

Click to expand...

I switched it off week one of D7000 ownership last year when I noticed noise creeping into my pics even at low ISO. Pics that were taken with a 50mm prime which should have come out like satin were noticeably less clean than expected. I am admittedly lot more of a bug on the topic of noise than most.

I will certainly use D Lighting on the raw at times, but I want to be in control. I find that Neutral, unmessed with gives me a rock solid base from which to post process, sometimes pretty heavily.

For shooting RAW, No, you don't need or want to use ADL. When shooting JPEGs, ADL is sometimes helpful.
Some things about ADL:

• ADL raises shadows by increasing the effective ISO in those dark areas, so it performs best when using low set ISOs. For this reason, using ADL with Auto ISO is generally a bad idea, IMO.
• Using ADL above a set ISO of 200 on a the 12MP sensor and 400 on the 16MP sensor will produce noticeable shadow noise, in most cases.
• ADL set to High when shooting JPEGs with flash will even out the lighting and avoid burn-outs of objects closer to the camera than the subject. It also helps to avoid the overexposed orange skin tones you can sometimes get with the D7000 JPEGs. This is probably ADLs best use.

Best regards,
Jon

Mako2011 said:

Bajerunner said:

From the little bit I have done, I find the D5000 takes shots with good balanced colurs and dynamic range without AD Lighting.

I also think it seems to increase noise if used, is that correct or incorrect.

Click to expand...

With regards the D5000 that may not be a totally inaccurate statement, depending the situation. If ADL is not upping the ISO the actual noise levels shouldn't be rising. In manual mode with auto ISO "on" that could be the case in some situations when you are already starting at a high ISO point.

Mako2011 said:

I turned it fully of Saturday at sports and the results were fine, I cropped some shots a bit and had no issues with noise etc. Previously I have not been happy with noise at the long end (using an 18-200 only).

Click to expand...

Remember you have no way of knowing if the shots you took were high enough in dynamic range to actually cause ADL to engage had it been on. If the histogram shows a bit of open room on each side, chances are ADL would not have affected the images anyways.

Mako2011 said:

What do you think? Is ADL necesarry, overrated or only for specific circumstances?

Click to expand...

I shoot with the D7000 so the inherent DR of that camera makes for a different ADL experience. I also shoot RAW and find that when a particular scenes has deep area of shadow and bight highlights, ADL may often provide a better starting point to begin PP from. Sometimes, if the scene warrants it, I'll bracket ADL to see which setting may be best to work in. In low DR shots, ADL doesn't kick in anyways so having it "on" makes no diffrence in that case. Using CaptureNX2, the affects can be totally reversed if desired, but I find that rarely the case. ADL is another tool in the bag.....knowing when to pull it out is the trick

Click to expand...

ADL is really a tool for the OOC JPG shooter. For the RAW shooter the only irreversible thing it does is underexpose based on scene dynamic range by up to 1 stop, more like 1/3 stop in most circumstances. The meat of A-DL is D-lighting, which is a more sophisticated way of opening up shadows locally rather than globally. With the small amount of exposure adjustment that it applies, there should be relatively little compromise involved in keeping it on for the D5100 or D7000 RAW shooter other than loss of absolute exposure control. However, the D-lighting algorithm itself can introduce artifacts when presented with an image acquired by a lower dynamic range camera. So a lot of the complaints leveled against D-lighting started on bodies like the D80 and D90. I cringe at the thought of using it on a compact. As it's just another CPU cycle sucker during shooting, I prefer to keep it off. And since I no longer use CNX2, I don't use D-lighting at all anymore either.

jonikon said:

For shooting RAW, No, you don't need or want to use ADL. When shooting JPEGs, ADL is sometimes helpful.
Some things about ADL:

• ADL raises shadows by increasing the effective ISO in those dark areas, so it performs best when using low set ISOs. For this reason, using ADL with Auto ISO is generally a bad idea, IMO.
• Using ADL above a set ISO of 200 on a the 12MP sensor and 400 on the 16MP sensor will produce noticeable shadow noise, in most cases.
• ADL set to High when shooting JPEGs with flash will even out the lighting and avoid burn-outs of objects closer to the camera than the subject. It also helps to avoid the overexposed orange skin tones you can sometimes get with the D7000 JPEGs. This is probably ADLs best use.

Best regards,
Jon

Click to expand...

+1. A-DL needs a wide ISO latitude for best results, which means that the cameras that need it the most - small sensor compacts - are the ones least able to support it.

jonikon said:

For shooting RAW, No, you don't need or want to use ADL.

Click to expand...

Why....It can be just as useful in RAW vs say ETTR

When shooting JPEGs, ADL is sometimes helpful.

jonikon said:

Some things about ADL:

• ADL raises shadows by increasing the effective ISO in those dark areas, so it performs best when using low set ISOs. For this reason, using ADL with Auto ISO is generally a bad idea, IMO.

Click to expand...

