Dynamic Range - Tests

[OzRay]

Not much to do today, so I thought I'd do the dynamic range test as suggested in MR site: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/determining-exposure.shtml .

So I set the camera up on a tripod, did a WB setup and placed a sheet of paper towelling (good for texture) on the wall of my study (reasonabaly evenly lit).

I did the 18% grey test first, then the underexposure and overexposure to six stops either side. I converted the RAW files to JPG in File Viewer and then examined them in PS.

The E1 easily showed detail to 4 stops under and perhaps 5 stops under, but because I couldn't quite see the detail, I'll leave it at 4 stops. Looking at overexposure, the E1 showed detail easily to 3 stops over but very hard to say it went to 4 stops over.

So taking the best of these, according to MR's test methodology, the E1 (or mine at least) has 7 stops of dynamic range. If you count the shots where detail dissapears ie pure white and pure black as part of the equation, the E1 has 9 stops of dynamic range. Either way, not too shabby and far better than the 5.5 stops transparency and most digital sensors have.

Now when I compared the RAW files, things were a little different. While I began to lose texture at five stops underexposure, I could still see a clear difference between the image and the black background of Viewer (same with 6 stops under, but it looked the same as the 5 stops under). With overexposure, it was more difficult to determine, as the background was black and there was no way to change this to white, so I couldn't see where the change became consistent. Based on the RAW images, you could say that the E1 has at least 8 stops of dynamic range (maybe 10 if you count pure black and pure white).

Either way, I fairly happy with the ability of the E1 to handle such a wide range. Now, if a few more would do the same/similar test, then we would get a reasonable idea of what the E1 can consistently achieve.

I haven't posted any pictures, as to see detail you really need to see the full images and they are simply too large to view.

Cheers

Ray

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

 

[Barry Stewart]

Ray:

I was always assuming that (like digital video) digital still media could not compete with film for exposure range.

Now I'm learning it's true... they aren't on an even playing field — but it's the other way around. Film is getting beaten by digital (at least by the e-1.)

Amazing!

Barry

(I may try out my e-10 when I get a nothing day going.) Christmas?

 

[OzRay]

Barry

It amazed me somewhat as well. Whle I had this gut feeling that the E1 would have a dynamic range of around 7 stops (purely based on looking at the photos I've taken), it was heartening to see the test prove that it has at least this range. And that doesn't even take into account the way the E1 handles tones (beautifully by the way), which is quite different to other DSLR images that I've seen.

Cheers

Ray

Ray:

I was always assuming that (like digital video) digital still media
could not compete with film for exposure range.

Now I'm learning it's true... they aren't on an even playing field
— but it's the other way around. Film is getting beaten by digital
(at least by the e-1.)

Amazing!

Barry

(I may try out my e-10 when I get a nothing day going.) Christmas?

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

 

[Jonas B]

Not much to do today, so I thought I'd do the dynamic range test as
suggested in MR site:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/determining-exposure.shtml .

Thank you.

Finally somebody not standing back for the challenge. When I posted my Minolta A2 pictures http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=11023664 I was sure there should come some happy E-1 owners and show me what it should look like. rainer viertlboeck showed us what it really should look like when he posted his Kodak pictures.

I was getting worried about the lack of Olympus pictures. What if that dynamic range was nothing but a myth, like the "nice" bokeh from the new digital zuikos?! Now at least we got one testimonial here! And I like that. I trust OzRay from the Minolta forum and as I want to decide to go for a Oly dSLR this comforts me.

Jonas B

 

[OzRay]

Jonas

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I hope a few others do the test as well, so that we can get a more accurate evaluation of dynamic range. Either way, I know that it's better than most, simply by comparing images from different cameras.

I might look at repeating the test under daylight conditions, if I can get the right day, just to even things out, as the indoor test was not under what I woud call ideal lighting - even, but not as bright as I would have liked.

Cheers

Ray

Not much to do today, so I thought I'd do the dynamic range test as
suggested in MR site:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/determining-exposure.shtml .

Thank you.
Finally somebody not standing back for the challenge. When I posted
my Minolta A2 pictures

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=11023664 I was sure there should come some happy E-1 owners and show me what it should look like. rainer viertlboeck showed us what it really should look like when he posted his Kodak pictures.
I was getting worried about the lack of Olympus pictures. What if
that dynamic range was nothing but a myth, like the "nice" bokeh
from the new digital zuikos?! Now at least we got one testimonial
here! And I like that. I trust OzRay from the Minolta forum and as
I want to decide to go for a Oly dSLR this comforts me.

Jonas B

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

 

[Nebulous]

I've done dynamic range tests a couple of times and want to do it a few more times under different conditions and "subjects".

