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Can´t shoot anymore because of DR problem

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Waldemar

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I have the Canon 5D MK II and was rather happy with it until recently.



Now that I know that Nikon has this tremendous DR advantage I have a total blockade.

I can´t shoot a single frame anymore. Most certainly the meagre DR will ruin this shot and anyway it won´t look half as good as when made with a Nikon and all my friends will ask me when looking at my holidays, dog, cat, kids and treetrunks pics, hey, what´s wrong with your camera, the pics all look like sh... and also the highlights are all totally blown and the shadows totally blocked on this incredible shot of the bumper of your car at high noon yesterday!

Man, I need 50 MP and 20 stops DR right now, or I´m totally doomed!

If only I already had a Nikon instead of a 7 stops poop slide film when I went to Italy the other year!



Poop slide film

Poop slide film





---------------------------------------------
Waldemar
www.pbase.com/haak
 
Waldemar said:
I have the Canon 5D MK II and was rather happy with it until recently.

Now that I know that Nikon has this tremendous DR advantage I have a total blockade.

I can´t shoot a single frame anymore. Most certainly the meagre DR will ruin this shot and anyway it won´t look half as good as when made with a Nikon and all my friends will ask me when looking at my holidays, dog, cat, kids and treetrunks pics, hey, what´s wrong with your camera, the pics all look like sh... and also the highlights are all totally blown and the shadows totally blocked on this incredible shot of the bumper of your car at high noon yesterday!

Man, I need 50 MP and 20 stops DR right now, or I´m totally doomed!

If only I already had a Nikon instead of a 7 stops poop slide film when I went to Italy the other year!

Poop slide film

Poop slide film
Click to expand...
Your solution to this problem is rather easy. Shoot negative film ... much more DR than slides.

--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca
 
Waldemar said:
I have the Canon 5D MK II and was rather happy with it until recently.

Now that I know that Nikon has this tremendous DR advantage I have a total blockade.

I can´t shoot a single frame anymore. Most certainly the meagre DR will ruin this shot and anyway it won´t look half as good as when made with a Nikon and all my friends will ask me when looking at my holidays, dog, cat, kids and treetrunks pics, hey, what´s wrong with your camera, the pics all look like sh... and also the highlights are all totally blown and the shadows totally blocked on this incredible shot of the bumper of your car at high noon yesterday!
Click to expand...
I hear you.

I can no longer shoot any landscape images because of the lack of DR.
 
Me, too! I have those horrible old 5D III bodies, and I weep bitter tears that I didn't buy Sony or Nikon.













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tony field said:
Waldemar said:
I have the Canon 5D MK II and was rather happy with it until recently.

Now that I know that Nikon has this tremendous DR advantage I have a total blockade.

I can´t shoot a single frame anymore. Most certainly the meagre DR will ruin this shot and anyway it won´t look half as good as when made with a Nikon and all my friends will ask me when looking at my holidays, dog, cat, kids and treetrunks pics, hey, what´s wrong with your camera, the pics all look like sh... and also the highlights are all totally blown and the shadows totally blocked on this incredible shot of the bumper of your car at high noon yesterday!

Man, I need 50 MP and 20 stops DR right now, or I´m totally doomed!

If only I already had a Nikon instead of a 7 stops poop slide film when I went to Italy the other year!
Click to expand...
Your solution to this problem is rather easy. Shoot negative film ... much more DR than slides.

--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca
Click to expand...
Ahem... I don´t have a problem. And I find 35mm negative film rather horrible for scanning. MF is somewhat better but still difficult to get the colors right. I much prefer positive film and don´t have a problem with its nowadays seemingly unusable 8 stops of DR.

The funny thing is, that I can´t really find any shots (if properly exposed), where I blew the highlights on slide film. Look at this high contrast situation (time of the day was not ideal anymore), the gradation is perfect and the scan (6x4,5 slide film) didn´t need any correction in post.

poop slide film near noon time

poop slide film near noon time

I find the whole issue totally overrated.

There are situations where some kind of HDR function can be helpful, but this is rather experimental stuff and just a couple more stops of DR wouldn´t have cut it anyway:

Built in HDR function, Sony a500.

Built in HDR function, Sony a500.

Well, so what, for these rare occasions I get the cheap Sony out and shoot for a couple hours wild stuff with huge dynamic ranges.

I also think, that the holy grail of shadow detail is totally overrated. That just makes for more standard anemic run-of-the-mill photography you see everywhere on the web nowadays. Dark and even blocked shadows are part of the aesthetics of a high contrast scene. It´s like, lemme shoot this seemingly impossible to catch in one shot scene, expose to the left and see, if I can lift the shadows in post without banding to "save" the picture, which wasn´t worth shooting in the first place.

---------------------------------------------
Waldemar
www.pbase.com/haak
 
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Waldemar said:
tony field said:
Waldemar said:
I have the Canon 5D MK II and was rather happy with it until recently.

Now that I know that Nikon has this tremendous DR advantage I have a total blockade.

I can´t shoot a single frame anymore. Most certainly the meagre DR will ruin this shot and anyway it won´t look half as good as when made with a Nikon and all my friends will ask me when looking at my holidays, dog, cat, kids and treetrunks pics, hey, what´s wrong with your camera, the pics all look like sh... and also the highlights are all totally blown and the shadows totally blocked on this incredible shot of the bumper of your car at high noon yesterday!

Man, I need 50 MP and 20 stops DR right now, or I´m totally doomed!

