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dynamic range of digital cameras - what does this mean to me?

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sgwrx:
hello.  so since i've read about the dynamic range of some of the newer PhaseOne digital systems, i've wondered what exactly this looks like? and what does it mean?  if i take a photograph of scene with bright sky in the background and use my canon 6d, then take the same image with same exposure settings with one of the HDR PhaseOne'rs, the plop both of these image into a raw converter, will the PhaseOne with 10 or 12 stops of DR have that bright sky under control without me having to do any adjustments?

i know for instance, that you can use a highlight recovery slider in a raw converter and get some of that sky back.  or, a shadows slider to increase the visibility of shadow details.

i work in a 3d rendering program that can generate 32bit HDR images.  i can save those out and open in photoshop and use an exposure slider or whatever, to basically set whatever exposure "range" i want for the rendered image.  technically i don't know how to equate the number of stops the image is.  but ultimately i get a nice clear image no matter what.  in addition to the 3d rendering program's simulated sun and sky light, i can use HDR photographs to light a scene... those are typically 10 or so photographs blended together from under exposure to over exposure. but even with these, as i increase/decrease the exposure of the rendered image, i still run into the sky can be over exposed and all "white" or shadows can be all "black".

or, is that not even the issue in digital camera systems? is the issue the noise, "blockiness", lack of details in shadows as you try to "open" them up in a scene that might be exposed for that bright sky.

thanks,

Telecaster:
What's the difference in luminosity between the darkest shadow tone short of black and the brightest highlight short of white that a given sensor + supporting electronics can capture and quantize? That's the camera's dynamic range. As to whether a given camera is good at squeezing its data into a file needing minimal or no tweaking…that's a very different matter. To start: how do you define "good at?"  :)

-Dave-

sgwrx:
to answer my own question - since 0-255 is the best we can do in computers and displays and such, i think the biggest benefit of HDR images is first noise suppression in lower tones and then the ability to make an HDR type image that squeezes in the 0-255 that we have on our computers.

bjanes:

--- Quote from: sgwrx on September 16, 2017, 09:37:13 pm ---to answer my own question - since 0-255 is the best we can do in computers and displays and such, i think the biggest benefit of HDR images is first noise suppression in lower tones and then the ability to make an HDR type image that squeezes in the 0-255 that we have on our computers.

--- End quote ---

That is not true. 10 bit monitors are widely available and prices are coming down. Here is a link to a review of 10 bit 4K wide gamut monitors. The BBC has a good article on HDR TV. Adobe Photoshop supports 10 bit color.

The weak link in the reproduction chain is the print. Tone mapping is necessary to compress a HDR gamut to what can be printed, as Karl Lang presents here.

Regards,

Bill

Wayne Fox:
The low noise in shadows is the reason it has higher dynamic range  Such a sensor means more extreme contrast conditions can be captured and still record usable information that can later be manipulated back into useful output.

An extreme example, single shot CMOS IQ3 100. Exposed so the sun itself wouldn't clip to maintain the color information in it.   the IQ180 wasn't too bad as long as you were at base ISO, but I don't know if it could have pulled this off. Which other sensors could have also pulled it off? not sure, but probably several of the more modern Sony sensors. 

unmodified RAW then processed final image.

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