Luminance vs saturation clipping

[Peter_DL]

Bill and GLuijk, - excellent illustrations!
Bookmarked the thread.

Regarding above mentioned observation of "film vs digital", I still doubt that it could be accessed by "usual" DR measurement. It’s probably more a question of what happens: during and after the DR is exceeded.

With increasing exposure, digital color clips per Raw RGB channel. So after a transition period of single channel clipping and corresponding hue shifts we reach ultimate 255 white. With film, things appear to be different. With increasing exposure, luminosity differences seem to get lost first. But the color itself, e.g. the yellow-orange hue of the sun globe, seems to survive surprisingly long before everything is burned to white as well.

Admittedly, this is just a subjective impression.
And a bit of topic anyway.

Peter

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[tim wolcott]

It good to know what Jeff is talking about, but please don't ever say film is better than digital "you must be smoking dope".  When we all were shooting film, the goal was to shoot within the limits of what film can capture "which was very limiting".  Now, that we are shooting with digital, I can not only shoot images that were unobtainable before, but have the rendition of light, color and luminance that I saw the scene develop in front of me and have control over every aspect of them.

It always the problem, tech seems to now be overshadowing the art of shooting.  Tech is always necessary in photography because afterall its a technical art.  knowing your limitations of your equipment is good.  But lets not dwell on it, I shoot with the Phase One system so I keep my contrast within 12 stops.  So I shoot within the range.  

I stress, that the goal is still is to find great a composition, pick the right lens for the job, the right depth of field, then wait for the right light (or range of light) that fits into whatever camera system your using.  If the range of light doesn't fit then wait and make it happen.  Tech is Tech but it will never replace the art of pre-visualizing your image and creating it.