Dynamic Range

[Bill Ferris]

My advice is to control the light - ND grad filters and a bit of daylight fill for portraits is a lot cheaper than a new camera.

Yep. There is also how you can work with the light when doing landscapes. Like choosing the right time of day for a particular direction to be shooting in.

In fact I prefer to do landscapes in early predawn light well before sunrise. Long 20 or 30 sec exposures when everything is being illuminated in skylight only. A much more even light that gets into deep mountain valleys almost as much as the open faces. (Plus it has the added benefit of giving soft pastel colours) The DR of the scene that the camera is expected to capture is greatly reduced.

Every top photographer I have worked with gets up at 5 in the morning. Exhausting

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

A sheet of thick emulsion B&W film like a sheet of TriX with the appropriate developer and development protocol can capture a significantly higher DR than digital sensors. When I am serious about landscape I will still use my 4x5 and good old TriX and scan the negative. If I am going to have to lug a tripod in order to bracket, I might as well take my 4x5.

I typically only need a tripod when I need one, not because I'm bracketing. I don't see it as limiting generally.

My D800E had better DR than my FujiX by a little bit but it still wasn't sufficient for a lot of scenes.

Agreed.

The limiting factor today is photodetectors and they are about as efficient as they are going to get and the noise figure on the electronics is pretty close to as good as it is going to get. Hopefully the hype around organic sensors will be at least partially true.

Would be nice.

 

[Truman Prevatt]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

 

[Erik Baumgartner]

Do you have a concrete example, where you couldn´t pull the shadows back with a Fuji?

Because in my experience an exposure with -3 EV is practically always enough to retain highlights. But you need to shoot at low ISOs. If you shoot at high ISOs, you´ll always get too much noise, FF or not.

This said, I have the impression, that my A7 I is slightly more tolerant to extreme shadow pushes in post than my X-T2. But it´s not much and only relevant, if the final outcome is supposed to look like an HDR shot (i.e. usually pretty ugly).

I make no claims about being a landscape expert, but I haven't encountered many scenes worth photographing that couldn't be handled with the X-T2 and a little post processing. This was just a test shot to see how moving water would look in a quickie handheld pano, but there was some significant DR here. The sun was super-intense and just out of the frame in the upper left hand corner and the shadows were extremely deep and dark on the far side of the river and on the left. I had no problems at all restoring the shadows back to where they ought to be and I didn't even expose this optimally, it was definitely underexposed for most of the image.

To my mind, if you've got a scene that's too extreme for a single exposure from the X-T2, it's probably going to look like crap with most FFs too, even if they do allow for a bit more recovery in post. You'll probably to want to bracket or use a grad filter with the FF camera as well.

I don't really care what kind of DR numbers can be assigned to the X-T2, for almost anything I'm going to use it for, it's enough.

View attachment e5466d617f7149f394459ed04ea90832.jpg

 

[Bill Ferris]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film. A sheet of thick emulsion B&W film like a sheet of TriX with the appropriate developer and development protocol can capture a significantly higher DR than digital sensors. When I am serious about landscape I will still use my 4x5 and good old TriX and scan the negative. If I am going to have to lug a tripod in order to bracket,...

and panos, timelapses, night sky...

I might as well take my 4x5.

How do the panos, timelapses and long exposure night sky shots look on the TriX?

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

 

[Truman Prevatt]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

Printed Electronics World by IDTechEx

This free journal provides updates on the latest industry developments and IDTechEx research on printed and flexible electronics; from sensors, displays and materials to manufacturing.

www.printedelectronicsworld.com

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow.

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

 

[kiwi2]

My advice is to control the light - ND grad filters and a bit of daylight fill for portraits is a lot cheaper than a new camera.

Yep. There is also how you can work with the light when doing landscapes. Like choosing the right time of day for a particular direction to be shooting in.

