Digital Back DR example

[KWR Phase One]

While shooting in Olympic National Park with some friends a week ago we had a great evening for sunsets. Sunsets are obviously, especially when shooting directly into the sun a very high contrast image situation and present difficulties getting any detail in subject matter. If you were shooting with a DSLR you could attempt to shoot a range of overs and unders and then work some HDR magic after the fact. In landscape photography that can be difficult especially if there is any kind of breeze or in this case moving water. I was shooting with a Phase One P65+ and a 28mm lens for these next three examples.

The P65+ has an extraordinary dynamic range and captures a very large amount of data on a single exposure. So, what I did was made adjustments for contrast, saturation and color balance to the original image. I then cloned the variant two times. In one variant I pulled down the exposure about 1.5 stops and on the other pushed it 1.5 stops. I then processed the images to tiff files. Then using PhotoMatix Pro, I did a tone map and HDR. I have two examples that I will put in separate posts below. One below is modest just beginning to show detail in shadow area and bringing in detail in highlights and the other is a bit more dramatic and sort of fun showing what really can be recovered. The beauty is that I am doing this all from one exposure so the water and trees and such are not affected or blurred. To really appreciate this you must see the image at 100% which is about 20x30 inches.

As always, for me it is all about having fun taking the shot and this was a fun one. I will also post a waterfall shot that I did the same thing with. As a side note I will make this comment. HDR can be a good tool. Usually it is overdone and becomes somewhat unrealistic. I don’t usually like that effect but here it works and it is fun (plus it shows how much detail is really captured). So, enjoy!

P.S. I have never posted images before on this forum so I hope this works....

 

[KWR Phase One]

Ok . . .Here is HDR example #1 - not overdone but improving . . .

 

[KWR Phase One]

And, here is version #2 . . . A bit on the dramatic side but pretty cool....

 

[KWR Phase One]

Now One with a waterfall

Here is one with a waterfall and lots of green. I am telling you after a week in the rain forrest I am a bit saturated with green.

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

Kev, they're great images (what would I expect from you?). I actually like the non-HDR best, I guess because that's the way I saw the scene. But number 2 is fascinating...
Bill

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

Re: Now One with a waterfall

Here is one with a waterfall and lots of green. I am telling you after a week in the rain forrest I am a bit saturated with green.

Here's my take - my greens are a little tamer!

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Jack and I have both noticed with the newer dalsa sensors on the p65 and P40 that the greens are much better than we got with our previous backs.

Bill nice shot I would maybe just go a touch darker to let the green pop and maybe selectively dodge the highlights in the water. Trust me you will like it. LOL

 

[David K]

Kevin, beautiful capture...I really like that first shot. The HDR variants don't really appeal to me but it's interesting to see what can be done. Again, the first one is a keeper for sure.

 

[harmsr]

Kevin,

Beautiful shot.

Best,

Ray

 

[baxter]

I'm really impressed with the DR Kevin. Any idea what the brightness range actually was in EV please? My 645DF/P45+ and 28mm lens arrives next week and I too will be shooting coastal scenes with large variation in brightness. It would be good to have an idea of I what I might expect to help make faster progress.

I emailed my friends at Lee Filters yesterday enquiring whether their new large filter size and holder for the Nikon 14-24mm will be able to be used with the Phase 28mm. Eagerly awaiting their reply. For those who haven't seen the new holder [url]it's here[/URL]

Wonderful image, I've long wanted to go to Olympic NP having seen Yousef Khanfar's work a few years ago. FWIW, I like the original and Ver 1

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Just to clarify...

HDR means "high dynamic range". It describes an image which captures data with many stops of difference between the darkest and lightest details. This is a function of the camera's ability, nothing else.

The effect you are using here is "tone mapping". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_mapping

A very common mistake

 

[Jack]

Minor correction Graham:

DR, or Dynamic Range, is a measurement of the total range of brightness that a camera can capture in a SINGLE frame.

HDR implies blending of MULTIPLE, different exposures to achieve a DR beyond what the camera can capture in a single frame.

Tone Mapping is a method used to render the very broad range of brightness from a true HDR image into "tones" that can be viewed in a smaller, standard brightness range viewing space than the HDR space. Hence the word "map" in the name. Originally it referred to mapping or rendering tones in a 32-bit luminance space to be readable in a normal 8 or 16-bit space. This wasn't optional, it had to be doen before the image could be viewed in a smaller space. More recently the "look" it produced has been globally accepted as tone mapping, even though it is technically just a tone mapping EFFECT -- and what Kevin did here in his last step.

