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Recent epiphany in EXR blog article

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Timur Born

Timur Born

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Kim Letkeman said:
I am no longer a fan of RAW only mode. It forces L size, which forces 400 ISO at DR400. That alone kills it for me. I like to shoot ISO 100 in bright and contrasty light, so I shoot RAW + JPG. Some say that the RAW is identical to that shot in RAW only mode. Even if true (I am not really certain yet), there is still the JPEG, which does have proper binning.
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Member said:
So for simplicity, shoot DR400 and auto ISO at M size most of the time.
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Raw files are not identical, congrats on recognizing now.

But the combination of DR 400 + AUTO ISO can lead to the camera choosing ISO 2x+ higher than DR, in which case the raw files turn out half the size and thus are pre-cooked (pixel-binned + different tone-curve behavior). So maybe you could warn your readers of that possibility to keep them from running into an unexpected wall?

And what I do not understand about your EXR article is that you don't edit old stuff out. For example, further down the article you still write that you are using "RAW only", this is unnecessarily confusing to readers.
 
Timur, so if we shoot RAW+JPEG at size M and ISO 100 and DR 400, the RAW will be an 8 MP file with hardware DR enhancement of 2 stops? Can the RAW file further improve upon the JPEG and do we have at least another stop of DR enhancement possible by tweaking it, above and beyond the 2 stops we get with the JPEG file?

--
http://Alex_the_GREAT.photoshop.com
 
10 megapixels, Trev? I thought the camera was only capable of 12 megapixels or 6 megapixels. This is the first I've heard of 10 lol.

At any rate, I seem to remember you said something about being able to gain additional DR in RAW mode above and beyond what DR 400 did in JPEG mode I believe?

--
http://Alex_the_GREAT.photoshop.com
 
Timur Born said:
Raw files are not identical, congrats on recognizing now.
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Wow ... you really are desperate for some recognition.

Well, not this time pal (Denis Leary reference) ... I made my choice strictly on the ISO issue and not on all the obfuscation that you have published on various EXR issues.
Timur Born said:
But the combination of DR 400 + AUTO ISO can lead to the camera choosing ISO 2x+ higher than DR, in which case the raw files turn out half the size and thus are pre-cooked (pixel-binned + different tone-curve behavior). So maybe you could warn your readers of that possibility to keep them from running into an unexpected wall?
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That's not a wall. When Fuji pre-bins, they do it in such a way that the highlight protection remains intact, according to my tests. I find these smaller RAW files to remain of excellent quality, so there is no warning to be given.
Timur Born said:
And what I do not understand about your EXR article is that you don't edit old stuff out. For example, further down the article you still write that you are using "RAW only", this is unnecessarily confusing to readers.
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Yes, it is difficult to perfectly maintain an article for two years and counting as Fuji tweaks (not always for the better) the EXR engine and behaviours. You should try it sometime.

As far as I can tell, such small issues have not hurt this article's performance.





And shame on you for creating a whole thread just to bust my chops and then not providing a link to the source ... :-)

http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com/2009/10/fuji-f70exr-how-to-shoot-it-mkii.html

--
http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com
 
alexisgreat said:
10 megapixels, Trev? I thought the camera was only capable of 12 megapixels or 6 megapixels. This is the first I've heard of 10 lol.
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You've missed a few posts about RAW file sizes then.

Even in M size a RAW file is 19MB, except when ISO is higher than DR.

Then it becomes a 10MP file size.

The output of these RAW files does not change according to JPEG size selected, nor according to aspect ratio selected.

I'm surprised you missed all of this info, posted last year already. ;-)
alexisgreat said:
At any rate, I seem to remember you said something about being able to gain additional DR in RAW mode above and beyond what DR 400 did in JPEG mode I believe?
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Sorry, I don't know what you mean.

--
Cheers ;-)

Trevor G

Silkypix tutorials at: http://photo.computerwyse.com
 
I have lost interest in keeping track of every eccentricity of the EXR cameras, so I have nothing to say on the substance of the issue under discussion.

It does, however, strike me as a little strange that you would choose to post here first rather than make a comment on Kim's blog.

--
john carson
 
alexisgreat said:
the RAW will be an 8 19 MP file with hardware DR enhancement of 2 stops?
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Yes, when DR is higher than ISO.

Why do you ask?
alexisgreat said:
Can the RAW file further improve upon the JPEG
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Yes, of course, especially in highlight recovery and fine detail.

