Camera industry in the dumpster - article

[hjulenissen]

I certainly disagree. Optimum exposure does matter.

I did say that ETTR might not matter _for a particular shot_. My experience is that if the scene DR is low compared to the camera DR, exposure is not critical.

Do you think that ETTR techniques (as compared to regular in-camera suggested exposure) matters visually for every shot?

-h

[hjulenissen]

Never said that, try reading post properly. Many people like grain, however try and find anyone who like hissy recordings.

The context here (or at least my initial post that you chose to comment on) is about ETTR and relevant audio analogies. If you are not talking about the appearance of under-exposed digital, please be more specific about your comment.

Besides I already said I used to develop Kodak recording film in a speed enhancing developer. At it's base ISO of 1000 it was rather low quality, at 3200 ISO as I used it, it would give pixel peepers dyspepsia.
And the new Nikon at 50,000 ISO is in fact better quality than how I used Recording film. So  

why is this relevant?

I think you'll find they listen to vinyl because it sounds better to them. This obsession with accuracy tends to make people not see the wood for the trees.

I'd suggest that there are many reasons why a format is popular, and audible characteristics is only one.

Or far more, it's likely their innate taste.
As I said above, you conflated making music with the recording of music. They are not the same thing.

Since the Beatles, the act of making popular music and the act of recording it has been hard to separate.

Actually shipping JPEGs is exactly what wedding photographers do.

That is surely one thing that wedding photographers do, yes. Have anyone said otherwise?

It's not about being a great artist, they are outliers anyway. I was talking about those who are obsessed with technical perfection and long experience of such people has shown that with very few exceptions they do not produce interesting work. Or frequently show no work at all.
Those who do actually produce creative work however do not tend to be so hung up on that sort of thing. They learn enough to master their craft and get on with it and not only do they not mind if if something isn't perfect, but may actively seek the opposite.

Ansel Adams was the guy that I had in mind when writing that post.

Those obsessed with telling other people how their interests or talents are counter-productive, or how their kind of people rarely contribute anything of value, or dividing people into "us" and "them", rarely themselves do anything worth mentioning (itself an ironic statement)

-h

[daws]

As I said above, you conflated making music with the recording of music. They are not the same thing.

That's so ludicrously wrong that I've submitted it on your behalf to David Letterman's Top 10 Stupid Internet Forum Tricks.

I hope I spelled your name right.

[John Camp]

That's so ludicrously wrong that I've submitted it on your behalf to David Letterman's Top 10 Stupid Internet Forum Tricks.

I hope I spelled your name right.

I think about a million (rough estimate, don't ask for documentation) bar bands would disagree with you. They're about performance, not recording, which ARE radically different things. One of the guitar magazines on the newstands now has a long interview with a former guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Frusciante, and he goes off on a long intricate commentary about the way he makes music now -- and it's all about recording, with no live performance. The thing he now does to produce his music couldn't be done live, because track after track are layered on top of each other to get the final sound. Much of what he does doesn't even use conventional instruments.  And anyone who has ever played an instrument in performance (or even been in the mosh pit) knows that the impact of a great performance is entirely different that the impact of a great recording. They ARE entirely different things. I wouldn't even say that they are closely related.

[Hans Kruse]

I did say that ETTR might not matter _for a particular shot_. My experience is that if the scene DR is low compared to the camera DR, exposure is not critical.

Do you think that ETTR techniques (as compared to regular in-camera suggested exposure) matters visually for every shot?

-h

No, not every shot and actually I can say that shooting landscapes with either 5D III and D800E the majority of shots is pretty much spot on ETTR in camera and slightly under seeing in Rawdigger, but visually not a problem at all. For me it is about optimizing IQ and shooting practice to avoid mistakes which happens for even the most experienced from my experience.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I would say both techniques, ETTR and bracketing,  work. I haven been shooting digital for a long time and I really seldom found that DR has been an issue.

I can also agree with Hjulenissen that with low scene illumination ratios exposure is not critical.

