NOOB: When to use ADL? Is it a good thing?

<p>I remember reading Thom Hogan's guide to Nikon D3s that he recommends turning off Active D lighting at all times so it wont play around with the camera's metering, or something along that line. I was in a noob's portrait class the other day, and the teacher's assistant who has a D4 told us all to turn active D lighting to high or very high to squeeze dynamic range out of the camera. So who's right?<br>

Is ADL simply an in-camera postprocessing which attempts to protect highlights and pull out details in shadows? or it actually interferes with the metering? Do I actually gain dynamic range by using ADL? or it's simply postprocessed to give me a higher dynamic range "look"?<br>

I have a D800E, and for the class portrait sessions we are all instructed to shoot in manual mode. There are a couple of instances whereby things dont look quite right, like my images are brighter than my classmates' who were using the exact same settings required for the class. My experience with ADL, when I first started out shooting a D5000, is that it helps brightening up people's faces in high contrast scenes in aperture priority mode ( i dont use manual back then). Is ADL is nice feature to use with aperture priority mode only? If I am in manual, and I shoot in raw anyways, is it better to turn ADL off so that it doesnt change the way things look depending on the scene?<br>

I am trying hard to master exposure and manual mode currently by the way, and while i want to turn ADL off so I have 1 less thing to worry about, I am afraid to lose dynamic range if what my TA said is true.<br>

Please shed some light on my confusion, thank you all</p>

<p>I think your instructor is incorrect. First off, setting ADL to High underexposes the image to protect the highlights then brings up the shadows with a contrast curve adjustment. The shadows will be noisy, and you won't "squeeze dynamic range out of the camera" this way. Using no ADL and adjusting the exposure so neither end of the histogram was clipped, if you can, would get the most dynamic range.</p>

<p>I thought I knew a thing or two about dynamic range, but right on the field, I never really understand what it does, and since it slows in-camera processing time (annoying in critical moment), I never bother with it. If you search around the net (and photo.net) you'll see various discussion and explanation about ADL, and someone here might enlighten you.<br>

<br /><br /><br>

I shoot RAW and within my workflow, I don't think I've lost any dynamic range, after I learned about my cameras limitations. The data will be there for you to work with.</p>

<p>I think ADL is one of those thing to ease things, I really think you'd rather focus on metering techniques, it'll be much more useful, ADL exists or not.</p>

<p>I don't have the guts to say that the teacher's assistant is wrong, you see, he is a teacher's assistant, and he has a D4 :)</p>

<p>When I was shooting with earlier cameras that lacked ADL I saw a need to underexpose by .3 or even .7 stops with bright subjects such as blossoms, clouds or Caucasian skin in full sunlight, to avoid blocking highlights. I then pulled up the shadows in post processing. Yes, it does increase the noise slightly in those areas, but not enough to make a great difference unless you're enlarging to a high degree, or pixel-peeping. Now I use Auto ADL. It most often fills the histogram nicely in situations described above, without blocked highlights or shadows. For me, Auto ADL works. </p>

<p>I've always considered ADL a poor implementation of Photoshop's Shadows/Highlights feature. As such, I'd rather adjust it myself during editing than let the camera fool around with it while I'm shooting. But judging by the range of responses to your question, ADL is something you'll need to experiment with and see how well it works for the way you shoot.</p>

<p>There is one miniscule advantage in leaving it on, IF you use CaptureNX2 to process your NEF files. In CNX2, you can set the different ADL levels, if the feature was enabled while shooting. Else the feature is not available. It's really super-miniscule, since the effect can easily be done with shadow and highlight recovery as well. Despite using CNX2, I leave ADL off.<br /> If you use any other RAW editor, you better leave it off since it causes the camera to underexpose (slightly), and the non-Nikon RAW programs do not interpret the setting of ADL at all, so it only leaves you an underexposed photo which increases the risks of noise.<br /> If you shoot JPEGs, it is useful.</p>

