Active D lighting any disadvantages?

[ian2]

If I leave D lighting set to auto its one thing less to worry about. But is there a problem with this approach. Is there a

review for how good the auto setting is compared to low high etc. I assume that RAWs are left alone and it means

less editing with all those hundreds of jpegs. I am just starting out with this feature and it looks like a real time

saver.

[joe_a2]

Do a search for Active D lighting here on photo.net and you will see dozens of threads on this topic. In a nutshell, the shadow detail comes at the expense of noise.

[tony_estcourt]

Ken Rockwell has a review of this feature on his site. The feature looks useful as a means of controlling high contrast subjects, since i shoot landscape i've decided to leave it on in auto. The benefit of low/high is that one will shift the exposure further. The reason to prefer low/high over auto is predictability.

 

From my understanding of the process, it reviews the dynamic range of the subject before exposure and uses this info to shift the exposure reading. So I think it will affect the RAW file, in that the basic exposure will be more "appropriate". There is a D-Lighting feature that is a post-processing step but i'm not familiar with this.

 

I cant see any down-side to the feature for landscape.

[s._mangrove]

What camera do you have? I have the D300 and there is no auto-mode that I know of. My options are High/Normal/Low

and Off.

 

I leave mine on normal, as I did numerous jpg tests when I got the camera using the various options. I much prefer the

results of Normal/High versus Off. The highlight control gives the images more visual appeal.

 

There is a compelling crowd that suggests using Active D lighting wrecks havoc on your files that makes it very hard to

post process. They usually also shoot NEF. I don't have the time to spend in post processing so I focus on getting the

results that I want right out of the camera.

[ellis_vener_photography]

"In a nutshell, the shadow detail comes at the expense of noise."

 

prove it with real world examples. and twell me how they were shot and processed.

 

"So I think it will affect the RAW file..."

 

yes it does.

[simon_hickie1]

Post-processing is fine in NX2 - you can adjust the amount of active D lighting in the RAW conversion. I tend to leave mine on Normal these days. One can get rather over-excited about noise - I'd rather preserve shadow / highlight detail any day and worry about noise afterwards if it's an issue at normal print sizes (i.e. anything up to 10 x 15 inches).

[jakob_norstedt_moberg]

>Ellis Vener wrote:

 

>yes it does. (affect the raw file)

 

It does not. Please read the thread

http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00R3bF

 

Ellis, if you say that it affects the RAW files please show it in a practical experiment which can be repeated. My and

others experiments show absolutely no indication of the raw file being affected.

 

Jakob

[photo5]

I work in an imaging lab all day. I've been doing this for almost 10 years. Anytime you raise the curve to increase shadow information, you're going to get noise. All Active D-Lighting is doing is adjusting the exposure to get a higher amount of shadow and highlight data in the photo.

 

If you don't like this, turn it off. I've used it on and off, and I prefer it on so I leave it in "Normal" on my D300. Frankly, I'm not afraid of a little noise. You want noise? Go shoot Fuji NPS 160 35mm neg film and scan it to digital. Now THERE is some NOISE! :-)

[Sanford]

If the camera is left in active D mode, sooner or later it will do something horrible and unfixable to a photo. Better to use

"Shadow/Highlight" control in Photoshop after the fact.

[eric_arnold]

don't use active d-lighting with high ISO and vivid settings. and you may want to turn it down to low when shooting people. ymmv.

[ted_springer]

Ian,

 

I think I think it boils down to your shooting style. Test it both ways and see which works out better for you. In the studio I leave

it off but when I'm shooting outside, I like it on normal.

[elliot1]

There are no disadvantages since you can disable it fully in NX/NX2. Or shoot without it and then enable in in NX/NX2.

[ShunCheung]

Actually there can be some disadvantage if you shoot sports/action. Active D Lighting requires extra processing from the camera and therefore can slow down the frame rate.

 

Since I shoot RAW only and process my NEF files with Adobe Camera RAW, I pretty much always switch Active D Lighting off.