I call the first part -- using process variants from a single original -- an exposure blend, and something I regularly do in high-contrast situations. I use it as my Split ND filter or yore, and it has the benefit of being fully editable after the capture for intensity of the change and shape of the transition edge. This is something Guy and regularly teach on our workshops. After that, the tone mapping effect becomes an optional additional treatment

When I shot Canon, I had to take multiple original captures of differing exposures to pull this off -- a more true HDR capture technique. And most landscape shooters that shoot DSLR's still practice this -- I know several photographers who have their DSLR set to automatically take three frames with every shutter press, each frame separated by a stop or two of exposure. Essentially they are prepared to HDR blend every shot as needed.

By contrast -- and I think this was Kevin's point -- when I started shooting MF I found enough extra USABLE DR in a single frame, that taking multiple originals was no longer necessary as the processed variants suffice.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Been printing this image but seems a perfect case of DR latitude where in one frame I have enough recovery to pull back extreme highlights back under pure white 255 and hold detail. This was a area that I could never get in 35mm land with any cam. This is one of the dominate area's of MF capture and also software for that matter to be able to completely control a scene that is really a HDR capture that I don't have to do anymore to save the image. It is my belief and experience that this would not be possible without the range of DR in MF backs and lets give credit to the raw processing software as well in this case C1.

 

[Joseph Ramos]

Nice image Guy

 

[Bill Caulfeild-Browne]

Jack and I have both noticed with the newer dalsa sensors on the p65 and P40 that the greens are much better than we got with our previous backs.

Bill nice shot I would maybe just go a touch darker to let the green pop and maybe selectively dodge the highlights in the water. Trust me you will like it. LOL

You mean like this?

Bill

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Very close but here I think it jumps out at you slightly better, all personal taste of course but throw that on a 7900 and go for it.

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Minor correction Graham:

DR, or Dynamic Range, is a measurement of the total range of brightness that a camera can capture in a SINGLE frame.

HDR implies blending of MULTIPLE, different exposures to achieve a DR beyond what the camera can capture in a single frame.

Well, yes and no

It is a function of the number of stops captured rather than the technique used to get there. Combining bracketed exposures is certainly a way to achieve HDR but a single shot camera can also theoretically be capable of HDR. That depends on where you draw the line (in stops) and that is a matter of debate.

Example: a poor quality digital camera with only 8 stops DR could be used to create a 12 stop image by combining several exposures. On the other hand, a camera with 14 stops of DR will be capable of images with even higher dynamic range in a single shot.

 

[thomas]

Kevin,

sorry… not sure if you do yourself a favour posting such images to prove the DR of the P65+.
First, all the images are technically busted as they show totally blown out color chanels in the histogram. Especially the waterfall. (Blown out colors even in ProPhoto ... oh, godness!)
Also the HDR blending is not really nice…
To show the DR capbilities of the P65 posting RAW files would be more practical... the JPGs do not tell anything.

On Outback-Photo there is a nice sample of the D3x:
http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_01/section_gear_cameras/20081227_Nikon_D3x/index.html
http://www.jirvana.com/raw_large/Nikon_D3x/0901D3x_0219.NEF
If you open the shadows by 2 stops or even more you can see an example of the DR capabilities of the D3x…

 

[cunim]

Don't want to get too technical about this but shouldn't dynamic range be referenced to a signal to noise figure? In other words, a true HDR image would maintain a given level of precision (8 bits, 10 bits, whatever) over a broader range of illumination than the sensor is capable of rendering in a single acquisition. Scientific imaging does this all the time. A 12 bit detector might be used to render an image with 16 bit precision by taking multiple exposures at different flux levels (f stops). Then, we window in on the part of that range we want, or we "tone map" back into 12 bits. This is all done on the output end. Data is not lost.

In contrast, photographic tone mapping compresses parts of the sensor response (sacrificing precision in those parts) to create an image that fits within what is actually a narrow dynamic range. Data is lost. Not much different in concept to compressed audio.

 

[jlm]

nothing so new here, negative B/W always had about 3-4 stops more range than the print