Hi. If dynamic range can be measured, why don't manufacturers include it with the rest of specs?

[Jay Anson]

Merry Christmas

Because dynamic range generally gets worse with each camera model's upgrade path. 6D/6D2 7D/7D2 ect

 

[Jack Tingle]

Merry Christmas

EVERY digi camera I've ever seen has it included in the specs!!!

John

I don't think so.

Included where ?

For example I just had a look at the Sony A1 specs and no , I cannot find that figure.

Maybe you are thinking of DPReview quoting DXO tests or something like that.

BTW, rom an ex-retailer point of view, most customers (not to be confused with members here) would not know what Dynamic Range is.

And many of us who do know don't care much. Other features often outweigh it.

 

[Iliah Borg]

Because, after that, they need to explain how to reach it in practice

Also, it isn't a single figure but varies with the ISO setting, so you need a graph like the ones on the PhotonsToPhotos web site.

Don Cox

Consider that light spectrum and reflections spectra affect usable dynamic range

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Because you rarely shoot at base ISO where DR is the highest.

Most of my landscape shots are taken at the base ISO. And that's probably true for most of those who shoot landscapes. And architecture. And product photography. And a lot of studio portraiture...

Different for video because you almost always shoot at base ISO for the gamma profile.

LoL, Quark, sorry if I stepped on your foot. Yes I looked at your gallery(very nice work by the way!). Since it seems you seem to specialize in sunset/sunrise you will almost always be shooting high dynamic range scenes(not to be confused with HDR photography).

I agree with you that the higher the DR of a camera the better but NO more important that the noise lels or the high iso

DR is usually calculated using the noise levels, and what you vaguely refer to as 'high ISO' is basically the dynamic range at high ISO (as it corresponds to the noise).

or super high fps or ultra mp or the lens etc., etc. All aspects of a camera are IMPORTANT and we assign importance by what we shoot.

Yes, exactly, important for what? Some people are concerned about DR, some aren't.

You said to me, "You clearly don't understand what you're talking about". I clearly DO understand what I am talking about. To many have their heads stuck in DXO

Too many is how many? Is there a research or at least a reliable poll showing how many photographers stuck their heads in DxOMark?

and are literally obsessed with DR! I've been reading their over zealousness with it since the Nikon D800 came out.

I haven't seen anyone obsessed with the DR. I've seen people discussing it, typically those who shoot landscapes.

We all learn to shoot with-in the capabilities of our chosen cameras and compensate for what they don't do as well, the best we can. That's not to say DR is not important but I for one do NOT obsess with it. You need super high DR, simply shoot HDR.

Try shooting a seascape HDR of the constantly and rapidly changing subject.

Higher DR simply means - less HDR blending and more keepers where blending is impossible or hard to do.

Too many would eliminate every shadow and every specular highlight in an image to the point where it looks dead to any advanced photographer but looks perfect to a DR obsessed shooter!

In the real world if the sun is in your frame you will NEVER have enough DR.

My current camera has enough DR to handle the sun in the frame when it's close enough to the horizon.

Sometimes in the real world we just gotta squint!

John

 

[Iliah Borg]

In the real world if the sun is in your frame you will NEVER have enough DR.

Shoot raw and try a blue filter on the lens. Quite often it helps.

Sometimes in the real world we just gotta squint!

Or to wear adequate sunglasses

--
http://www.libraw.org/

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Merry Christmas

Because dynamic range generally gets worse with each camera model's upgrade path. 6D/6D2 7D/7D2 ect

It generally gets better. The 7DII actually seems to be better than the 7D, and 6DII - yes, worse than the 6D. But generally cameras get better, although it looks like CMOS technology is approaching its limits.

 

[Jay Anson]

Merry Christmas

Because dynamic range generally gets worse with each camera model's upgrade path. 6D/6D2 7D/7D2 ect

It generally gets better. The 7DII actually seems to be better than the 7D, and 6DII - yes, worse than the 6D. But generally cameras get better, although it looks like CMOS technology is approaching its limits.