A JPEG only has 0.3EV of highlight recovery once it is released by the camera. From my experience comapring RAW with matching JPEGs the JPEG can recover and contain about 1EV of uncompressed highlights and maybe about/up to 0.5EV of compressed highlights with DR400 and maybe a certain amount of -EV switched in.

The matching RAW can give you nearly 3EV of highlights which can be brought back down below clipping in appropriate software, such as Silkypix. Once this is done, however, you need to lift the lowlights because they are also reduced with the highlights, and usually add contrast.

I have posted examples where this is done - no time to look for the threads but they were images taken on the Albury Railway Station platform with the platform area in shade and sky with clouds visible as the highlight detail.
alexisgreat said:
and do we have at least another stop of DR enhancement possible by tweaking it, above and beyond the 2 stops we get with the JPEG file?
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You don't get anything like 2EV of accurate highlight recovery in a JPEG - maybe 1EV plus the very compressed 0.5 mentioned above.

Why do you ask?

--
Cheers ;-)

Trevor G

Silkypix tutorials at: http://photo.computerwyse.com
 
Trev, I think you confused what I meant. I was talking about resolution (megapixels) not filesize (megabytes.)

About the other part, I remember you said that 1.2 stops of additional highlight recovery was possible with RAW over Jpeg (1.5 stops with Jpeg, 2.7 stops with RAW).
--
http://Alex_the_GREAT.photoshop.com
 
Thanks, you nicely answered most of my questions right here! Please also refer to my post above. I was talking about resolution (megapixels) which in M size, RAW files with the X10 should have 6 megapixel resolution.

About the highlight recovery/dynamic range enhancement issue----- that is what I remembering you showed, that Jpeg offers up to 1.5 EV highlight recovery/dynamic range enhancement over the 2 stops you get with DR400 (as compared to DR100), while directly processing from RAW gives you an additional 1.2EV at M size DR400, for a grand total of 2.7EV on top of the original M size DR400 Jpeg! When I said the M size DR400 Jpeg gave 2 stops of highlight recovery/dynamic range enhancement..... I meant from the reference point of a DR100 file.

One other question that I had though was that when you do perform the operations necessary to bring out the additional 1.5EV in a Jpeg M size DR400 file or the additional 2.7EV in a RAW M size DR400 file, do you lose any dynamic range in the shadows, or as I think you were saying, can you bring that back (without increasing the noise) by just lifting the shadows? That would mean you can actually extend the dynamic range by the above amounts, not just gain highlight recovery.
--
http://Alex_the_GREAT.photoshop.com
 
Kim Letkeman said:
Kim Letkeman said:
But the combination of DR 400 + AUTO ISO can lead to the camera choosing ISO 2x+ higher than DR, in which case the raw files turn out half the size and thus are pre-cooked (pixel-binned + different tone-curve behavior). So maybe you could warn your readers of that possibility to keep them from running into an unexpected wall?
Click to expand...
That's not a wall. When Fuji pre-bins, they do it in such a way that the highlight protection remains intact, according to my tests. I find these smaller RAW files to remain of excellent quality, so there is no warning to be given.
Click to expand...
The half size raw file will still have the full dynamic range of a full size raw, but the tone-curve will behave differently in a raw converter. This means that using the same slider values for a half size raw file will yield different results than for a full size raw file, even when both images used the very same settings on the camera!

And since you are proposing AUTO ISO users will end up with a mixture of both half and full size raw files which will behave differently in post-processing. I think this is well worth a mentioning.
Kim Letkeman said:
And shame on you for creating a whole thread just to bust my chops and then not providing a link to the source ... :-)

http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com/2009/10/fuji-f70exr-how-to-shoot-it-mkii.html
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Sorry for that. I assumed your useful article to be so widely known around here that a link would not be necessary. But you are right, it should be added and you just did so.

As far as "busting your chops" is concerned, you could have arrived there a lot earlier if you wouldn't be so stubborn on not allowing anyone on your intellectual turf, as in taking advice from other people more seriously.
 