Here are my results:

Over: 4 stops (in the first test), 5 stops (second test)
Uder: 4 stops (both test)

I think we are seing the same thing more or less of about 8 stops.

Good light
neb

 

[andy mclean]

Not much to do today, so I thought I'd do the dynamic range test as
suggested in MR site:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/determining-exposure.shtml .

Thank you.
Finally somebody not standing back for the challenge. When I posted
my Minolta A2 pictures

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=11023664 I was sure there should come some happy E-1 owners and show me what it should look like. rainer viertlboeck showed us what it really should look like when he posted his Kodak pictures.
I was getting worried about the lack of Olympus pictures. What if
that dynamic range was nothing but a myth, like the "nice" bokeh
from the new digital zuikos?! Now at least we got one testimonial
here! And I like that. I trust OzRay from the Minolta forum and as
I want to decide to go for a Oly dSLR this comforts me.

Jonas B

Jonas, why couldn't you believe my earlier post and thereafter slowsynchs? Do you think we make these things up? Why should we? Bottom line is that the E1 DR is not an issue as compared to film. When has anyone ever complained in this regard? There is no evidence here at all that wasn't already made available to you earlier.

What on earth do you want an incident light meter for? I bet I could snap off 5 bracketted shots in the time you took to take one and then adjust your camera appropriately. I used a lightmeter from time to time with my M, to save me film and the costs associatted with otherwise bracketting. But even then understanding how best to use the reading came with exprience. You get experience for free with any digital camera. And finally, your comments with respect to 'mythical nice bokeh.' I have shotn Leica for several years, these lenses are renowned for the bokeh, but even then depending on lighting conditions can give you something quite horrible. If Zuikos gave horrible bokeh consistently why would so many sing their praises? To try to con you and every other sceptic out there? I hardly think so. EVERY lense will give horrible bokeh. The secret is to know the conditions wherebyy this will happen.

I am very happy with my new E1, as are other far more experienced and technically able photgraphers than me. Every camera has its advantages and disadvantages of course, as does the E1. But please don't put down others efforts to respond to your posts in good faith. And recognise that nobody cares what make of camera you actually buy in the end.

That said, I do wish you luck with your future purchase, you have some very nice images on your website and I am sure that you would enjoy using an E1 should you decide to buy one. If you do, I look forward to seeing the images on your web site.
Andy

ps. For some high constrast shots look here: http://www.pbase.com/andymclean/glasgow

 

[Garfish]

Hi Ozray,

I appreciate the time and effort it took you to do the DR testing on the E-1, and I thankyou for posting it.

I shot K64 slide film for years in OM cameras and knew by comparison (later of course) that the E-1 had much greater DR than that film-- but then K64 was never known for its DR, rather it was saturated and contrasty in comparison to most other films-- and even more so compared to the E-1. I think K64 only has about 4 f-stops of DR-- certainly no more than 5.

I've had the E-1 over a year now and have taken 15-20K images w/ just one lock-up and that was easily cleared by turning the camera off then on-- other than that, it's performance has been flawless. I love this camera!

Cheers. Craig "obsessions make good servants but poor masters".

 

[Csabi]

Thank You Ray for sharing the results of your work. You are strengthening my opinion that the E-1 is superior to other cameras regarding dynamic range. This, and the way it is handling the colors give us those natural looking images we like the E-1 for. I hope the E-300 will be something similar.
cheers Csaba

Not much to do today, so I thought I'd do the dynamic range test as
suggested in MR site:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/determining-exposure.shtml .

So I set the camera up on a tripod, did a WB setup and placed a
sheet of paper towelling (good for texture) on the wall of my study
(reasonabaly evenly lit).

I did the 18% grey test first, then the underexposure and
overexposure to six stops either side. I converted the RAW files to
JPG in File Viewer and then examined them in PS.

The E1 easily showed detail to 4 stops under and perhaps 5 stops
under, but because I couldn't quite see the detail, I'll leave it
at 4 stops. Looking at overexposure, the E1 showed detail easily to
3 stops over but very hard to say it went to 4 stops over.

So taking the best of these, according to MR's test methodology,
the E1 (or mine at least) has 7 stops of dynamic range. If you
count the shots where detail dissapears ie pure white and pure
black as part of the equation, the E1 has 9 stops of dynamic range.
Either way, not too shabby and far better than the 5.5 stops
transparency and most digital sensors have.