I added a 7D to my arsenal this year instead of the 7D MK2. After comparing the images I felt the original 7D edged it in image quality. It might just be my perception but the RAW output seems to have taken a step back in the MK 2. I'm upgrading by downgrading lol.

 

[John Sheehy]

Merry Christmas

EVERY digi camera I've ever seen has it included in the specs!!!

You and I must have no cameras in common, then.

 

[John Sheehy]

Would you trust them if they did?

There is more than one definition of DR, and there are ways to cook the things measured, for better test results.

 

[River Photography]

Because, after that, they need to explain how to reach it in practice

Also, it isn't a single figure but varies with the ISO setting, so you need a graph like the ones on the PhotonsToPhotos web site.

Don Cox

Consider that light spectrum and reflections spectra affect usable dynamic range

veiling glare

Rp

 

[River Photography]

Merry Christmas

Because dynamic range generally gets worse with each camera model's upgrade path. 6D/6D2 7D/7D2 ect

even jumps a few models.

 

[John Sheehy]

Merry Christmas

Because dynamic range generally gets worse with each camera model's upgrade path. 6D/6D2 7D/7D2 ect

It generally gets better. The 7DII actually seems to be better than the 7D, and 6DII - yes, worse than the 6D. But generally cameras get better, although it looks like CMOS technology is approaching its limits.

I added a 7D to my arsenal this year instead of the 7D MK2. After comparing the images I felt the original 7D edged it in image quality. It might just be my perception but the RAW output seems to have taken a step back in the MK 2. I'm upgrading by downgrading lol.

With all due respect, I think that your methodology of comparison is botched, and riddles with illusion. Do you think that the 7D has better IQ than the 90D, too? If so, then that confirms to me what I said.

 

[John Sheehy]

Because, after that, they need to explain how to reach it in practice

Also, it isn't a single figure but varies with the ISO setting, so you need a graph like the ones on the PhotonsToPhotos web site.

Technically true; however, high DR at the ISO that has the most (usually base, but sometimes base has missing headroom compared to higher ISOs) is a substantial accomplishment, while high DR at higher ISOs can be pure fluff, because what ISO a manufacturer uses for a certain gain, digitization, and manipulation of raw values depends purely on how much headroom they want to have over middle grey.

So, what happens is that when a manufacturer assigns more headroom to its ISO settings, the camera gets higher DR at higher ISOs, but they may actually give MORE exposure-referenced noise than if less headroom was assigned.

Imagine that Bill Claff graphed PDR for Canon cameras with HTP ISOs in addition to the standard ones. At the same high ISO setting, HTP would have almost a full stop more DR, but the images taken with the same exposure would be slightly noisier. So, you might have 0.95 stops more DR with HTP, but 1 stop more of post-gain read noise, which is generally the most spatially-correlated and visible noise that recent cameras generate.

A person reading too much into the idea that "DR" or "PDR" is some kind of general noise measurement would lead someone to choose HTP, even though it gives slightly more noise, in actual practice. The only real value of HTP is to preserve more highlights without clipping, but at an increased noise cost, if you're doing anything with the shadows. Yes, higher DR or PDR can mean MORE shadow noise!

 

[John Sheehy]

Because, after that, they need to explain how to reach it in practice

Also, it isn't a single figure but varies with the ISO setting, so you need a graph like the ones on the PhotonsToPhotos web site.

Don Cox

Consider that light spectrum and reflections spectra affect usable dynamic range

That's only an issue, I think, if you think of camera DR as apples compared to scene DR apples, but they are really apples and oranges. Scene DR is about the range of brightnesses in the scene, and then as contrast is modified by lightpaths approaching the sensor, including random scatter and patterned flares. Sensor DR is more about how far below raw highlight clipping the noise meets a certain aesthetic or numerical standard, so the bottom line is that more DR means less noise in the stops well below clipping, and less noise is almost always a good thing (unless it causes posterization), whether you leave blacks greyed, as is, with low contrast, or you adjust levels to regain blacks: there will be less noise.

Yes, you will never get blacks recorded black with a small black circle in a frame that is mostly white, but you get a lot closer to black when the wall is black with a small white circle. So, any monolithic figure for the limits of scene DR through a lens is highly dependent on the key of the subject matter.

