how do you handle the limited latitude of digital?

Fellow leica users, I dare to post this here since I presume you know what I'm

talking about:

 

I got myself a Sony R1, and while the camera is gorgeous and works like a charm,

I keep being frustrated by the limited exposure latitude and blown-out

highlights. I feel that either I have the choice between all shadows black or

the highlights being totally blown-out. Apparently digital camera makers are

afraid of the dark, and default exposure is set to avoid shadows at thre price

of half the frame being blown out. As a cmpromise, I have exposure compensation

constantly set to -1 fstop to save some of the highlights, but in the end this

is not really satisfying.

 

OK, I know that this is a result of coming from b/w film with plenty of exposure

latitude..

 

My question to those of you who are also using digital cameras - how do you

handle this? Combine multiple frames and photoshop wizardry, or avoid contrasty

scenes alltogether?

 

Just curious..

Use fill-in flash.

I shot Kodachrome for 50 years. Digital has about the same limitation on latitude in highlights, so it's no problem once you learn how to meter properly. In the case of digital, it's "easy" to bracket and combine the exposures in Photoshop, which you should learn to do. There are also a couple of secrets in avoiding the problem, which I'm not going to share with you.

Fill-flash works best. Otherwise you can meter off the highlights and then see what shadow detail that you can dig up from the exposure in Photoshop.

 

Try setting the exposure compensation to minus .6 and check your histogram.

Tiffen makes three kinds of low contrast filters one of which is designed to bring up shadows. They were designed for the movie industry.

 

I have not tried them, but they should work if they work with film.

 

The Tiffin web site is rather poor and I have not looked in a while. I asked for printer literature and it was equally bad, although there was some original literature that was much better that I lost.

 

I will try the original pain old simple low contrast filter I do have that is decades old. Wait for a posting.

 

And I feel your pain.

 

Fill flash does not work for distant subjects and the HDR multiple exposure system does not work for moving subjects. Hense the Tiffin solution.

 

Stay tuned.

 

I definately think this is the answer.

"There are also a couple of secrets in avoiding the problem, which I'm not going to share with you."

 

That's the attitude!

 

Jean, obviously fill in flash and/or combining exposures won't work in all cases - fill in flash is a little difficult in landscapes, and combining exposures won't work if things are moving in the frame.

 

My advice would be to dial in some -ve exposure compenation and above all shoot RAW not Jpeg. If you haven't tried already you'll be amazed at how much detail can be recovered in RAW processing.

Don't give up film. In particular, negative film, which has great range.

You can use a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range). You'll need PS2 or Photomatix. This will combine three or more bracketed exposures with two stop differences into one image giving the photographer the ability to cover more than 9 f/stop range. The subject has to be stattionary and the camera on a tripod.

in an overall contrasty scene all you can do is try to find the best overall exposure that

does not blow out the highlights. The worst scenario, I've found, is when you've got a

really bright sky and deep shadows on the ground like when you're shooting into the sun.

This is nearly impossible to photograph in digital. Fill flash, of course, is stronger on the

closest parts of your subjects, and what makes it nearly useless for me is simply that no

matter how well done it still LOOKS

like fill flash. In order to combime multiple exposures in PS you need to have the camera

on a tripod, which again makes that techinque useless for my type of work. So, basically,

the advice above is solid, shoot RAW and approach your metering as though you were

shooting slide film. Good luck. Damn, I love Tri-X!

Multiple exposures of the same photo with film always bothered me a lot, so I rarely did it. Waste of time and film if you know how to expose properly. But I did shy away from slide film as well. But it seems to me that if there is any advantage to digital cameras at all it would be the ability to completely disregard how many shots your taking--who cares, they're all free and disposable--and more importantly to shoot multiple exposures automatically without even lifting your little finger off the camera. On the other hand what I'm hearing about here are scenes of such contrast that you cannot get everying exposed properly no matter how many exposures you make. Sounds like the Tiffen filter is a good idea for this problem, even for film cameras.

1. Make sure you shoot RAW;

2. Push the exposure so that your histogram is pushed as far as possible to the right, limited

blown-out highlights are not a big problem is you shoot RAW. I recommend you read some

books on RAW development and how digital camera sees lights. Half the bits information is in

the highlights so that if you underexpose, you will limit furthe the latitude. But again, get one

of these book to better understand that.

More on <a href=http://www.hdrsoft.com/>HDR, including the software mentioned, is here</a>. <p>

 

And a discussion about using HDR, along with a few examples, is <a href=http://flickr.com/groups/pndissidentcafe/discuss/72157594326095445/>here</a>.