In fact I prefer to do landscapes in early predawn light well before sunrise. Long 20 or 30 sec exposures when everything is being illuminated in skylight only. A much more even light that gets into deep mountain valleys almost as much as the open faces. (Plus it has the added benefit of giving soft pastel colours) The DR of the scene that the camera is expected to capture is greatly reduced.

Every top photographer I have worked with gets up at 5 in the morning. Exhausting

It would be exhausting doing this morning after morning, but once a fortnight or so is quite doable. The trick to it for me is being able to interpret and anticipate local weather forecasts when planning where I want to go and shoot a day or two before. There is nothing worse than going through all this trouble and the weather and hence the light isn't what you were hoping for.

In the Open Talk and Beginners forums, I am quite critical of the techno geek types that go on and on about small camera technical details like arguing over definitions of exposure and equivalence and such things. A lot of it a waste of time in my opinion as it only makes very small differences. No one hardly ever talks about the properties and qualities of light. The very thing that makes a huge difference to the look of someone's photos.

Take this shot for example...

Another long 20 sec exposure in faint predawn light. Light is coming on to the scene from all directions from the sky itself like a big diffuser dome...

At the same time there is a bit more light on the eastern horizon from the slowly creeping daybreak. This is giving a bit more light to the high mountain peaks facing the east. So it's still giving contrast and definition to the mountain peaks.

The shot straight off the camera was slightly flatter than this but I played around with the white-point etc to give it a bit more contrast. So it was kind of the opposite of having a DR issue. There is a lot of thought that can be put into the light before you need to start thinking about better camera gear or whatever. If you make the same mistakes with a new FF camera you are just going to run into the same problems again.

--
https://flic.kr/s/aHskGHoofd

 

[kiwi2]

My advice is to control the light - ND grad filters and a bit of daylight fill for portraits is a lot cheaper than a new camera.

Yep. There is also how you can work with the light when doing landscapes. Like choosing the right time of day for a particular direction to be shooting in.

In fact I prefer to do landscapes in early predawn light well before sunrise. Long 20 or 30 sec exposures when everything is being illuminated in skylight only. A much more even light that gets into deep mountain valleys almost as much as the open faces. (Plus it has the added benefit of giving soft pastel colours) The DR of the scene that the camera is expected to capture is greatly reduced.

Every top photographer I have worked with gets up at 5 in the morning. Exhausting

That's a bit late this time year in the Northern Hemisphere

A 3:00 AM alarm will get you to a location before sunrise where I'm at...Zzzzzzzz

Getting up at 3am for an hour and a half drive then a 15 minute walk to be in position a couple of hours before sunrise is exactly what I had to do for this recent photo...

The bright bit of sky on the left may look like the sun rising, but this is still faint predawn light with a 30 sec exposure. There was some salmon pink on the left with turquoise on the right and where they mixed made a purple colour in the middle. If the sun was already rising, then the difference with the lit side of the cliff face to the shadows side of the cliff face would have been much greater.

--

1 year with Fuji

Explore this photo album by Pete Oliver on Flickr!

flic.kr

 

[57even]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

 

[Bill Ferris]

My advice is to control the light - ND grad filters and a bit of daylight fill for portraits is a lot cheaper than a new camera.

Yep. There is also how you can work with the light when doing landscapes. Like choosing the right time of day for a particular direction to be shooting in.

In fact I prefer to do landscapes in early predawn light well before sunrise. Long 20 or 30 sec exposures when everything is being illuminated in skylight only. A much more even light that gets into deep mountain valleys almost as much as the open faces. (Plus it has the added benefit of giving soft pastel colours) The DR of the scene that the camera is expected to capture is greatly reduced.

Every top photographer I have worked with gets up at 5 in the morning. Exhausting

That's a bit late this time year in the Northern Hemisphere

A 3:00 AM alarm will get you to a location before sunrise where I'm at...Zzzzzzzz

Getting up at 3am for an hour and a half drive then a 15 minute walk to be in position a couple of hours before sunrise is exactly what I had to do for this recent photo...