[elliot1]

Shun, while I have not noticed a reduction in frame rate with ADL on, I did discover another disadvantage for sports/action shooting - the buffer capacity (for a high speed burst) is reduced by about 30%.

 

With ADL on, the buffer is 13 (DX or FX). With it turned off the buffer for FX is 18 and 26 for DX (12 bit compressed RAW, D3) - quite a difference!

[ShunCheung]

Elliot, you typically lose frame rate and/or buffer space if you switch on features such as noise reduction, Active D Lighting, etc., essentially anything that requires additional computing power from the camera. The problem could be worse on the D300 which has a more limited CPU (that is why it drops to 2.5 frames/sec with 14-bit capture) compared to the D3/D700.

 

I simply switch all of thsoe options off. For the few frames that I like, I would much rather decide on my own how the bright and dark areas should look like rather than let Nikon's algorithm make those decisions.

[studor13]

I did a quick test and found that with ADL on, scenes with a wide dynamic range get under exposed by about 1/3 to 2/3s of a stop. Try it for yourselves.

 

However, the camera does something so that the image still looks good. On the LCD is looks a bit dark but not necessarily on the PC. Furthermore, if you press OK on the camera and get the D-lighting menu and choose say Normal, you get a fairly good copy of the image in the shadows. The highlights are now a tad washed out, so if you want to bother you can simply layer them in PS and do a blend.

 

Since I shoot RAW and do my own processing, I set ADL off . This way even if the highlights are a little blown, I can get them back in PS.

[elliot1]

I took some surfing shots last night and was disappointed with the results as well as the camera's performance with regard to the buffer capacity. Following Shun's advice, I turned all the image enhancements options I had on off and the images improved dramatically with minor tweaking in NX.

 

I am going to be changing how I use my camera (with regard to its settings). Shun, thanks for the suggestions!

[photo5]

I underexposed all my slide film (ISO 100 film exposed at ISO 125, ISO 64 Kodachrome at ISO 80, etc) in order to preserve highlights and gain slightly better color saturation. I see ADL as doing something similar. I'd rather have a little more noise and better highlight information than the other way around. Once you lose highlights in digital, you can't get them back.

[lex_jenkins]

Dave, prepare for cries of outrage from the ETTR evangelists.

 

BTW, I routinely do the same thing. For artistic photos where a slight loss of definition doesn't hurt anything, I'd rather use Noise Ninja to fix the noise while preserving the highlights.

[photo5]

Lex, I've heard Noise Ninja is very good. I leave High ISO NR set to 'Normal' on my D300. Even at ISO 3200, I don't find the noise that bad. Certainly at ISO 1600 it looks quite excellent.

[elliot1]

I took some photos today with ADL off and discovered you cannot turn it on in NX unless it was on when you took the image.

[aaron l]

Noise Ninja is good, but excellent after you characterize each iso level. It doesn't take that long to do and is well worth, rather than the auto settings.

[lightsmith1]

I have had problems with severe banding of the sky shooting in full sunlight at ISO 200 with my D3. Trying to

protect wedding dresses from blowing out I used the Active-D setting which turned out to be a big mistake.

 

Having shot with Nikon digital cameras I have become quite familiar with every NR application out there. I have

found that Dfine 2.0 is significantly better than any other application at reducing noise while preserving detail.

[r_quan]

I would agree that Dfine 2.0 produces better results than Noise Ninja in my experience.

[rob_cole2]

My understanding:

 

Active D-Lighting will alter exposure, thus affecting RAW data. It is the only camera setting that affects RAW data, other than basic exposure, focus, and ISO. This is what the term "Active" refers to (there's also a "Passive" D-Lighting option that can be performed after the fact in post-processing/retouching). This is the reason you can not turn it on in NX2 if it was not already on in the camera.

 

PS - If it increases noise in the shadows in order to bring out detail, it will be less than if you did not have active d-lighting on, since more of the job is done by increasing exposure, and less by enhancing detail in underexposed areas after the fact. - True for RAW mode as well.

 

One thing I'm not sure of is whether it will also decrease exposure in order to keep highlights from blowing out, or if it will only increase exposure to preserve shadow details. - Anybody know?