This image was something like two stops underexposed (just grabbed the DSLR while shooting MF, had wrong settings):

Full size is here: http://echophoto.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Sweden/Some-new-pictures/i-dth6ztS/0/O/20131117-_DSC3260.jpg

Best regards
Erik



Best regards
Erik

No, not every shot and actually I can say that shooting landscapes with either 5D III and D800E the majority of shots is pretty much spot on ETTR in camera and slightly under seeing in Rawdigger, but visually not a problem at all. For me it is about optimizing IQ and shooting practice to avoid mistakes which happens for even the most experienced from my experience.

[dturina]

I did say that ETTR might not matter _for a particular shot_. My experience is that if the scene DR is low compared to the camera DR, exposure is not critical.

And if the scene DR is high compared to the camera DR, you have no spare latitude for ETTR. Which makes ETTR possible and relevant only in the cases where you have a low-latitude scene and high-latitude sensor, but with noisy shadows (which, really, makes its usable latitude far less).

The only camera I own which could benefit from intentionally avoiding the shadows due to noise is iPhone, and its highlights are so prone to clipping I keep it in HDR mode so the technique is out of the question. With all my large sensor cameras (including m43), I simply expose the shot in such a way that the scene fits into the histogram and if I don't mess anything up, the result is usually fine.

[hjulenissen]

And if the scene DR is high compared to the camera DR, you have no spare latitude for ETTR. Which makes ETTR possible and relevant only in the cases where you have a low-latitude scene and high-latitude sensor, but with noisy shadows (which, really, makes its usable latitude far less).

I tend to see "ETTR" as a concept that loosely describes the process of being well-informed about what highlights will be accurately recorded, and what will not, while setting exposure.

Any process that makes it possible to raise exposure by e.g. 1 stop while still being reasonably confident that critical highlights are not clipped, will raise signal levels across the histogram. Parts of the image that have marginal SNR for whatever your editing/presentation intent will be improved accordingly.

My posts about ETTR should not be seen as a claim that everyone should ETTR all of the time. Rather, I am argueing that ETTR seems to be based on sensible theory and proven practice in that it (subject to some constraints) maximize the recorded (scene) information. Being a technical concept, it can actually be discussed and analyzed in a civil manner. The relevance for a particular user/application is left to the reader.

For many of my uses, I have limited freedom in choosing exposure time and aperture due to movement and DOF. Thus, bumping exposure time in order to capture a "hotter" signal may be an option that I want to rule out. In other cases, I can choose exposure time and/or aperture with great freedom, and would like to do so in an "optimal" manner. I have some experience with images that seem "excellent" at the time, that show warts a few years later when I am able to print larger, have (perhaps) higher standards, and want to do more processing.

-h

[jjj]

Perhaps jjj also read that Guardian story.

I have now.
I've known about the product for a while now, things really kicked off for them about 4 years ago.

[jjj]

As I said above, you conflated making music with the recording of music. They are not the same thing.

That's so ludicrously wrong that I've submitted it on your behalf to David Letterman's Top 10 Stupid Internet Forum Tricks.

I hope I spelled your name right.

Ironic Post of the Year.
Do you think seriously music only started once the first recording device was invented? 

[LKaven]

That's so ludicrously wrong that I've submitted it on your behalf to David Letterman's Top 10 Stupid Internet Forum Tricks.

I hope I spelled your name right.Ironic Post of the Year.

Seemed like you were making a straightforward statement of non-identity to me. 

[Hans Kruse]

I tend to see "ETTR" as a concept that loosely describes the process of being well-informed about what highlights will be accurately recorded, and what will not, while setting exposure.

Any process that makes it possible to raise exposure by e.g. 1 stop while still being reasonably confident that critical highlights are not clipped, will raise signal levels across the histogram. Parts of the image that have marginal SNR for whatever your editing/presentation intent will be improved accordingly.

My posts about ETTR should not be seen as a claim that everyone should ETTR all of the time. Rather, I am argueing that ETTR seems to be based on sensible theory and proven practice in that it (subject to some constraints) maximize the recorded (scene) information. Being a technical concept, it can actually be discussed and analyzed in a civil manner. The relevance for a particular user/application is left to the reader.

For many of my uses, I have limited freedom in choosing exposure time and aperture due to movement and DOF. Thus, bumping exposure time in order to capture a "hotter" signal may be an option that I want to rule out. In other cases, I can choose exposure time and/or aperture with great freedom, and would like to do so in an "optimal" manner. I have some experience with images that seem "excellent" at the time, that show warts a few years later when I am able to print larger, have (perhaps) higher standards, and want to do more processing.

