Digital Camera Exposure Latitude
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digital camera exposure latitude
Quick Tips Camera RAW for Beginners
‘Quick tip’ is meant for beginners so do not expect anything too difficult/technical here (that’s how I want it to be anyway). Before we start, let me ask you a few questions:
DO YOU SHOOT RAW? – Why wouldn’t you? Let me assure you that RAW is probably the most powerful image format for post-processing. It’s offers you the advantage of more control over your images in the same way film negatives did during the film days, but this time – it’s digital. The RAW conversion process gives you full control over a vast amount of variables (exposure, WB etc.), rather than letting your camera does the work for you. A RAW file also resolves slightly more detail than a JPEG.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? – A RAW image is a ‘digital negative’, which is unprocessed and captured as it is. When you snap a JPEG, the in-camera processor compresses and processes the image using a specific algorithm. That’s why a RAW file has superior latitude compared to a JPEG, allowing you to push adjustments harder without much deterioration in image quality. The editing is non-destructive too, so you may just hit ‘reset’, revert to the original image, and start editing from scratch again – all without sacrificing quality. Furthermore, the White Balance is saved as a data file in RAW, which means you can edit the white balance anyhow you like without a drop in image quality. Now that’s sweet…
WHY ADOBE CAMERA RAW? Mainly because that’s what I use. A lot of camera companies have their own RAW conversion software for their own specific RAW format, but Adobe does all of them – nice. And this time I’ll be teaching you how to use the basic interface.
1) Temperature: That’s your white balance. The numbers in the bracket are the color temperature in Kelvin (K). Adjust the slider to change the WB to suit your tastes.
2) Tint: Changes the color cast of the overall image. I usually keep this the way it is.
3) Auto/Default: Use the ‘Auto’ function and the the program will automatically make a quick conversion for you. ‘Default’ reverts you back to where you started off.
4) Exposure: Use this to adjust how bright or dark you want your image to be. Gives you a total latitude of 8 stops (-4 to +4 EV).
5) Recovery: As the name suggests, this is used to recover some blown-out highlights in your image. It doesn’t do much, but it certainly helps a bit.
6) Fill Light: Lightens the shadows (darker tones in the image).
7) Blacks: Basically the opposite of ‘fill light’, increasing this will darken the shadows instead.
8 ) Brightness: Very similar to the ‘exposure’ function, but avoid this and use the ‘exposure’ slider instead.
9) Contrast: Darkens the shadows and lighten the highlights, as in Photoshop. But editing contrast in RAW reduces the deterioration of image quality.
10) Clarity: Gives a boost to the midtone range along with a ’sharpening’ effect.
11) Vibrance: Boosts the saturation of the non-saturated image colors. Gives a much better effect than editing ’saturation’ in Photoshop.
12) Saturation: Similar to the ’saturation’ in photoshop. Adjusts the overall colour saturation.
About the Author
Las Vegas PhotographerJasper Ferrer started his photography at the age of 19, He lives in Las Vegas and anywhere he goes, he brings his camera and start taking event pictures. Visit his blog at Las Vegas Photography for updates. Check out his Las Vegas Commercial Photography featuring food, architecture, advertising and trade-show portraits.
How much exposure latitude in your digital sensor?
How many stops over and how many under can you expose an image on YOUR digital sensor? Please tell me what kind of camera you are using and, if possible, how you decided what your latitude is.
Thanks.
With my D300, I am finding that I have 1.0-to-1.3 over and maybe 2.0 under. You can pull some more out of the shadows beyond 2.0, but the IQ starts to degrade to the point that it is not consistent with the rest of the image.
Yeah, I guess I’ll have to actually run a test also, using Dawg’s technique. I do ” meter around a scene” with the spot meter or pick a zone 5 middle ground, but I never looked for the limits this way.
Steve, when I analyze a scene, I put any highlight that I care about no more than one stop over.
So, JB, tell me. Help me. Does this say that my D300 has a latitude of 2.4 stops???
DXO mark rates various dSLR cameras for their dynamic range: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/DxOMark-Sensor/Camera-rankings
Most of them are pretty close together.
As you know, to get the most out of any dSLR, treat it like shooting slide film and expose for the right. Highlights are abruptly clipped whereas you can often pull detail from the shadow areas. And shooting in RAW gives you roughly an extra 1.5 stop vs. jpg.
It seems to me that if the scene your shooting has N stops less dynamic range than your sensor can capture, you have N stops latitude. I don’t know why or how you’d break that down into latitude for over vs. underexposing.
The problems arise when the sensor doesn’t have enough DR for the scene – which is often enough. In these cases you have to make a choice: sacrifice either end of the curve or bracket and do HDR post processing.
Maybe it’s just me… all these camera and photography questions have driven me a bit nutty. I’m calming down in the climbing category. It’s nice & quiet there. Um, and I had a blast shooting my first roll of 120 film today.
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added:
The DXO site only claims that the D300 can record 11.7 stops of DR at ISO 200, down to 6.7 stops at ISO 6400: http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality-Database/Nikon/D300
The DR of any sensor is variable (normally optimized for the base ISO.)
The DR outside the camera is also variable, from one shot to the next. The higher the DR of a composition, the smaller the latitude before the camera starts over/ under exposing aspects. You eventually reach the point where the DR of the scene exceeds the DR of the sensor. Eg a portrait against a sunset. You can then deal with that in any of several ways:
a) decide to sacrifice detail at either end of the curve.
b) change the composition for a smaller DR.
c) use those wonderful Speedlights to compress the DR of the scene.
d) bracket and do a software HDR composition.
e) ?
And since the desired effect of a shot will influence the exposure settings (whenever we venture outside of auto-exposure and matrix metering, that is), that’s a third variable. If you’re exposing a gray card for zone V, you have several stops of latitude in either direction. If you want to expose a gray card for zone Vll, you theoretically gain a few stops of latitude for underexposure and a loose a few for overexposure. If you want to expose the gray card for zone lll the opposite happens.
With all of these factors, i.m.h.o. it doesn’t make sense to think about cameras as having a fixed latitude for over/ under exposure. They only have a (variable) dynamic range.
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then added:
Reading that back I can’t remember what my point was with that third issue… perhaps ignore it.
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