Now when I compared the RAW files, things were a little different.
While I began to lose texture at five stops underexposure, I could
still see a clear difference between the image and the black
background of Viewer (same with 6 stops under, but it looked the
same as the 5 stops under). With overexposure, it was more
difficult to determine, as the background was black and there was
no way to change this to white, so I couldn't see where the change
became consistent. Based on the RAW images, you could say that the
E1 has at least 8 stops of dynamic range (maybe 10 if you count
pure black and pure white).

Either way, I fairly happy with the ability of the E1 to handle
such a wide range. Now, if a few more would do the same/similar
test, then we would get a reasonable idea of what the E1 can
consistently achieve.

I haven't posted any pictures, as to see detail you really need to
see the full images and they are simply too large to view.

Cheers

Ray

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said
it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

 

[Jonas B]

Hi
Some inline replies:

Jonas, why couldn't you believe my earlier post and thereafter
slowsynchs? Do you think we make these things up? Why should we?

In a way I believed. In another I didn't take it into account. You used a different method (when withe turn into black and black turns into white) and there was no way I could figure out what those figures would represent translated into the proposed method. The same goes for slowsynch who used yet another method where he changed the settings in the raw converter for each test picture. I wasn't able to translate those settings or the results.

Bottom line is that the E1 DR is not an issue as compared to film.

That's nice. I'm in a situation where I'm intended to give away a lot of money (in my book) buying a new dSLR. If possible I want to buy the best that those money can give me. Dynamic range is one of the parameters I'm interested in. Olympus (or the Kodak sensor) should behave good regarding to DR. Why shouldn't I get that confirmed?

When has anyone ever complained in this regard? There is no
evidence here at all that wasn't already made available to you
earlier.

Noone that I heared from. Most people that bought a gear tend to believe it is good. In the first thread there was an early reply talking about 11-12 stops. I'm happy that most others replies were more moderate, or realistic, incl yours.

What on earth do you want an incident light meter for? I bet I
could snap off 5 bracketted shots in the time you took to take one
and then adjust your camera appropriately.

From the yes[t] thread? Let's take it there.

And finally, your comments with respect to
'mythical nice bokeh.' I have shotn Leica for several years, these
lenses are renowned for the bokeh, but even then depending on
lighting conditions can give you something quite horrible. If
Zuikos gave horrible bokeh consistently why would so many sing
their praises? To try to con you and every other sceptic out there?

More to convince themselves I guess. "Consistently" horrible? I haven't noted that. Or claimed that. I have repeatedly asked for pictures showing good bokeh. I haven't got any convincing replies. I have searched the four/thirds website for "bokeh" and found a few pictures with nice bokeh, some with normal or average and quite a few with less than average bokeh. I did find other interestening things about how people use the word bokeh but that is another question. I also have searched the entire PBase for "bokeh" and found nothing related to Oly. Why am I concerned? Because I see some examples of bad bokeh I'm not used to (coming from Olympus OM world).

But please
don't put down others efforts to respond to your posts in good
faith.

I'm sorry. I didn't know I did. I try to be polite as I know I sometimes go for the truth or for the discussion rather than beeing smooth.

Thank you for getting back here making me clear up a little. I have no intention to be harsh or putting people down. And, of course, thank you for the pictures! Among the night pictures I can see examples where my A2 would have behaved less well.

--
Jonas B

 

[andy mclean]

Hi Jonas, I owe you a bit of an apology I think, it was far too late for me to be writing anything last night, and I just felt that you were being too insistant and that so many were dismissive of a very simple test that showed that DR to be excellent. At least Ray actually tried it and confirmed the overall conclusion which most of us with the camera intuitively feel (and could have checked quickly and easily).

I appreciate that the gear is expensive and that you don't want to make a mistake, I was in the same position and have asked the forum a couple of questions myself. The E1 does beat the canon d300 hands down, things are closer with the D70 in terms of final image, but is way in front in terms of build quality. When comparing imagess with both D70 and D10 (tI haven't held or shot with the D20) it is essentially down to personal taste. Having come from Leica glass, I havent been disappointed by either the 11-22mm(which is genuinely outstanding) or the 14-54mm which is an absolute bargain as a 'kit' lense. In short, I do not think that you could go far wrong with any of these cameras (although D300 is overpriced for the build quality). I will post some bokeh examples from the 11-22mm for you to look at a little later this afternoon.