There are different types of RAW files on the X10:
  • 12 mp size L with or without HR DR (RAW or RAW+JPG). It's the job of the RAW converter to demosaic the image to 4000x3000 pixels and apply tone-curves for HR DR (the camera just underexposes internally). Some converters throw away half the sensor information and only create an M size image (Capture One).
  • 12 mp size M with EXR DR (RAW+JPG). It's the job of the RAW converter to demosaic the image to 2816 x 2112, apply curves to the shorter exposed half and blend both halves. Silkypix/EX throws away most (sometimes all) of the longer exposed half information and mostly (sometimes only) creates an image out of the longer exposed half (not just highlights stuff). These files handle differently in each converter, some better (Capture One), some in between (Lightroom), some worse (Silkypix).
  • 12 mp size M with HR DR (RAW+JPG). It's the job of the RAW converter to demosaic the image to 2816 x 2112, apply curves for HR DR and pixel-bin both halves together for better SN.
  • 12 mp size M without HR DR (RAW+JPG). It's the job of the RAW converter to demosaic the image to 2816 x 2112 and pixel-bin both halves together for better SN.
  • 6 mp size M with HR DR (RAW+JPG, ISO 2x DR). The camera seems to do the pixel-binning and likely even curves! Some RAW converters cannot load these files at all (Capture One), those that can should all be able to handle them well. But as a consequence to the camera's pre-production these files react differently to RAW converters' controls (exposure, highlights etc) compared to 12 mp files. This means that the same RAW converter setting will have a different outcome.
 
Trevor G said:
A JPEG only has 0.3EV of highlight recovery once it is released by the camera. From my experience comapring RAW with matching JPEGs the JPEG can recover and contain about 1EV of uncompressed highlights and maybe about/up to 0.5EV of compressed highlights with DR400 and maybe a certain amount of -EV switched in.
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I don't know about gradations (what you call compression), but a DR 400 + ISO 400 JPG protect 2.5 EV (or maybe your stated 2.7) of highlights compared to the DR 100 + ISO 400 JPG. That number is derived from loading a ISO 100 + DR 100 (=2 EV lower exposure) raw file into Silkypix and then pulling shadows (by 0.5 - 0.7 EV) until the highlights of the DR100 + ISO 100 raw image matches the highlights of the DR 400 + ISO 400 JPG.
 
alexisgreat said:
Kim, when you get the chance, you should post the website hit graphics from after this thread was created ;-)
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Yes, one should consider who (se blog) is getting the attention here. Surely not mine (I don't run one). ;)
 
alexisgreat said:
One other question that I had though was that when you do perform the operations necessary to bring out the additional 1.5EV in a Jpeg M size DR400 file
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The user cannot bring out any extra highlight recovery info from a JPEG - the JPEG is fixed in-camera.

You can get that 1.5EV approximately, compared to a DR100 image, only by selecting DR400 and setting some -ve EV compoensation.

If using RAW you don't need any -ve EV compensation under normal circumstances.
alexisgreat said:
do you lose any dynamic range in the shadows, or as I think you were saying, can you bring that back (without increasing the noise) by just lifting the shadows?
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You are not really lifting the shadows after you recover the highlights by reducing "exposure" in PP. You are just returning the shadows to where they were originally.

This results, potentially, is an image which should be much less noisy, depending on circumstances, because with the massive highlight headroom in the X10 you can expose much higher or brighter without fear of sensor clipping.
alexisgreat said:
That would mean you can actually extend the dynamic range by the above amounts, not just gain highlight recovery.
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I don't know about extending dynamic range - I have no way of measuring that. Do you?

--
Cheers ;-)

Trevor G

Silkypix tutorials at: http://photo.computerwyse.com
 
Timur Born said:
I don't know about gradations (what you call compression), but a DR 400 + ISO 400 JPG protect 2.5 EV (or maybe your stated 2.7) of highlights compared to the DR 100 + ISO 400 JPG. That number is derived from loading a ISO 100 + DR 100 (=2 EV lower exposure) raw file into Silkypix and then pulling shadows (by 0.5 - 0.7 EV) until the highlights of the DR100 + ISO 100 raw image matches the highlights of the DR 400 + ISO 400 JPG.
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That's close enough for me!

Mind you, it takes a lot of care to make sure that the JPEGs are not showing any compression, and that the various RGB peaks are at the same relative positions.

--
Cheers ;-)

Trevor G

Silkypix tutorials at: http://photo.computerwyse.com
 
So basically what you and Trevor are saying is that compared to a Jpeg M size DR400 image, a RAW M size DR400 recovers an additional stop to 1.2 stops of highlights.
--
http://Alex_the_GREAT.photoshop.com
 
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