If only I already had a Nikon instead of a 7 stops poop slide film when I went to Italy the other year!
Click to expand...
Your solution to this problem is rather easy. Shoot negative film ... much more DR than slides.

--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca
Click to expand...
Ahem... I don´t have a problem. And I find 35mm negative film rather horrible for scanning. MF is somewhat better but still difficult to get the colors right. I much prefer positive film and don´t have a problem with its nowadays seemingly unusable 8 stops of DR.

The funny thing is, that I can´t really find any shots (if properly exposed), where I blew the highlights on slide film. Look at this high contrast situation (time of the day was not ideal anymore), the gradation is perfect and the scan (6x4,5 slide film) didn´t need any correction in post.

poop slide film near noon time

poop slide film near noon time

I find the whole issue totally overrated.

There are situations where some kind of HDR function can be helpful, but this is rather experimental stuff and just a couple more stops of DR wouldn´t have cut it anyway:

Built in HDR function, Sony a500.

Built in HDR function, Sony a500.

Well, so what, for these rare occasions I get the cheap Sony out and shoot for a couple hours wild stuff with huge dynamic ranges.

I also think, that the holy grail of shadow detail is totally overrated. That just makes for more standard anemic run-of-the-mill photography you see everywhere on the web nowadays. Dark and even blocked shadows are part of the aesthetics of a high contrast scene. It´s like, lemme shoot this seemingly impossible to catch in one shot scene, expose to the left and see, if I can lift the shadows in post without banding to "save" the picture, which wasn´t worth shooting in the first place.

Yep... just look at most of the examples given.

---------------------------------------------
Waldemar
www.pbase.com/haak
Click to expand...


--
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SmugMug: http://davidhull.smugmug.com/
 
As soon as the 5DS/R hits the stores, I can't wait for all those shots of brick walls and cats! :-D
 
sacentre said:
As soon as the 5DS/R hits the stores, I can't wait for all those shots of brick walls and cats! :-D
Click to expand...
I can't wait for the charts and the brand-bashing trolling of Mikael Risedal. For a guy who likes Nikon he spends an awful lot of time on the Canon forum.

--
Some favourite pics:
http://garyp.zenfolio.com/p518883873/
 
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GaryJP said:
sacentre said:
As soon as the 5DS/R hits the stores, I can't wait for all those shots of brick walls and cats! :-D
Click to expand...
I can't wait for the charts and the brand-bashing trolling of Mikael Risedal. For a guy who likes Nikon he spends an awful lot of time on the Canon forum.
Click to expand...
Oh man, now you did it. That's just like saying "Beatlejuice" three times.
 
dhogaza said:
It's not our tools, it's the landscapes themselves which have increased contrast and require increased DR.

I blame climate change, myself.
Click to expand...
I wondered about this.

10 or so years ago I was happily shooting landscapes with a 20D and then a 5D.

oh woe was the highlight clipping on said EOS-5D.

BUT.. I was totally unaware of the climatic changes occurring around me that would take those 8EV and 9EV cameras and render them unusable on today's planet.

Today's landscape photographers have it so hard in today's harsh world. Needing vast amounts of DR to take landscape photos of the world around us is a challenge unknown to us older veterans of the digital age.

now I stare at my poor APS-C cameras that can only shoot 9.5EV, and my full frames that can only shoot around 11 EV and shake my head and wonder when I'll ever be able to shoot landscape again.
 
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I don't understand the need for sarcasm that I see so much in these forums.

More dynamic range is a good thing. More resolution is a good thing. Sometimes its necessary to shoot at high ISO. (Astrophotographers like myself do this most of the time) Yet people are constantly poking fun at people for coming to a hardware review site and looking for the best hardware.

I don't get it.
 
Critt82 said:
I don't understand the need for sarcasm that I see so much in these forums.

More dynamic range is a good thing. More resolution is a good thing. Sometimes its necessary to shoot at high ISO. (Astrophotographers like myself do this most of the time)
Click to expand...
really? most astrophotographers I know shoot at pretty low ISO's
 
Critt82 said:
I don't understand the need for sarcasm that I see so much in these forums.

More dynamic range is a good thing. More resolution is a good thing. Sometimes its necessary to shoot at high ISO. (Astrophotographers like myself do this most of the time) Yet people are constantly poking fun at people for coming to a hardware review site and looking for the best hardware.

I don't get it.
Click to expand...
Many are probably tired of hearing about DR. I used to post a lot about it but grew bored of the discussions. I have a few Exmor-based cameras but still shoot with three 5Dc bodies on a regular basis, which are considerably worse than more recent Canon bodies. Part of the reason I still use the 5Dc is Magic Lantern's awesome bracketing support, which allows up to 9 shots with any EV gap configuration. That works great for most of my landscape work but occasionally the merging can be a real pain when I shoot water or fast moving clouds - I scan spend up to 30 minutes trying to manually bend, like the images below due to fast-moving clouds:

tahoe_1240-X2.jpg


tahoe_1241-X2.jpg


tahoe_1242-X2.jpg
 
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That's the type of sarcasm I like. Well written.

DR does not provide any photographic skills to the photographer. One the other hand, the eye, the brain, the technique and the opportunities of taking photos are the necessary elements to produce a great photograph.

Love my Canon so far, and I have been a Nikon and Sony shooter in the past.

Cheers,

moimoi

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"All we have discovered is that it starts with a single individual - always a child - and then spreads explosively, like the formation of crystals round the first nucleus in a saturated solution." Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End, 1953)
 
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