SD1 Merrill Metering Headroom Test (technical post).

kreislauf wrote:

xpatUSA wrote:

Or just relax and shoot at 200 most of the time, if possible, and then move the SPP controls around and see what looks best?

Shooting at 200 most of the time, IMO, throws away some DR, potentially increases shadow noise but does lower the potential for blown raw values (in non-AFE models).

Puh, i think i have to read this thread again tonight more slowly.

I never found more DR in my merrill files when i compared ISO 100 vs 200, as i read very often on the web. Also, i didn't see a huge increase in noise, when treated gently. And recovery was about the same (judged optically and not with rawdigger)

So you are stating that the DR is the same comparing ISO 100 vs 200.

And, effectively, you are stating that the headroom is the same comparing ISO 100 vs 200 . . . "judged optically". But the difference is 1EV - hard to miss, even if judged optically?

I am very intrigued to learn more about the Sigma raw files.

RawDigger tells all - well worth the money, IMO.

But, for shooting a scene where you'd care for the highlights, wouldn't you spot-meter on those highlights and try to not blow any layer (or color channel, I'm confused right now) . . . .

The layer signals are not really colors because layer contains some red, some green and some blue but still layers can get blown by too high an exposure (very roughly, more than 1 lux-second will do it in the green layer, for example).

After the raw has been converted to color (for example the SPP review image) then we can talk about R,G and B "channels" as shown in the SPP histogram.

. . . .and dial down exposure in SPP?

I do spot-meter desirable highlights, yes, but I do not "dial down exposure" - why would we do that? Exposing for highlights already darkens a capture and "dialing down exposure" darkens it more, does it not?