The bright bit of sky on the left may look like the sun rising, but this is still faint predawn light with a 30 sec exposure. There was some salmon pink on the left with turquoise on the right and where they mixed made a purple colour in the middle. If the sun was already rising, then the difference with the lit side of the cliff face to the shadows side of the cliff face would have been much greater.

--
https://flic.kr/s/aHskGHoofd

Pre-sunrise light can be pretty special.

--
Bill Ferris Photography
Flagstaff, AZ

http://www.billferris.photoshelter.com

 

[57even]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I was talking about transparency. Negative film is far more forgiving - Portra and the BW films have more DR than a lot of digital.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

Don't know any professional printers anymore - they're all out of jobs! But I wasn't talking about shadows - they can be handled if they're important. The thing is that with 14 stops of DR available in film and the graceful highlight saturation, you can really make a nice image that digital can't match and that credibly preserves shadow detail. Not that I use it anymore mind you...

 

[57even]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I was talking about transparency. Negative film is far more forgiving - Portra and the BW films have more DR than a lot of digital.

B&W maybe. Colour, not so. It's incredibly hard to compare because with a lot of that highlight shoulder was not very usable. It didn't 'clip' but it didn't look that nice if you tried to push it too far.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

Don't know any professional printers anymore - they're all out of jobs!

They mainly work in publishing and advertising. Like my partner. Photographic printing (for photographers) is indeed rare comparatively speaking, but there are still quite a few around. I get most of my printing done by one.

But I wasn't talking about shadows - they can be handled if they're important. The thing is that with 14 stops of DR available in film and the graceful highlight saturation, you can really make a nice image that digital can't match and that credibly preserves shadow detail. Not that I use it anymore mind you...

14 stops is 14 stops. How you manage the information in between is up to you.

The thing is with digital I have 14 stops at ISO 100, not ISO 25.

And I can get a lot more useful information out of the bottom stops with digital shooting ETTR than I could shooting film and exposing for the shadows. The only problem is that specular highlights can be a problem with digital if you don't spot them in time.

Now if you are talking about B&W or fine-grained large format, then film still has a lot going for it, but you are severely limiting the types of subject matter you can shoot.

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I was talking about transparency. Negative film is far more forgiving - Portra and the BW films have more DR than a lot of digital.

B&W maybe. Colour, not so. It's incredibly hard to compare because with a lot of that highlight shoulder was not very usable. It didn't 'clip' but it didn't look that nice if you tried to push it too far.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

Don't know any professional printers anymore - they're all out of jobs!

They mainly work in publishing and advertising. Like my partner. Photographic printing (for photographers) is indeed rare comparatively speaking, but there are still quite a few around. I get most of my printing done by one.

But I wasn't talking about shadows - they can be handled if they're important. The thing is that with 14 stops of DR available in film and the graceful highlight saturation, you can really make a nice image that digital can't match and that credibly preserves shadow detail. Not that I use it anymore mind you...

14 stops is 14 stops. How you manage the information in between is up to you.

Well, not really. 14 stops in digital ends at 14 stops and you get a hard cutoff. In film, you get a soft transition that looks much better.

The thing is with digital I have 14 stops at ISO 100, not ISO 25.

And I can get a lot more useful information out of the bottom stops with digital shooting ETTR than I could shooting film and exposing for the shadows. The only problem is that specular highlights can be a problem with digital if you don't spot them in time.

In digital, there are many situations were you will never handle all the highlight information in front of you without sacrificing shadow.

Now if you are talking about B&W or fine-grained large format, then film still has a lot going for it, but you are severely limiting the types of subject matter you can shoot.

BW vs. color? I think BW has potential for more DR/latitude than color, but even the current color films are up there.

 

[57even]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I was talking about transparency. Negative film is far more forgiving - Portra and the BW films have more DR than a lot of digital.