I, too, have shot slide film for years and so found digital's aversion to high contrast no big

limitation. My solution for slide film was learned from Tillman Crane, a teacher at the

Maine Photographic Workshops, many years ago. He was a dedicated large format B & W

landscape photographer and carried a spot meter in a holster hanging on his belt! The

Zone System was where he lived. (And he was super at teaching it to the likes of me.)

 

But when shooting chromes he turned to an incident meter to "protect the highlights." I

adopted this approach, using a Sekonic hand held digital meter with a "lumisphere" on

board. Found that my blown highlights were greatly reduced in number. I'm not quite

certain why.

 

Tillman said that an incident meter puts your exposure dead in the center of the various

light levels falling on the subject. It ignores contrast variations. He believed that much of

the problem was not knowing just what to meter in the scene or how to deviate from the

reading a spot or center weighted reflected meter gave. An incident meter becomes a

quick and relatively brainless way to avoid many over exposure problems.

 

I don't use it for digital, but rely on the instant histogram to tell me if I have a highlight

problem. Also, of course, I check the LCD screen image after the exposure. As has been

said, it's easy to dial in compensation if serious highlight problems arise.

 

After years of Kodachrome 64, the problems with digital highlight overexposure seem very

firmiliar and not very daunting.

<There are also a couple of secrets in avoiding the problem, which I'm not going to share with you.>

 

Bill,

 

That is the funniest reply I have read on this forum for months.

I actually laughed out loud for 30 secs. It was so unexpected. Brilliant.

Why not post some of the images taken with the Sony Camera for discussion?

The "expose like 'chrome" analogy is pretty good, but if you're interested in some more detailed understanding about how digital cameras record light and how to make the most of it, I highly recommend two articles from <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html">Adobe's Camera Raw page</a>:

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/pdfs/understanding_digitalrawcapture.pdf">Understanding Digital Raw Capture</a>

<li><a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/pdfs/linear_gamma.pdf">Raw Capture, Linear Gamma, and Exposure</a>

</ul>

I believe both are almost verbatim sections from Bruce Fraser's book "Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS2" (highly recommended if you us PS).<br>

<br>

Cheers,<br>

<br>

Geoff S.

1. shoot RAW, 2. If your Preview / Review screen can be configured to display a B/W image

and histogram, that may give you an idea of the quality of your exposure and the dynamic

range. Because your shooting RAW, you'll still retain all the color info.

Horsepuckey. If your highlights are blown out, that's it.I suspect that your highlights on film are also blown out. Shooting in raw is great if your camera and software are up to the task. How many RAW images are posted on photo.net? Answer: none.

If I can't seem to squeeze the whole brightness range in, I'll output a couple of tiffs from the raw one optimized for shadows and mid-tones, and one optimized for the highlights, through Adobe Camera Raw.

 

Then, I'll blend them through the shadow mask workflow here:

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml

"Horsepuckey. If your highlights are blown out, that's it.I suspect that your highlights on film are also blown out."

 

Too true.

 

"Shooting in raw is great if your camera and software are up to the task. How many RAW images are posted on photo.net? Answer: none."

 

There is no such animal as a "raw image".

 

--

 

Don E

Why not admit that there are some lighting situations that have a range so wide that sensing medium just can't accommodate it? Shooting skiing footage is an example: shoot for detail in the shadows and everything else is blown. Actually it is exactly that way with the naked eye -- we just don't recognize it. Sometimes reflectors can be set to throw reflected light into the shadows. Be realistic, there are conditions for which there is no 'perfect' fix.

There are many answers to the question, most of which fit limited scenarios and are a fair

amount of work that's rarely is done well enough to be perfectly natural looking.

 

When I am shooting weddings in contrasty conditions, and there isn't time to study the

histogram to re-adjust because what just happened won't be repeated, I just shoot neg film.

sometimes, film hightlights get blown too if not careful..latitude, a matter of perspective.<div></div>

Use pre-war uncoated lenses?

The Sony R1 has zebra stripe display of any highlights that will be blown out. Dial down exposure comp until these are eliminated or reduced. Bring up the shadow detail in post process. The R1 also has 4 contrast settings. Choose the low contrast setting or the auto contrast setting that to compensate for high contrast lighting. The lowest contrast setting is probably the best choice. Shoot RAW files to access more of the available exposure latitude during post processing.

 

I find blown highlights more disturbing than blocked shadows, I think because I am more accustomed to seeing little detail in the dark, than little or no detail when the light is bright.