-h

There will never be an agreement on what is optimal is this respect, I think  For me ETTR is a free bonus using the bracketing approach I do with landscapes. Sometimes this is a real bonus giving extra IQ based on the editing I choose for the specific image. It could be years later that I choose to edit in a specific way where optimum IQ is essential. When you shoot you never know what the picture could be used for some time in the future and therefore I like to optimize the quality as much as possible although in the majority of cases it does not matter. We also don't know what display technology we might have in the future. I'm thinking that at some point we will have projectors able to display our photos of today in full resolution large like meters across.

[Alan Goldhammer]

The one thing I would really like to see from camera manufacturers is user configurable firmware.  There is no technical reason why this could not be implemented and it would go a long way to ending the bloatware of menu choices that are present in virtually all cameras.  Users could also elect to stay with the manufacturers proprietary file format (NEF in my case) or change over to DNG if that's desired.  IMO this would get the industry out of 'my dumpster.'

Alan

[OldRoy]

Well, you never know what you'll find in one of these threads. I found Sugru!

I've been thinking about a substance with precisely these  properties for a few months. I need it to reinforce the connection between a cable and socket (mini-display port) on a Surface Pro 2 which I'm unfortunate and misguided enough to own. Price of Sugru is a bit steep though and the website doesn't specify quantity in the packs either by weight or volume.

Not many people know this:
In about 1975 there was a pub landlord in Kilburn High Road (London) named Butty Sugru. He gained a lot of publicity at the time by promoting a "buried alive" Guinness Book of Records attempt. The buried attemptee was a gentleman by the name of Michael Meany. He amused himself whilst down there in a coffin by reading boxing magazines. I guess he had a torch. I can't recall whether the attempt succeeded.
Not many people know that.
Roy

[hjulenissen]

The one thing I would really like to see from camera manufacturers is user configurable firmware.  There is no technical reason why this could not be implemented and it would go a long way to ending the bloatware of menu choices that are present in virtually all cameras.  Users could also elect to stay with the manufacturers proprietary file format (NEF in my case) or change over to DNG if that's desired.  IMO this would get the industry out of 'my dumpster.'

Alan

I picked up magic lantern for my 7D (again) this weekend. Apart from a few gui glitches it seems that they are doing quite a few things just about the way that I would have hoped that Canon did it:
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=5693.0

[Alan Goldhammer]

^ Magic Lantern looks cool but unfortunately I have a Nikon.

[Ray]

There will never be an agreement on what is optimal is this respect, I think  For me ETTR is a free bonus using the bracketing approach I do with landscapes. Sometimes this is a real bonus giving extra IQ based on the editing I choose for the specific image. It could be years later that I choose to edit in a specific way where optimum IQ is essential. When you shoot you never know what the picture could be used for some time in the future and therefore I like to optimize the quality as much as possible although in the majority of cases it does not matter. We also don't know what display technology we might have in the future. I'm thinking that at some point we will have projectors able to display our photos of today in full resolution large like meters across.

Good point!

I believe some time this year LG will be introducing a few OLED Ultra HD (4K) large-screen TV models.  http://www.wired.com/2014/01/new-lg-oled-tvs/

A large 4k TV screen seems an ideal way to display one's photos, although 8K would be better still. However, all current models of 4K TV screens seem to be LCDs with their limited contrast ratio and narrow viewing angle. Why upgrade for the sake of higher resolution whilst taking backward steps regarding other aspects of image quality.

OLED screens seem to provide a big leap in performance. The color has a wider gamut and the contrast ratio is sometimes described as infinite, which is of course an exaggeration. It's probably more like 100,000,000:1, which is still pretty amazing. 

In order to produce an image in 16:9 aspect ratio for 4K display, without downsampling, one  needs a minimum of a 10mp DSLR with 2:3 aspect-ratio sensor, such as the Canon 40D. If you have a lots of images with noisy shadows because you haven't bothered bracketing or using an accurate ETTR exposure, such noise will be more noticeable on a future OLED screen.

[Hans Kruse]

Good point!