B&W maybe. Colour, not so. It's incredibly hard to compare because with a lot of that highlight shoulder was not very usable. It didn't 'clip' but it didn't look that nice if you tried to push it too far.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

Don't know any professional printers anymore - they're all out of jobs!

They mainly work in publishing and advertising. Like my partner. Photographic printing (for photographers) is indeed rare comparatively speaking, but there are still quite a few around. I get most of my printing done by one.

But I wasn't talking about shadows - they can be handled if they're important. The thing is that with 14 stops of DR available in film and the graceful highlight saturation, you can really make a nice image that digital can't match and that credibly preserves shadow detail. Not that I use it anymore mind you...

14 stops is 14 stops. How you manage the information in between is up to you.

Well, not really. 14 stops in digital ends at 14 stops and you get a hard cutoff. In film, you get a soft transition that looks much better.

The 14 stops includes the transition all the way to white. If you have a scene with 20 EV, neither film nor digital will deal with it.

You get a smooth rolloff by default, but you had to be careful not to underexpose and block shadows. With digital, you have to be careful not to overexpose, but theres plenty of recoverable detail in the shadows.

It still ends up in the same place ultimately. That's why its so hard to compare them. You meter differently and you process differently.

But just because its a curve instead of a straight line does not gain anything either way.

The thing is with digital I have 14 stops at ISO 100, not ISO 25.

And I can get a lot more useful information out of the bottom stops with digital shooting ETTR than I could shooting film and exposing for the shadows. The only problem is that specular highlights can be a problem with digital if you don't spot them in time.

In digital, there are many situations were you will never handle all the highlight information in front of you without sacrificing shadow.

And there are many occasions in film where I blew the highlights when exposing for the shadows, or got horrible noisy skies with weird colours because the auto-lab tried to adjust for my sloppy exposure ;-)

But its the same equation. How you distribute 14 stops between shadows and highlights is up to you.

Now if you are talking about B&W or fine-grained large format, then film still has a lot going for it, but you are severely limiting the types of subject matter you can shoot.

BW vs. color? I think BW has potential for more DR/latitude than color, but even the current color films are up there.

Kodak reckons about 13 EV for colour film, though since its noise dependent I would think 14 EV is fair for fine-grained film or larger formats.

 

[stevo23]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I was talking about transparency. Negative film is far more forgiving - Portra and the BW films have more DR than a lot of digital.

B&W maybe. Colour, not so. It's incredibly hard to compare because with a lot of that highlight shoulder was not very usable. It didn't 'clip' but it didn't look that nice if you tried to push it too far.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

Don't know any professional printers anymore - they're all out of jobs!

They mainly work in publishing and advertising. Like my partner. Photographic printing (for photographers) is indeed rare comparatively speaking, but there are still quite a few around. I get most of my printing done by one.

But I wasn't talking about shadows - they can be handled if they're important. The thing is that with 14 stops of DR available in film and the graceful highlight saturation, you can really make a nice image that digital can't match and that credibly preserves shadow detail. Not that I use it anymore mind you...

14 stops is 14 stops. How you manage the information in between is up to you.

Well, not really. 14 stops in digital ends at 14 stops and you get a hard cutoff. In film, you get a soft transition that looks much better.

The 14 stops includes the transition all the way to white. If you have a scene with 20 EV, neither film nor digital will deal with it.

You get a smooth rolloff by default, but you had to be careful not to underexpose and block shadows.

I'm not talking about shadows, I'm talking about highlights. That's where film looks better.

With digital, you have to be careful not to overexpose, but theres plenty of recoverable detail in the shadows.

It still ends up in the same place ultimately.

Same place how? Not sure what your'e talking about. It's a very different place.

That's why its so hard to compare them. You meter differently and you process differently.

Yea...

But just because its a curve instead of a straight line does not gain anything either way.