In many cases...ADL leaves ISO alone and may only affect shutter speed or aperture. Auto ISO being on or off doesn't seem to be a indicator to how ISO may be affected by ADL.

jonikon said:

• Using ADL above a set ISO of 200 on a the 12MP sensor and 400 on the 16MP sensor will produce noticeable shadow noise, in most cases.

Click to expand...

jonikon said:

• ADL set to High when shooting JPEGs with flash will even out the lighting and avoid burn-outs of objects closer to the camera than the subject. It also helps to avoid the overexposed orange skin tones you can sometimes get with the D7000 JPEGs. This is probably ADLs best use.

Click to expand...

D7K/D5100 ADL (Active D-Lighting) overrides your set brightness and contrast settings. In settings higher than "low", it also affects the actual exposure by adjusting aperture/shutter speed/ISO either alone or in combination depending on the exposure mode set. In manual exposure mode (no auto ISO) it only affects the meter and not the actual aperture/shutter speed/ISO....but will still affect the brightness, contrast, and tone curves. CaptureNX2 can reverse this in manual exposure mode with the raw file. Note though if shooting in other than full manual and ADL set to higher than "low"....the effects on actual exposure can not be un-done, even with the RAW file.

It's possible to "add" the effect with tone mapping and selective brightness/contrast control but it's not really the real thing as taken by the camera. If you shoot raw, only ViewNX2/CapturNX2 can apply the tone mapping accurately. For that reason, if you use third party RAW conversion it's suggested to turn ADL off.

But here's the trick....it's designed to work with matrix metering and there is no way of knowing if it was actually active as it's dynamic and scene dependent. So if you have ADL set to "normal" (as an example) and the scene is very straight forward with no major highlights or shadows (small dynamic range)...ADL may not even activate and your normal brightness and contrast settings get applied.

I normally have ADL set to "normal" and shoot RAW only. The DR of the scene determines if I change that. Shooting multiple HDR exposures is also another place where ADL seems to have a very positive affect on the final product.

BTW, here's a good ADL On/Off example. This is a Off vs Extra High example in manual exposure mode. EC/tone mapping was moved internally by the ADL program with no change in ISO/Shutter speed/Aperture. Using the "off" NEF file as a comparison...noise was well controlled. Since D-Lighting lifts the shadows it has a tendency to make noise visible, or more obvious...but the actual noise may have always been there, just not seen.









Another example with no real noise impact.

jonikon said:

Click to expand...

mosswings said:

Mako2011 said:

Bajerunner said:

From the little bit I have done, I find the D5000 takes shots with good balanced colurs and dynamic range without AD Lighting.

I also think it seems to increase noise if used, is that correct or incorrect.

Click to expand...

With regards the D5000 that may not be a totally inaccurate statement, depending the situation. If ADL is not upping the ISO the actual noise levels shouldn't be rising. In manual mode with auto ISO "on" that could be the case in some situations when you are already starting at a high ISO point.

mosswings said:

I turned it fully of Saturday at sports and the results were fine, I cropped some shots a bit and had no issues with noise etc. Previously I have not been happy with noise at the long end (using an 18-200 only).

Click to expand...

Remember you have no way of knowing if the shots you took were high enough in dynamic range to actually cause ADL to engage had it been on. If the histogram shows a bit of open room on each side, chances are ADL would not have affected the images anyways.

mosswings said:

What do you think? Is ADL necesarry, overrated or only for specific circumstances?

Click to expand...

I shoot with the D7000 so the inherent DR of that camera makes for a different ADL experience. I also shoot RAW and find that when a particular scenes has deep area of shadow and bight highlights, ADL may often provide a better starting point to begin PP from. Sometimes, if the scene warrants it, I'll bracket ADL to see which setting may be best to work in. In low DR shots, ADL doesn't kick in anyways so having it "on" makes no diffrence in that case. Using CaptureNX2, the affects can be totally reversed if desired, but I find that rarely the case. ADL is another tool in the bag.....knowing when to pull it out is the trick

Click to expand...

ADL is really a tool for the OOC JPG shooter. For the RAW shooter the only irreversible thing it does is underexpose based on scene dynamic range by up to 1 stop, more like 1/3 stop in most circumstances. The meat of A-DL is D-lighting, which is a more sophisticated way of opening up shadows locally rather than globally. With the small amount of exposure adjustment that it applies, there should be relatively little compromise involved in keeping it on for the D5100 or D7000 RAW shooter other than loss of absolute exposure control. However, the D-lighting algorithm itself can introduce artifacts when presented with an image acquired by a lower dynamic range camera. So a lot of the complaints leveled against D-lighting started on bodies like the D80 and D90. I cringe at the thought of using it on a compact. As it's just another CPU cycle sucker during shooting, I prefer to keep it off. And since I no longer use CNX2, I don't use D-lighting at all anymore either.

Click to expand...

I good explanation and excellent reasoning I think. Thanks.

It might not be necessary, but I use ADL, on even with RAW.