<p>My experience with Active D lighting is mainly with landscape photography and product photography for online selling. Once I had a good grip on how to get my camera to expose the scene the way I wanted it to look (D700) I then began to use the Active D lighting function to assist especially with shadowed elements in my frames. </p>

<p>I now regularly use Active D lighting set to 'Normal' on scenes that I think have enough contrast beyond what I believe the camera's dynamic abilities are or at least what I've been able to achieve in the past with it. I always shoot in RAW + JPEG and use PS 3 RAW converter. From the occasional large prints I have made up for me (in the vicinity of 30"x50") I really appreciate what employing the Active D lighting function does for my keepers. </p>

<p>I don't claim to understand the mechanics of Active D lighting but I know it works for me with screen images and especially for prints. On occasion I have been asked if my images are HDR processed and all I can attribute their purported HDR appearance to, is the use of the Active D function. I prefer my landscape daylight scenes not to have uber contrasty elements to them so I use Active D lighting to achieve the look I want. You should continue to experiemnt with the function to see what it does / doesn't do for you. There is no right or wrong if you take a subjective approach to photography.</p>

<p>After extensive experiments with ADL and my D7000, I have the following observations:</p>

<p>It can be very useful when shooting JPG. Depending on the scene, the base exposure is changed between 0 and -0.7 stops and the JPG processing brings up the shadows. This will often keep the highlights from being blown out, which is critical when shooting JPG, because it's almost impossible to recover clipped channels. With a D7000, the increase in shadow noise is minimal, and vastly better than possibly clipping the red channel when shooting portraits. Clip the red channel shooting JPG portraits and that's the end of smooth skin tone gradation. If Matrix metering is used, I've found exposure to be, at times, unpredictable and overexposure common.</p>

<p>RAW, turn off ADL. Highlights can almost always be recovered and dropping the base exposure will often be somewhat underexposed. RAW isn't JPG.</p>

<p>Nikon tweaks the exposure algorithms for matrix metering with every new model, so it's worth experimenting with ADL with the D800.</p>

Try this:

 

Take a few pictures in various lighting as raw files with ADL on.

 

Open them in a open source raw converter that doesn't do anything unless you tell it to, such as ufraw.

 

I think you will find that with most pictures, the camera-computer will have significantly underexposed, and you will

have to brighten-up the picture somehow. ADL simply preserves highlights by underexposing and then bringing up the

shadows and mid-tones. It's not attempting to restore the highlights. It doesn't need to. Nikon raw software does all

this as it opens the file. I don't know about commercial third party software, because I don't have any. I also don't have

a current expensive camera, so I can't say if Nikon has changed the way it works more recently... although I doubt it. As

it is with matrix metering, it's really a point and shoot kind of feature, and you never really know what you're going to

get. This is one case where a camera setting does affect the raw file, since it underexposes to begin with.

 

It's not necessarily bad, because it essentially attempts to do what many experienced photographers do for themselves,

as with slide film. Unlike slides though, it may boost shadows and in some cases make them look a little odd or sandy

compared to the rest of the image.

 

The price you pay for this convenience is that it's like matrix metering. You have to just trust the camera rather than

your own acquired experience and in some cases, it may definitely make the shadows look processed.

 

Let the arguments begin. Me, this is my last reply. Photography has crept out of my price range, I'm afraid. It's just compact beginner happysnaps from now on.

<p>ADL is for use when the dynamic range of the scene is slightly larger than the camera's capacity <strong>AND</strong> the scene is dynamic. For static scenes, use bracketing and combine the images in HDR software.</p>

<p>I rarely come across scenes where the dynamic range is too large. Typically they're scenes where some items are in full sun and others are in shadow and you want details in both areas. I'd estimate that occurs less than 1% of the time for me. YMMV depending on your photostream.</p>

<p>Is it a good thing? It can be if you need it. It can be a bad thing if you use it all the time when you don't need it. </p>

wouter,

it is possible to use and adjust adl in capture nx2, regardless of what in-camera settings were used.