Even with the limited DR that transparency had, you still get better looking highlights. I'd call that a gain.

The thing is with digital I have 14 stops at ISO 100, not ISO 25.

And I can get a lot more useful information out of the bottom stops with digital shooting ETTR than I could shooting film and exposing for the shadows. The only problem is that specular highlights can be a problem with digital if you don't spot them in time.

In digital, there are many situations were you will never handle all the highlight information in front of you without sacrificing shadow.

And there are many occasions in film where I blew the highlights when exposing for the shadows, or got horrible noisy skies with weird colours because the auto-lab tried to adjust for my sloppy exposure ;-)

But its the same equation. How you distribute 14 stops between shadows and highlights is up to you.

No, not quite.

Now if you are talking about B&W or fine-grained large format, then film still has a lot going for it, but you are severely limiting the types of subject matter you can shoot.

BW vs. color? I think BW has potential for more DR/latitude than color, but even the current color films are up there.

Kodak reckons about 13 EV for colour film, though since its noise dependent I would think 14 EV is fair for fine-grained film or larger formats.

Which Kodak?

 

[57even]

Make one exposure to protect highlights and a second tip capture detail in the shadows. Blend in your photo processing app of choice. QED.

Makes the assumption that

a) you are on a sturdy tripod

b) nothing changes in the scene

The OP does landscape photography. Anyone serious about landscape photography is almost certainly using a tripod. There's a good chance, they're using filters to help knock down glare or even the overall scene DR. Bracketing exposures and blending is a common technique.

Indeed common and tripods are not as necessary as one might think. Yes, if you needed a tripod without multi exposures, you need it with. But if you didn't need it before, you probably don't need it now.

That limits the genera this might work in. For land scape without much foliage on a calm day - it would work fine. Even with landscape if water is present - depending on how one wants to render the water - it would work or not work.

Yes exposure bracketing is a work around in some limited applications. However, it is just that that, a workaround for insufficient DR in the sensor.

People who do landscape photography call bracketing, a technique. It's something they use along with filters to capture a scene with as much or more dynamic range than can be captured in a single exposure with another body. I bracket with APS-C and full frame bodies.

No sensor has the DR to completely capture many of my shots. Granted, a higher DR sensor might look better overall, but I still see myself bracketing even with a high DR sensor like the D850.

Like it or not, current sensor technology has about the same dynamic range of negative photographic film.

Mostly, yes. I think there are some BW films that give 14 stops? But no matter if more or less than film, film is more graceful with highlights. I prefer that aspect of film all day long.

God love the long smooth shoulder on good old TriX sheet and 120 film. BW film has almost infinite selectable dynamic range. TriX with a high energy developer like HC110 solution A and aggressive agitation, will give you about 6 stops and extremely high contrast. TriX with HC110 solution B with give you about 10 to 12 stops. Reduce the agitation rate and you are up to 14. With sheet film, agitate and them put the hanger in a water bath you can get up to 16.

Then change of to highly dilute Rodinal (1:75) with a low agitation rate you are talking up to 20 stops.

However, the key with film is that long smooth slopping shoulder rather than the linear response of digital. A photo detector is nothing but a linear photon counter. When it runs out of fingers and toes to keep count on - it stops counting no matter how many photons hit it. Film is not linear in the top end which if exploited give the long glowing highlights that is the trade mark of an Adams print or a Minor White print.

I have to admit that the one thing that drove me out of film after I moved to Florida has nothing to do with digital. It has to do that everywhere I lived before Florida the water coming out of the tap was about 65 to 68 degrees. In Florida it seldom gets below 70 and for much of the year it is in the upper 70's to 80. That really throws a monkey wrench in developing film. I screws up your time, it screws up your agitation.

I talked to Clyde Butcher and his darkroom he has a chiller that keeps his cold water at 60 degrees and he adds hot to bring it to 68 for his developer. He also uses a water bath around his takes to keep the temp at 68 during the development.