I often take photos of my wife and kid under bright sunlight here in California. They almost always have hat on, so their faces are shaded.

I have tried around 10 times in different settings, comparing ADL on versus ADL off and then LR edit. I am definitely not a pro with LR or any post processing editing software. Even if I spend 5-10 minutes playing with the tone curves in LR, I cannot get the image to look as good as ADL.

Therefore, using ADL is the fastest path for me to get good dynamic range under conditions with bright lights and dark shadow. I basically leave ADL on normal as my default setting on D7000. I should turn ADL off if I don't need it, but most of the time I don't even bother. If I want to turn off ADL, I can always do so after the fact in NX. It takes me

Jimmy K. said:

It might not be necessary, but I use ADL, on even with RAW.

I often take photos of my wife and kid under bright sunlight here in California. They almost always have hat on, so their faces are shaded.

I have tried around 10 times in different settings, comparing ADL on versus ADL off and then LR edit. I am definitely not a pro with LR or any post processing editing software. Even if I spend 5-10 minutes playing with the tone curves in LR, I cannot get the image to look as good as ADL.

Therefore, using ADL is the fastest path for me to get good dynamic range under conditions with bright lights and dark shadow. I basically leave ADL on normal as my default setting on D7000. I should turn ADL off if I don't need it, but most of the time I don't even bother. If I want to turn off ADL, I can always do so after the fact in NX. It takes me

Click to expand...

And it won't be. D-lighting locally adjusts contrast; LR's curves adjust contrast globally. D-lighting is, theoretically doing the same thing your brain's visual processing does. Thus you can have a high dynamic range portion of a scene near a lower dynamic range portion and the eye will adapt to render both well. With a global contrast adjust, the entire frame get the treatment that you may want only for a specific area. There are other ways of doing this - photoshop users have used unsharp mask with a large radius, for example - but D-lighting is a different path towards compressing the dynamic range of the scene into the range of the medium by which it will be rendered.

This article from DPreview 2009 describes the technology from Apical that Nikon used to create D-lighting:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/2009/3/18/apical

mosswings said:

And it won't be. D-lighting locally adjusts contrast; LR's curves adjust contrast globally. D-lighting is, theoretically doing the same thing your brain's visual processing does. Thus you can have a high dynamic range portion of a scene near a lower dynamic range portion and the eye will adapt to render both well. With a global contrast adjust, the entire frame get the treatment that you may want only for a specific area. There are other ways of doing this - photoshop users have used unsharp mask with a large radius, for example - but D-lighting is a different path towards compressing the dynamic range of the scene into the range of the medium by which it will be rendered.

Click to expand...

ADL should not be considered magic. It is believed it adjusts exposure, brightness, contrast and local contrast (via fill-light or USM or however you call this - this is the main one). And it does some scene analysis to choose the levels of the above, so that you have only one slider (in few discrete values). In addition, Nikon's algorithms are limited regarding input DR (harsh light), so that one can get more out of a well-exposed NEF via pseudo-HDR.

LR3 has all the controls including fill-light, and processes more input DR at once. DxO OP is even more useful for "instant HDR" processing of harsh light. Also Raw Therapy does 32-bit raw processing which should help here (haven't tried).

[U] sem said:

Click to expand...

Nice example...do you have any additional info as to camera type and If ADL was used. When I first started, I noticed that ViewNX1.5 couldn't read the D7000 quite right and even ViewNX2 was off until version 2.2.3. If the above was done from the same NEF file (and ADL was active and set higher than low) then the 3rd party results will be different than had ADL been off in the original file. What does the "as shot" vs 3rd ViewNX 1.5 image indicate? Thank you.[/U]

Much thanks for the wonderful replies and explanations of how ADL works and scenarios used.

Very helpful, thanks.

Take Care!
--
.....Just from an amateur......

Mako2011 said:

Nice example...do you have any additional info as to camera type and If ADL was used. When I first started, I noticed that ViewNX1.5 couldn't read the D7000 quite right and even ViewNX2 was off until version 2.2.3. If the above was done from the same NEF file (and ADL was active and set higher than low) then the 3rd party results will be different than had ADL been off in the original file. What does the "as shot" vs 3rd ViewNX 1.5 image indicate? Thank you.

Click to expand...

D90, I think no ADL. That's manual tweaking of the parameters in each converter with the aim of lifting the shadows as much as possible without bringing up too much noise; unscientific because my limited experience with the converters and my general preferences are involved. All the same NEF. "As shot" is the default VNX conversion with the original parameters. This is an old sample so versions are old. Maybe you can find the old thread with some more comments.

With ADL on it is still possible to do a similar test. "As shot" would be a little bit closer to the rest. There'd likely be a bit more noise because the exposure would likely be lower due to the histogram one is using to determine it - not with exactly the same exposure of course.

Btw an undocumented feature of VNX is that it removes ADL post-processing if you move the exposure compensation slider away from 0.0. Then you can improvise your own tweaking, and you can see the actual exposure of raw data.