DaShiv
21st century digital boy
Went out to lunch at a local pub today to meet up with a couple of friends from college whom I hadn't seen in a few months. I snapped this quick shot of one of them with her new boy:
R-D1 exposure latitude.
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DaShiv
21st century digital boy
I wasn't paying much attention since we were busy talking, and had the LCD folded in (as usual) so didn't notice my mistake until I'd gotten home. Obviously I had accidentally included the window in the center-weighted metering area of the R-D1, and this threw off the exposure completely. With a brightly lit window nearby, I should have been more careful and either manually set exposure or used AE lock. So no dice, right?
Luckily I was shooting in RAW. In Photoshop, I gave the file a massive +4.0EV push (!) during RAW conversion, then adjusted contrast, made a curves adjustment, and burned the right side a bit to get the bottom picture. The results aren't perfect, but it's still usable, as you can see.
Despite having worked with RAW files from Canon DSLR's for a while, I'm still impressed by the amount latitude in the R-D1 RAW files and how well they hold up under this type of abuse during post-processing. A lot has been said about the way the R-D1 handles like an analog camera, but the digital side of the camera is no slouch, either. Kudos to Epson, especially since this is their first foray into this field.
Luckily I was shooting in RAW. In Photoshop, I gave the file a massive +4.0EV push (!) during RAW conversion, then adjusted contrast, made a curves adjustment, and burned the right side a bit to get the bottom picture. The results aren't perfect, but it's still usable, as you can see.
Despite having worked with RAW files from Canon DSLR's for a while, I'm still impressed by the amount latitude in the R-D1 RAW files and how well they hold up under this type of abuse during post-processing. A lot has been said about the way the R-D1 handles like an analog camera, but the digital side of the camera is no slouch, either. Kudos to Epson, especially since this is their first foray into this field.
S
sfaust
Guest
DaShiv, you've run into one of the nice things I really like about shooting digital and RAW format. I get the same results with the Nikon D1x and Fuji S2 pros that I shoot with. Quite a wide latitude to correct mistakes that we all know shouldn't have happened, but always do 🙂
With color or B&W film, it would probably also be recoverable, but with slide fim it would have been toast. Commercially, I almost always had to shoot chromes, so the move to digital was a godsend. But it did make me real good at nailing exposures! The contrast latitude with digital is about the same as E6, but there is no way you could have recovered a chrome shot shown in the first image. The RAW format is wonderful for this, and color correction.
I keep my temptation at bay for an R-D1 until I get my transition over to twin D2x's. Then I'll see what I have left over 🙁
With color or B&W film, it would probably also be recoverable, but with slide fim it would have been toast. Commercially, I almost always had to shoot chromes, so the move to digital was a godsend. But it did make me real good at nailing exposures! The contrast latitude with digital is about the same as E6, but there is no way you could have recovered a chrome shot shown in the first image. The RAW format is wonderful for this, and color correction.
I keep my temptation at bay for an R-D1 until I get my transition over to twin D2x's. Then I'll see what I have left over 🙁
choozart
Member
After the push, I"m seeing a lot of banding in the shadows.
Patrick
Patrick
S
sfaust
Guest
I see the same with extreme pushes on the Nikon gear, and somewhat less with the Fuji S2Pros. I've had success in the past with post processing to even out the banding to where its hardly noticeable. Just the nature of the beast, but it sure looks better and more usable than the original 😉
DaShiv
21st century digital boy
I agree with both of you here--it definitely would have looked better if I had, for example, tried some kind of noise reduction or selective blurring to addressing the banding, and so on. I was just surprise that the RAW data held up as well as it did with a 4-stop push though--I haven't been as successful trying to push this aggressively with the Canon RAW files without artifacts like splotchy noise patterns, strange color shifts, and so on. For a 4-stop push, I was pretty impressed by the R-D1 file. 🙂
The best route to take, of course, would have been to get the exposure right in the first place like I should have! It wouldn't have been off by more than a stop at the very most if I had just metered and set the exposure manually, instead of relying on the autoexposure in a situation where I should have foreseen this sort of problem. I'm just glad to still have something left at all after a mistake like that, thanks to Epson's robust RAW format. 😀
The best route to take, of course, would have been to get the exposure right in the first place like I should have! It wouldn't have been off by more than a stop at the very most if I had just metered and set the exposure manually, instead of relying on the autoexposure in a situation where I should have foreseen this sort of problem. I'm just glad to still have something left at all after a mistake like that, thanks to Epson's robust RAW format. 😀
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Sean Reid
Guest
Being able to get anything out of a 4-stop push is impressive.
Sean
Sean
Jim Watts
Still trying to See.
DaShiv,
This looks pretty impressive for a 4-stop push to me. What iso did you shoot at?
I have a Canon 20D as well as the R-D1 and if you try to pull up the shadows from its files even at lowish iso's bandind is much more apparent.
Jim
This looks pretty impressive for a 4-stop push to me. What iso did you shoot at?
I have a Canon 20D as well as the R-D1 and if you try to pull up the shadows from its files even at lowish iso's bandind is much more apparent.
Jim
S
stevew
Guest
Extreme contrast range.
Extreme contrast range.
Lately I've been experimenting with blending a raw conversion done for the high values (the view out the window) with a raw conversion done for the interior scene. I borrowed the workflow off someone on the web and it works pretty well to extend the range.
Extreme contrast range.
Lately I've been experimenting with blending a raw conversion done for the high values (the view out the window) with a raw conversion done for the interior scene. I borrowed the workflow off someone on the web and it works pretty well to extend the range.
justins7
Well-known
I like those mistakes.
I like those mistakes.
I like those mistakes. Usually they're impossible on a digital camera.
I would have just opened up the first version 2 stops, and only in the lighted areas of their faces. Why does every image have to be evenly, brightly lit. THis is more interesting.
I like those mistakes.
I like those mistakes. Usually they're impossible on a digital camera.
I would have just opened up the first version 2 stops, and only in the lighted areas of their faces. Why does every image have to be evenly, brightly lit. THis is more interesting.
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