I finally gave up the ghost and closed down most of my dark room. I do still use my 4x5 and RB but I save the film for developing during the winter when I can better keep the developer temp at 68 to 70 degrees.

However, I really miss the beautiful long sloping shoulder of B&W film.

I still do take 4x5

You are making me want to go back into film.

I don't know if the the Fuji organic photoelectric conversion layer can bring back the response of film's DR.

https://www.printedelectronicsworld...-using-organic-photoelectric-conversion-layer

It has hit the street in Panasonic CMOS security video camera. They have been working on this technology since 2006.

I sure miss those long smooth sloping shoulders which made the highlights glow

Even with Kodachrome or E6 films and their notoriously low dynamic range, I thought the highlights looked better.

Only because the shadows were completely blocked up, most of the time.

Didn't have to be that way - that was the point. Highlights could clipped gracefully so you could expose for shadow more often.

But there is far less information in the shadows, and if you push exposure into the highlights it can be very tricky to develop them nicely with negative film.

I was talking about transparency. Negative film is far more forgiving - Portra and the BW films have more DR than a lot of digital.

B&W maybe. Colour, not so. It's incredibly hard to compare because with a lot of that highlight shoulder was not very usable. It didn't 'clip' but it didn't look that nice if you tried to push it too far.

I have spoken to a lot of professional printers, and they generally agree. Shadows look better in digital, provided you watch the highlights.

Don't know any professional printers anymore - they're all out of jobs!

They mainly work in publishing and advertising. Like my partner. Photographic printing (for photographers) is indeed rare comparatively speaking, but there are still quite a few around. I get most of my printing done by one.

But I wasn't talking about shadows - they can be handled if they're important. The thing is that with 14 stops of DR available in film and the graceful highlight saturation, you can really make a nice image that digital can't match and that credibly preserves shadow detail. Not that I use it anymore mind you...

14 stops is 14 stops. How you manage the information in between is up to you.

Well, not really. 14 stops in digital ends at 14 stops and you get a hard cutoff. In film, you get a soft transition that looks much better.

The 14 stops includes the transition all the way to white. If you have a scene with 20 EV, neither film nor digital will deal with it.

You get a smooth rolloff by default, but you had to be careful not to underexpose and block shadows.

I'm not talking about shadows, I'm talking about highlights. That's where film looks better.

One is just the other end of the same scale.

With digital, you have to be careful not to overexpose, but theres plenty of recoverable detail in the shadows.

It still ends up in the same place ultimately.

Same place how? Not sure what your'e talking about. It's a very different place.

But it pretty much adds up to the same place.

That's why its so hard to compare them. You meter differently and you process differently.

Yea...

But just because its a curve instead of a straight line does not gain anything either way.

Even with the limited DR that transparency had, you still get better looking highlights. I'd call that a gain.

I clearly don't see what you are seeing.

The thing is with digital I have 14 stops at ISO 100, not ISO 25.

And I can get a lot more useful information out of the bottom stops with digital shooting ETTR than I could shooting film and exposing for the shadows. The only problem is that specular highlights can be a problem with digital if you don't spot them in time.

In digital, there are many situations were you will never handle all the highlight information in front of you without sacrificing shadow.

And there are many occasions in film where I blew the highlights when exposing for the shadows, or got horrible noisy skies with weird colours because the auto-lab tried to adjust for my sloppy exposure ;-)

But its the same equation. How you distribute 14 stops between shadows and highlights is up to you.

No, not quite.

Now if you are talking about B&W or fine-grained large format, then film still has a lot going for it, but you are severely limiting the types of subject matter you can shoot.

BW vs. color? I think BW has potential for more DR/latitude than color, but even the current color films are up there.

Kodak reckons about 13 EV for colour film, though since its noise dependent I would think 14 EV is fair for fine-grained film or larger formats.

Which Kodak?

Well, that's what they said a few years back.