In the meantime, accept my apologies. And Ray, I too appreciate your posting your conclusions. It was too late and was too cranky.
Bestw wishes-
Andy

 

[Gary Eickmeier]

Hi Jonas, I owe you a bit of an apology I think, it was far too
late for me to be writing anything last night, and I just felt that
you were being too insistant and that so many were dismissive of a
very simple test that showed that DR to be excellent. At least Ray
actually tried it and confirmed the overall conclusion which most
of us with the camera intuitively feel (and could have checked
quickly and easily).
I appreciate that the gear is expensive and that you don't want to
make a mistake, I was in the same position and have asked the forum
a couple of questions myself. The E1 does beat the canon d300 hands
down, things are closer with the D70 in terms of final image, but
is way in front in terms of build quality. When comparing imagess
with both D70 and D10 (tI haven't held or shot with the D20) it is
essentially down to personal taste. Having come from Leica glass, I
havent been disappointed by either the 11-22mm(which is genuinely
outstanding) or the 14-54mm which is an absolute bargain as a 'kit'
lense. In short, I do not think that you could go far wrong with
any of these cameras (although D300 is overpriced for the build
quality). I will post some bokeh examples from the 11-22mm for you
to look at a little later this afternoon.
In the meantime, accept my apologies. And Ray, I too appreciate
your posting your conclusions. It was too late and was too cranky.
Bestw wishes-
Andy

So what would the DR of the Canons and the Nikons be? Is this a digital thing, or a sensor thing? How much does it vary among cameras?

Also, does all this mean that we will get usable, if not great images, if our metering hits anywhere within 3 or 4 stops of the ideal?

How many stops do histograms cover?

Gary Eickmeier

 

[andy mclean]

I have only 11-22mm images to hand, so there is little by way of serious bokeh to show off with the large depth of field of this lense. However, I do have a couple of examples to show you. Please note that in converting images for the web there is quite a colour shift and they appear far flatter than they should. I am trying to sort this out. Meantime here are some examples, what do you think?







ps. Thanks to gareth and Bill for the advice about .jpeg extensions!

 

[Jonas B]

Andy,

No need for apologizes. We haven't exactly been yelling at each other and I might very well have been a little pushy. I couldn't really understand why the whole Oly forum should be that slow and boring...

The Canon and Nikon aren't interestening to me. Hey, talking about ugly bokeh, what haven't i found in that way from Canon and Nikon users during my searches...

I have to save some money. Maybe I'll be here pestering you (hopefully in a nice way) until E-3 is out?!
regards,

Jonas

Hi Jonas, I owe you a bit of an apology I think, it was far too
late for me to be writing anything last night, and I just felt that
you were being too insistant and that so many were dismissive of a
very simple test that showed that DR to be excellent. At least Ray
actually tried it and confirmed the overall conclusion which most
of us with the camera intuitively feel (and could have checked
quickly and easily).
I appreciate that the gear is expensive and that you don't want to
make a mistake, I was in the same position and have asked the forum
a couple of questions myself. The E1 does beat the canon d300 hands
down, things are closer with the D70 in terms of final image, but
is way in front in terms of build quality. When comparing imagess
with both D70 and D10 (tI haven't held or shot with the D20) it is
essentially down to personal taste. Having come from Leica glass, I
havent been disappointed by either the 11-22mm(which is genuinely
outstanding) or the 14-54mm which is an absolute bargain as a 'kit'
lense. In short, I do not think that you could go far wrong with
any of these cameras (although D300 is overpriced for the build
quality). I will post some bokeh examples from the 11-22mm for you
to look at a little later this afternoon.
In the meantime, accept my apologies. And Ray, I too appreciate
your posting your conclusions. It was too late and was too cranky.
Bestw wishes-
Andy

 

[Jonas B]

I have only 11-22mm images to hand, so there is little by way of
serious bokeh to show off with the large depth of field of this
lense.

That lense will make it into my wish list! I can't say much about the bokeh of course but the foreground blur (the picture with the red lamps) is good enough to me. Thank you for posting!

Jonas

 

[andy mclean]

I have to save some money. Maybe I'll be here pestering you
(hopefully in a nice way) until E-3 is out?!
regards,

Jonas

Glad to have sorted things out Jonas. But you can forget the idea of getting any money from me for an E3!
Andy

 

[OzRay]

Jonas

There was a question in another thread on Bokeh, to which I posted some examples and sought examples in return on what constituted, in that person's view, good Bokeh. I never received a response.

From what I've found, Bokeh is influenced mainly by three things, quality of lens, aperture (type/size of aperture) and the lighting conditions ie what at the time is producing bright points of light to give that diffuse globe/halo effect.

