Problems with DR in Northern Latitudes

[biker]

This year I was on holiday in Norway without my DSLR but I took a P&S FujiFilm X-30 (2/3" sensor) instead. I've been using it since winter and no similar problems here (it's only 10deg. difference in latitude!).
I know that landscape well and I noticed very colourful and contrasting photos even in previous years, but.. The deep blue sky makes shadows so dark that it's simply too much for the poor X-30. At home, shots are vivid (Velvia film simulation is great) and contrasting just right because sky is brighter/whiter. There it was sometimes disaster.
Attached pictures are ISO100 (DR100). Dynamic range can be increased up to 400 (needs ISO400 setting) but for extremes like this it was no help. The same with RAWs. A few pictures I wanted to rescue, opened in Darktable but alas - there was almost no information in those shadows, just a lot of noise. So no luck with such camera in that landscape type/latitude...?

Fortunately, there still was a lot of pictures that are fine and liked (the landscape is really beautiful) but a good 10%-20% of them are spoiled like this.

[KMRennie]

Hi Biker
when I had a camera with limited dynamic range I bracketed everything, with or without a tripod, and combined the files if needed. With the x-30 small file size in RAW and the low price of memory cards it would be my solution. I even did it for the first few weeks with a Nikon D810 but I have come to terms with the metering and don't need to now. PS I think that ISO 800 is needed for DR400.

Ken

[biker]

Hi Ken,

thanks for reminding me of this technique! Actually, I used it before and somehow forgot to employ it now. My favourite program is Picturenaut that can fix those offsets and tilts when bracketing without a tripod. (Yeah, a tripod would be a big nuisance to carry and impossible to use at most places /swamps, bumpy ground etc./ It's also quite time consuming to raise it every time.) Moving branches or grass would be a smaller problem there.

Well, +/-1 EV of the X-30 bracketing isn't much. Well, it could be about +/-1.67 EV (or +/-2 EV when risking some clipping) while developing from RAW and changing exposure of the first and the last shot.
But I could probably save a part of shots if I bracketed...

Btw. DR 200 needs ISO 200 and DR 400 needs ISO 400. Checked that.

Adam

[the_marshall_101]

Hi Adam,

I know this probably isn't the answer that you want to hear, but this has very little to do with your camera.  You're just trying to take photos of very dark and very bright things in the same shot, which is only going to end up one way (i.e way too much contrast for a camera to reproduce).  You could take the same things on a very expensive DSLR with the same result - the only thing is you might be able to bring the shadows right up later, but the image will look quite strange and not very nice, as our eyes know they are being deceived. 

Technically speaking you could try manually exposing the shots more brightly (either via exposure compensation, manual mode or simply by half-pressing the shutter while looking at a darker subject, then moving it up to the shot you want, tricking it into exposing higher) and then trying to bring the bright areas down in post-production instead.  May be worth a try.  But really I suggest you keep the large shadows out of your photos in the first place.  It's really not a camera (or a blue sky) thing   The good news is you can fix the issue for free just by pointing it at different things and not getting a new camera!

[Tarnash]

Hi Adam,  It's a familiar problem to me (although, in my case it's Southern latitudes) and can, on some occasions and to some extent, be mitigated both at capture and in post.  The effect seems to be down to a combination of geography/topography and, to perhaps a larger extent, atmospheric conditions/climate/weather.  We often experience very harsh light at 35-50 degrees South and the most valuable asset (if it's available) is time.  Being able to choose the day or time of day to work may be a luxury you simply don't have and plan `B' (for me) is to carry ND grads (both hard and soft) and a good CPL.  I frequently use exposure bracketing for static subjects and histograms to establish appropriate ETTR levels (I largely ignore `blinkies').  You're probably very aware of the `post' options available so I won't bang on about them but, for me, I try where possible to get as much as I can at capture and leave as little as possible to `post'.  Of course it all takes time, planning and, not infrequently, a strong back to lug all of the extra gear around.  So, maybe not much help to you if you're travelling, with time/gear constraints, or are otherwise forced to gun & run.  The plus side is that when you `luck in' and everything comes together, you're able to get results that show and match the quality of the light.
Good luck!     

[biker]

Hi the_marshall_101 and Tarnash, thanks for your replies!

Avoiding highly contrasting shots would definitely solve the problem but it'd be also pretty limiting. During our holiday "on the trek", most pictures are taken "randomly" - as fast as possible and without thinking. Swarms of mosquitoes etc. speed things up a lot.
Thing is, when I was browsing through shots taken with my APS-C Pentax DSLR previous years, I didn't find pictures spoiled like this. Shadows are dark but not that black. (Well, that camera is bulky and weighs more than twice...)

I've just batch redeveloped all ~1300 RAFs in Darktable with modified defaults and a bigger part of spoiled shots has been saved! The shadow in the rest place is still way dark but the anthill in the foreground now looks as expected. A little noisy when looked at 1:1 but it's acceptable in the "print size". Yeah, ETTR would help here.

So for the next time, instead of playing with extended DR modes that are in fact ETTL(?) - looks like their primary aim is to prevent white sky at any cost, I'll backup potentially problematic shots with +2/3 EV or +1 EV shots to have better room to compensate.