D800
- Thread starter Cesare
- Start date
Rack Kit
pfm Member
It's one of the things I most love about Tri-X in Xtol - it has tremendous latitude. It even holds it when pushed. This is ISO 1600:
Another great shot. Anymore of this and i'll have to see about getting hold of cheap 35mm film camera, dev kit and scanner again!
Probably in a camera shop somewhere...
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
I was waiting for dawn to get your high contrast scene!
In theory, and subject to DXo's measurement of dynamic range, 14.4 EV is 14.4 stops, cf 10 stops of range for the zone system. However, it's complicated by a few factors:
- The acceptable noise floor in the digital system may not be in line with DXo's measurements and so utilising the range may not be easily achievable at acceptable quality
- exposure strategies for digital have a greater need to protect highlights than for negative film, so some range can be lost to purposeful underexposure. The in camera histogram tends to be based on a jpg so can make this worse as more caution is required.
- the bayer filters lead to different sensitivities for each colour channel. The green is most sensitive so for a grey scene you tend to get underexpsoure, i.e. reduced DR, in the red and blue channels
- film can record better than 10 stops of range if used carefully. Tmax 400 can (alledgedly) cover up to about 20 stops if you develop to low contrast and expose appropriately.
However, it's fair to say that digital is 'getting there' and that maximising the useable DR of either medium requires a fairly technical approach.
There is of course the otehr issue of how to use all that captured detail without creating a totally flat print or an HDR style cartoon.
Mike
awl
pfm Member
Very interesting post Mike.
Whether on film or digital, there's always been the need to choose the optimum exposure to capture highlight and shadow detail. Likewise, there's always then been the challenge of how to use that detail: a print from a negative can only show a limited section of the film's dynamic range without complex dodging and burning and in the same way that an HDR image will often look 'wrong', getting that dodging and burning to look 'right' is no easy task.
With digital there's no worse feeling than discovering the highlights are blown out with no way to recover them. With film, there was more latitude at that end, and the cutoff less abrupt. On the flip side it's far easier to be sure you've got the exposure right at the time of shooting with digital. There's a (quite big) part of me that misses the excitement of seeing the processed film for the first time and finding out how it looks, but I certainly don't miss the worry that something may have gone wrong and require a re-shoot.
Andrew
Whether on film or digital, there's always been the need to choose the optimum exposure to capture highlight and shadow detail. Likewise, there's always then been the challenge of how to use that detail: a print from a negative can only show a limited section of the film's dynamic range without complex dodging and burning and in the same way that an HDR image will often look 'wrong', getting that dodging and burning to look 'right' is no easy task.
With digital there's no worse feeling than discovering the highlights are blown out with no way to recover them. With film, there was more latitude at that end, and the cutoff less abrupt. On the flip side it's far easier to be sure you've got the exposure right at the time of shooting with digital. There's a (quite big) part of me that misses the excitement of seeing the processed film for the first time and finding out how it looks, but I certainly don't miss the worry that something may have gone wrong and require a re-shoot.
Andrew
Yes, one of my favourite comments is from James Ravillious, who developed his exposure and development regime to th epoint that his prints required very little dodge and burn, to the effect that a lot of Ansel Adams work looked as though it was constructed from several different pieces rather than being a single exposure. Not all that different from today.
Exposure is always a bit of a trick and one of the tyrannies of some aspects of the photo world is assuming the print needs detail all the way from black to white. In some ways digital reinvented slide film in that it require(d/s) a decision on what you lose before exposure, whereas the 'holy grail' of some current practice appears to be to get everything and decide later.
As I don't get paid for making pictures, I can afford to enjoy the thrill of seeing the negs for the first time. In the David Suchet film it was rather lovely when David was quite anxious over his exposure when asking Robin Bell how they had come out.
Best
Mike
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
Don't forget that when you scan to jpeg, you're converting to an 8 bit representation - hence the value 255 for white and 0 for black - anyway, here is the first part of my homework: Borough Market exposed at +2EV from spot reading on the brightest point in the scene. Nikon Capture NX2 was then used to recover (50% setting) shadow detail. I turned off the auto D-Lighting before taking the shot otherwise the camera could do a lot of this on its own.
Borough Market by cliffpatte, on Flickr
Don't forget that when you scan to jpeg, you're converting to an 8 bit representation - hence the value 255 for white and 0 for black - anyway, here is the first part of my homework: Borough Market exposed at +2EV from spot reading on the brightest point in the scene. Nikon Capture NX2 was then used to recover (50% setting) shadow detail. I turned off the auto D-Lighting before taking the shot otherwise the camera could do a lot of this on its own.
Borough Market by cliffpatte, on Flickr
Pretty (actually very) impressive Cliff.
You are right about scanning to jpg being an 8 bit representation, but that isn't a limit on the number of stops represented in the file. Or you can scan to 16 bit tif or dng
Mike
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
cheers Mike
I tried converting the 14bit Nikon RAW to 16bit tif for upload to flickr, but flickr mangled it on the upload. In ACR, the RAW file was fully mapped from 0 to 255 with most of the areas which look black being between 1 and 5. Its pretty hard to get it exactly 1-254 using the entire range without some major cheating.
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
Homework 2 Nikon 105mm F2.5
Borough Market by cliffpatte, on Flickr
Shot at ISO 640 and wide open F2.5
I'll post an F4 shot in a mo
Borough Market by cliffpatte, on Flickr
Shot at ISO 640 and wide open F2.5
I'll post an F4 shot in a mo
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
No worries Joe
Firestorm
its been a while, but IIRC the thing that had me reaching for the credit card to get the D3S in place of the D700 were:
- better viewfinder
- lower noise in low light
- "pro handling"
- annoying autofocus assist lamp
The D800 is better than the D700 in terms of the first three, and also trumps the D700 and D3S in the pixel count department. The pro handling of the D800 should be rounded out nicely next week when the new grip is available.
Firestorm
its been a while, but IIRC the thing that had me reaching for the credit card to get the D3S in place of the D700 were:
- better viewfinder
- lower noise in low light
- "pro handling"
- annoying autofocus assist lamp
The D800 is better than the D700 in terms of the first three, and also trumps the D700 and D3S in the pixel count department. The pro handling of the D800 should be rounded out nicely next week when the new grip is available.
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
Yes - the D700 was a bit of a crop away from 100%, plus some other subjective improvements