These are three shots that give quite different Bokeh effects, because of the nature of the background light (the second is out of focus light through a mesh):







Cheers

Ray

Jonas

Hi Jonas, I owe you a bit of an apology I think, it was far too
late for me to be writing anything last night, and I just felt that
you were being too insistant and that so many were dismissive of a
very simple test that showed that DR to be excellent. At least Ray
actually tried it and confirmed the overall conclusion which most
of us with the camera intuitively feel (and could have checked
quickly and easily).
I appreciate that the gear is expensive and that you don't want to
make a mistake, I was in the same position and have asked the forum
a couple of questions myself. The E1 does beat the canon d300 hands
down, things are closer with the D70 in terms of final image, but
is way in front in terms of build quality. When comparing imagess
with both D70 and D10 (tI haven't held or shot with the D20) it is
essentially down to personal taste. Having come from Leica glass, I
havent been disappointed by either the 11-22mm(which is genuinely
outstanding) or the 14-54mm which is an absolute bargain as a 'kit'
lense. In short, I do not think that you could go far wrong with
any of these cameras (although D300 is overpriced for the build
quality). I will post some bokeh examples from the 11-22mm for you
to look at a little later this afternoon.
In the meantime, accept my apologies. And Ray, I too appreciate
your posting your conclusions. It was too late and was too cranky.
Bestw wishes-
Andy

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

 

[BJL]

Now when I compared the RAW files, things were a little different.
While I began to lose texture at five stops underexposure, I could
still see a clear difference between the image and the black
background of Viewer (same with 6 stops under, but it looked the
same as the 5 stops under). With overexposure, it was more
difficult to determine, as the background was black and there was
no way to change this to white, so I couldn't see where the change
became consistent. Based on the RAW images, you could say that the
E1 has at least 8 stops of dynamic range (maybe 10 if you count
pure black and pure white).

First, thanks!

RAW seems the ultimate test, so I translate these results into the way that Ansel Adams described traditional black and white emulsions:

• eight stops is the "textural range" of the E-1, the range over which it holds some textural detail. (AA rated traditional black and white emulsions as typically having a six stop textural range, though the range can be better for some modern emulsions, and in particular for color film and "chromogenic" black and white film.)
• the optimistic figure of up to ten stops is roughly the "dynamic range", the total range over which shades of dark and light are distinguished. (AA rates this as about 8 stops for traditional black and white emulsions.)

So the numbers for the E-1 seem quite good, especially compared to reversal film ("slides"), though it might be that color negative film still has an even wider range. The newer ISO 800 negative films seems very flexible in this respect, being designed with lots of exposure latitude so as to give decent results even in tricky lighting conditions with auto-exposure point-and-shoot cameras. But maybe those "point-and-shoot" films give more lattitude than you wil almost ever need if you select exposure levels carefully.

As mentioned in another thread, the recent Kodak DSLRs with FillFactory CMOS sensors and the medium format digital backs seem to have even better dynamic range, while having relatively low maximum usable ISO speeds. "Good dynamic range" and "low noise at high speed settings" do not seem to go together nearly as much as one might expect.

 

[Gary Eickmeier]

I have only 11-22mm images to hand, so there is little by way of
serious bokeh to show off with the large depth of field of this
lense. However, I do have a couple of examples to show you. Please
note that in converting images for the web there is quite a colour
shift and they appear far flatter than they should. I am trying to
sort this out. Meantime here are some examples, what do you think?

What does this have to do with my post?

Gary Eickmeier

 

[andy mclean]

I have only 11-22mm images to hand, so there is little by way of
serious bokeh to show off with the large depth of field of this
lense. However, I do have a couple of examples to show you. Please
note that in converting images for the web there is quite a colour
shift and they appear far flatter than they should. I am trying to
sort this out. Meantime here are some examples, what do you think?

What does this have to do with my post?

Gary Eickmeier

Hi Gary, it has nothing to do with your post. I wanted to respond to Jonas because I felt bad about my earlier post directed at him which I regretted almost as soon as it was sent. I cannot answer your questions I'm afraid and I haven't had the opportunity to check the DR of nikons or canons in the same way I have the E1. I have compared the image output, which probably has as much to do with the lenses and in-camera algorithms as anything else. Personally, I prefer the Oly look, quite how it is really achieved I do not know. Although others have commented on the lower DR of cannons I am in no position to judge. A post in the earlier thread did point out that one of the nikon DSLRs is comparable to the E1. Interpretation of histograms is not that simple either... I think that they may be a great aid once you have experience in using the particular one from your camera. I am new to all this stuff, but Oly histograms look different to N&C of the same scene, same camera settings in very limited, unscientific comparisons with friends. None of us were keen to swap gear with anyone else and the better photo depended on the photographer rather than the camera. It is a matter of personal preference and experience for the most part. I need more experience with the E1, but wouldn't swap it for a d70 or d10. Nor would my friends appear to want to swap theirs (weatherproofing aside).
Best wishes-
Andy