DR helps with exposure latitude, too, which is completely independent of lightpath contrast loss.

 

[John Sheehy]

Because, after that, they need to explain how to reach it in practice

What a mess, ty

Not really. If two cameras have the same headroom at a given ISO setting, and one has a stop more DR than the other, it will have less noise in the shadows, regardless of anything like veiling flare, whether you correct for the flare or not.

 

[Djehuty]

Merry Christmas

Because dynamic range generally gets worse with each camera model's upgrade path. 6D/6D2 7D/7D2 ect

I thought its because Canons are not known for their DR latitude

 

[John Sheehy]

DR is usually calculated using the noise levels, and what you vaguely refer to as 'high ISO' is basically the dynamic range at high ISO (as it corresponds to the noise).

DR at high ISOs is NOT a high-ISO noise measurement. It is the sum of two important characteristics, headroom and footroom. Almost everyone seems to be conflating DR with either headroom or footroom. You want to look only at footroom, to estimate "high-ISO noise". PDR has no mechanism to tell what is footroom and what is headroom. DXO's DR does; the location of the trends is footroom, and the data points on the lines show "DR". You look at the trendlines in DxO for high ISO noise performance; not the data points for the ISO settings. If you want to know the headroom, you look at the offset between the data point camera ISO setting and where that number is on the X axis.

--

Beware of correct answers to wrong questions.
John

http://www.pbase.com/image/55384958.jpg

 

[John Sheehy]

Because you rarely shoot at base ISO where DR is the highest.

Even if true (and it's probably not true for a considerable percentage of users), that can't be the reason. For example, a DR specification could be provided as something like 12.5 stops at ISO 100 if a manufacturer wanted to do that.

A camera's maximum frame rate is a prominently referenced number in manufacturers' specifications even though many photographers might only rarely shoot at that rate.

You can't fudge fps, because there is only one clear, crisp definition and anyone can measure the results in the only one defintion of fps. DR is an abstraction at best, and has multiple definitions, and many ways of being measured wrong, or the camera not being able to deliver the quality in shadows that one might expect, through destructive black-clipping and posterization and raw cooking.

 

[Iliah Borg]

Because, after that, they need to explain how to reach it in practice

Also, it isn't a single figure but varies with the ISO setting, so you need a graph like the ones on the PhotonsToPhotos web site.

Don Cox

Consider that light spectrum and reflections spectra affect usable dynamic range

That's only an issue, I think, if you think of camera DR as apples compared to scene DR apples, but they are really apples and oranges. Scene DR is about the range of brightnesses in the scene, and then as contrast is modified by lightpaths approaching the sensor, including random scatter and patterned flares. Sensor DR is more about how far below raw highlight clipping the noise meets a certain aesthetic or numerical standard, so the bottom line is that more DR means less noise in the stops well below clipping, and less noise is almost always a good thing (unless it causes posterization), whether you leave blacks greyed, as is, with low contrast, or you adjust levels to regain blacks: there will be less noise.

Yes, you will never get blacks recorded black with a small black circle in a frame that is mostly white, but you get a lot closer to black when the wall is black with a small white circle. So, any monolithic figure for the limits of scene DR through a lens is highly dependent on the key of the subject matter.

DR helps with exposure latitude, too, which is completely independent of lightpath contrast loss.

I wasn't mentioning flare / glare or any contrast-related issues intentionally. What ANSI / ISO standard will govern the definition of DR is important. What will be the reference scene, reference light(s), what will be the method, will it be for raw or JPEGs, or both, will it be only for the base ISO, and a lot of questions about ISO for raw - all needs to be addressed before answering the basic question, how to reach this DR in practice. And answering this question with "often you can't" is not really an answer.

--
http://www.libraw.org/

 

[jerry1]

Try shooting a seascape HDR of the constantly and rapidly changing subject.

As someone who lives on the coast and shoots lots of those (and there is always wind) I can relate to your comment. Some people don't like filters but this is where an ND Grad becomes a necessity during early mornings and late evenings.