I believe some time this year LG will be introducing a few OLED Ultra HD (4K) large-screen TV models.  http://www.wired.com/2014/01/new-lg-oled-tvs/

A large 4k TV screen seems an ideal way to display one's photos, although 8K would be better still. However, all current models of 4K TV screens seem to be LCDs with their limited contrast ratio and narrow viewing angle. Why upgrade for the sake of higher resolution whilst taking backward steps regarding other aspects of image quality.

OLED screens seem to provide a big leap in performance. The color has a wider gamut and the contrast ratio is sometimes described as infinite, which is of course an exaggeration. It's probably more like 100,000,000:1, which is still pretty amazing. 

In order to produce an image in 16:9 aspect ratio for 4K display, without downsampling, one  needs a minimum of a 10mp DSLR with 2:3 aspect-ratio sensor, such as the Canon 40D. If you have a lots of images with noisy shadows because you haven't bothered bracketing or using an accurate ETTR exposure, such noise will be more noticeable on a future OLED screen.

I have been looking at 4K displays but would not be interested until my MacBook Pro can display in 60Hz so it can be used as a main display.

I also looking at the support for 4K displays by the new Mac Pro is limited. The Sharp 4K is supported http://store.apple.com/us/product/HD971LL/A/sharp-32-pn-k321-4k-ultra-hd-led-monitor?fnode=53
But it does not seem that the Dell is http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=210-ACBL

8K displays http://www.wimp.com/ultradisplay/ will come and they are 33MP in resolution. Of course it will take time until such displays even become available at a price point that "normal" people can buy them. Projectors in 4K will come as 4K TV's will be more affordable and content is available, http://www.cnet.com/products/sony-4k-ultra-short-throw-projector/

So it's not a wild guess that we in 10 years from can display our current DSLR pictures in full resolution. Already now my 10 year old pictures from a Canon 10D on my 30" screen is almost full resolution.

Prints might even be replaced by display technology like physical media has been replaced by downloads and streaming for audio and video. People might subscribe to wonderful photos to be displayed in their homes in large format. There will be a demand for higher quality.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I have been looking at 4K displays but would not be interested until my MacBook Pro can display in 60Hz so it can be used as a main display.

I also looking at the support for 4K displays by the new Mac Pro is limited. The Sharp 4K is supported http://store.apple.com/us/product/HD971LL/A/sharp-32-pn-k321-4k-ultra-hd-led-monitor?fnode=53
But it does not seem that the Dell is http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=210-ACBL

8K displays http://www.wimp.com/ultradisplay/ will come and they are 33MP in resolution. Of course it will take time until such displays even become available at a price point that "normal" people can buy them. Projectors in 4K will come as 4K TV's will be more affordable and content is available, http://www.cnet.com/products/sony-4k-ultra-short-throw-projector/

It's very inexpensive to build a Home Theater Computer that will work with 4K televisions; I've already built three of them.  Of course you will have to leave Apple for the PC world!

[hjulenissen]

A large 4k TV screen seems an ideal way to display one's photos, although 8K would be better still.

Better than ideal? :-)

In order to produce an image in 16:9 aspect ratio for 4K display, without downsampling, one  needs a minimum of a 10mp DSLR with 2:3 aspect-ratio sensor, such as the Canon 40D.

A Bayer sensor of 10 MP has only 2.5 million red or blue sites. A 4k tv has roughly 8 million (full-color) pixels. Thus, you would "need" a 40 MP camera in order to feed all subpixels of a 4k tv with potentially independent information. You might have to multiply this number even further to account for OLPF filtering, overlapping color filters, etc.

In practice, images tends to not contain such fine color detail, and we humans tend to not be able to perceive it. In an interesting twist, the HDMI 2.0 that allows high frame-rate 4k content flags 4:2:0 support as one of its benefits, where color (difference) resolution is subsampled by 2x2.

If you have a lots of images with noisy shadows because you haven't bothered bracketing or using an accurate ETTR exposure, such noise will be more noticeable on a future OLED screen.

Perhaps. Displays are often limited by the ambient light in the room. If you are in a bright day-lit room, display blacks won't be any blacker than charcoal, I guess. The whites won't be any whiter than the maximum display output (or the setting that feels comfortable to you). The gazillion to one measurements can probably only be achieved in a dark home cinema with black paint on the walls.

-h