Just a Simple Question About Dynamic Range

In regards to DR/Color/Curves/Etc...​.

First yes i have a calibrated screen lol

Basically I just have noticed sometimes with some images of flowers that I end up in a situation where exposing it "normally" ends up with details in the petals/colored bits are completely blown out, Despite the histogram and the image itself being "correct" in regards to exposure

Usually i can even everything out with a whole ton of levels adjustment and such and a lot of tweaking, but sometimes the image is just "beyond" help and i cant bring it back or i just have to do a lot of work playing to get it to look nice

But generally i have more luck slightly underexposing the image and pushing things a bit as opposed to the other way around, Which is against HAMSTTR but it works in these situations...

If it helps it happens a lot with Red and yellow flowers if that helps and its just me thinking and trying to figure out a way to improve things..


1. Would having more dynamic range help reduce the amount of adjusting i have to do and reduce the number of times i get something completely unfixable (No im not suggesting i switch to Nikon, I could simply go up to a FF body instead which would buy me quite a bit of DR)

2. I have pondered the idea of using a circular polarizer in these situations and seeing what happens as it might help... Any other suggestions would be good

Just some thoughts recently, Not complaining, Love my 7D just think i might have found a limitation there...

Here, example btw

RAW:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …unetsukiphoto/8​025231982/

Is there a "correct exposure" version for comparison?

1 Question. The background was purple ??

I have my RAW images set to display in DPP and Photoshop with reduced contrast and it appears to me that you are doing the same. I selectively tweak it in post processing to get back to the shot I believe I saw. I say believe, because we have very poor memories for the kind of tonal and colour detail I'm referring to.

I imagine that increasing the camera DR will seem to do the same thing. The monitor and software must also limit the range we see, as paper has always done when an image is printed. But I want a "real" increase in DR, not the artificial figures Canon and others claim.

You make the comment

but when I look at what you call RAW (but has a JPG extension) image the histogram is well biased to the left, which indicates a dominance of shadows and dark areas; indeed the case. Perhaps you've already worded that image?An evenly balanced image will show the hump more or less in the middle although some people feel it should be biased slightly to the right, especially when doing portrait work.

There is a good resource on histograms at http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/how-to-read-a-histogram.html.

I think this isn't a DR problem at all, but rather a gamut problem.

The highly saturated yellows bump against the gamut edge (starting clipping and thus detail obliteration) long before the proper overall flower brightness is reached.

In such a case, exposing to the right (but without clipping!) will yield a visually underexposed image, which can be brightened after global or proportionally masked desaturation or after saving to a large enough color space.

How does full frame offer more dynamic range?

Canon 1Ds = 11 announced in 2002
Canon 1Dsmark2 = 11.3
Canon 1Dsmark3 = 12
Canon 1Dmark 4 = 12
Canon 5Dmark3 = 11.7
Canon 7D = 11.7

Seems the 7D is not that bad natrually at base ISO.

agedbriar wrote in post #15044423
I think this isn't a DR problem at all, but rather a gamut problem.

The highly saturated yellows bump against the gamut edge (starting clipping and thus detail obliteration) long before the proper overall flower brightness is reached.

In such a case, exposing to the right (but without clipping!) will yield a visually underexposed image, which can be brightened after global or proportionally masked desaturation or after saving to a large enough color space.

^^ what this guy said. Try the prophoto colourspace starting from ACR and see what happens.

Neilyb wrote in post #15044640
Canon 1Ds = 11 announced in 2002
Canon 1Dsmark2 = 11.3
Canon 1Dsmark3 = 12
Canon 1Dmark 4 = 12
Canon 5Dmark3 = 11.7
Canon 7D = 11.7

Seems the 7D is not that bad natrually at base ISO.

Sorry, but thats the lab test nonsense Canon and others have been pushing and it really is just that - total nonsense. The truth is 5 stops or so, no more. I've tested my 30D and 5D2 and can get no more from them. Give me a real 11 or 12 stops DR and I'd be in seventh heaven.

John from PA wrote in post #15044256
You make the comment but when I look at what you call RAW (but has a JPG extension) image the histogram is well biased to the left, which indicates a dominance of shadows and dark areas; indeed the case. Perhaps you've already worded that image?An evenly balanced image will show the hump more or less in the middle although some people feel it should be biased slightly to the right, especially when doing portrait work.

There is a good resource on histograms at http://www.digital-slr-guide.com/how-to-read-a-histogram.html.

-facedesk- yeah im just not good at explaining what im attempting to explain here...

The "RAW" I posted is the unprocessed original (Just exported to JPG for easy viewing) I used to get the second image, Yes, Its underexposed, I know its underexposed because I intentionally did that (-1 EC) because exposing it "correctly" ended up with the petals completely blown out, Despite this the Histogram was confortably in the middle, ie, Nothing off the scale and "blown".. I have a very bad habit of deleting RAWs before thinking to ask for help x.x so no I do not have any of the "properly" exposed ones..

I dont think im explaining this very well...

agedbriar wrote in post #15044423
I think this isn't a DR problem at all, but rather a gamut problem.

The highly saturated yellows bump against the gamut edge (starting clipping and thus detail obliteration) long before the proper overall flower brightness is reached.

In such a case, exposing to the right (but without clipping!) will yield a visually underexposed image, which can be brightened after global or proportionally masked desaturation or after saving to a large enough color space.

I think you got what I was trying to say... My issue is with reds and yellows which are hitting the "gamut edge" (obliterating all detail in them) despite the image being correctly exposed, The best "workaround" ive found is to underexpose red/yellow subjects by about a stop and play with the levels to get things to look "correct" again, sometimes however this simply isnt working...

I shoot RAWs, I edit in Adobe Lightroom 3, on a Spyder-Calibrated Dell U2410 IPS monitor...

What you are experiencing is a very common thing at least with Canon cameras. I'm not sure if the 2 extra DR stops of the newer Nikons would handle this problem better. But they are better at underexposing and then pushing like you did in your example. However, in your example you only needed to underexpose 1 stop and the Canon is okay with that amount and won't show any ugly banding yet.

I've read a lot of older threads on different forums about reds and yellows blowing out "early". I don't know all the technical reasons for this but one thing you can do is keep your in camera jpeg settings very neutral and switch on the RGB histogram to watch the red channel individually. Still, the histogram is showing the jpeg and not the RAW but with Neutral settings it should be a good estimate. You will find that the RED channel is always more to the right than the other two channels.

I think the way you are doing it now with the intentional underexposure is the best way to keep the detail. Every time I read about this topic it is always in relation to flower photos.

I seem to recall seeing other posts where people have complained about various Canon models overexposing reds, and I think this is a variant of the same thing. Here are a few threads discussing the issue:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=156632
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=711088
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=958171
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1033584
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=104217

arbitrage wrote in post #15046228
I think the way you are doing it now with the intentional underexposure is the best way to keep the detail. Every time I read about this topic it is always in relation to flower photos.

Alright, I got a few other people saying the same thing in another thread..

Dunno if Nikon does it or not, When I shot with my mom's D3100 it seemed to not have the issue with red subjects but i also didnt shoot it a LOT to really tell

Correct me if im wrong but if its a gamut problem then wouldnt the only way to really correct it be to record more color data (IE to go from 14bit to 16bit RAWs?)