@Unapiedra I don't know how it is on Nikon's but I know I've started shooting around -1EV on my 5d mark iii if I'm outside. It does well indoors, but I've noticed with any kind of harsh shadows outside, it tends to overexpose if I don't, even as far as RAW goes. Not by much, but often just by a hair, particularly if I'm using a flash fill.

@MattJ haha, that's one day of shooting for me at a wedding

I just shot 1800 photos in the last 5 hours

my favorite photo bomb ever

it's so much fun shooting weddings where you know the wedding party

@AJHenderson that's great :D "nothing is going to come between us" Badam-tshhh

Hi HKO

have you done HDR from EV-bracketed shots?

@Unapiedra Odd, I would have said DRO (Dynamic Range Optimizer in Sony cameras) makes for overexposed RAWs. So, when (for JPEG) dynamic range gets optimized in-camera, it rather pulls highlights down than brings darks up. I keep DRO off and need less EC. Since DRO does not do anything to RAWs anyway, only affects the metering and obviously histogram too.

@EsaPaulasto that's actually the best man that is doing the photo bombing too

him and the groom are actually the guys that owned Wiicafe (the video game news site I worked with while in college)

Best pal of the groom is also the most dangerous, if we are to believe Hollywood films ;)

AJ, is it usual that even with a strongly contrasted photo (high dynamic range) you often can get better results from processing a single RAW than to work three bracketed shots thru a HDR-software?

depends on the shot. If the photo stays the same, the bracket will give a better range

I wanted to experiment with this, and all is nice and sweet with my single RAW and not so sweet with in-camera bracketed HDR (as expected) until I try a HDR software for the first time in my life, and I just can't beat the single shot RAW processed.

since it will have a wider dynamic range to work from

but if you have a wide enough dynamic range and have to worry about subjects moving, then post processing a raw may get a better result

(no moving objects in the way)

what you are looking for with HDR is to capture detail in both the brights and the darks and pull it all in to gamut

when you take bracketed shots, that range is bigger

but it also makes it more challenging to properly bring it all in to gammut

I installed Luminance HDR and after that I also installed Photomatix Essentials but neither can produce a photo that would look better than the single shot. I can get "as-good-as" but not better.

yeah, I honestly don't do much with HDR because my camera has such a wide dynamic range

with over 12EVs of range, I don't often need more than that

no, that was wrong, I correct myself: "I can't produce a better shot with either of those programs." - nothing wrong with them really.

part of the issue can be that if the shot doesn't lend itself towards picking up detail in the extremes then there isn't really anything to gain

@AJHenderson I'll show you the single shot version, there's surely blown sunlight there, no need to point that out, but otherwise it is just okay. Wait a sec.

because you are still limited to the dynamic range of your display

you are just compressing more information in to it

so where a shot might normally be too bright and too dark in parts, an HDR shot lets you pull stuff in

in that shot for example, nothing is too dark

there aren't even any solid blacks

nope, I knew what I was trying to capture, and set the exposure so.

maybe could pull a little more detail out of the shadows in the pothole, but that's about it

the Sun is behind the corner of that house, and there it is blown irreversibly :)

@AJHenderson Right, of course, I did not even look at it ever :D

this is just a test shot anyway

yeah, I'm just saying, that's why you don't notice the difference

there isn't any additional range to pull in

so the bracketing isn't going to help you any

it'd only help if the image actually extended well beyond whatever the EV range of your camera is

sure the sun is blown out, but that's pretty much always the case no matter what you do

Camera on a tripod and I did this single RAW + in-camera Advanced D-Range + in-camera 3 exposure HDR and then 3 exposures bracketed RAWs for the HDR-software to work on.

these I have, and I can't beat the single RAW (the photo I posted)

@AJHenderson Okay, thanks mate, I begin to see it now.

I thought I just can't use those two softwares, and sure I did not quite understand what happened for which lever/adjustment, but I did spend hours on it and I did get something out. Just not good enough.

Now I understand why it was so.

ah, I forgot, I also have a single JPEG to show :D

for educational reasons... hehe ;9

I mean, set my camera to shoot JPEG only. This is what it spit out.

Good for telling folks why to shoot RAW instead of JPEG ;)

yeah, the number of times RAW saves my butt is nuts

:)

I can't imagine ever shooting anything but

one more question: these Active D-Range things they have in-camera..

called Dynamic Range Optimizer in Sony

is it always for JPEG?

I'd say it is only possible for JPEG, but I'm sanitychecking my thoughts here..

well, it depends on how they do it

I think they are most commonly only for jpeg

but I wouldn't say with 100% confidence that some implementations might not impact the exposure calculations as well

perhaps to keep the overall dynamic range safer

but I believe most of them are in-fact JPEG only

the easiest way to tell would be to set up a tripod and try a shot with it on and off

and compare the raw results

or see what it says in the manual

I was thinking the only way a ADR or DRO or... can have any effect on RAW is thru metering and that means it has no actual effect as long as the photographer is alert.

yeah, it would only impact metering

or more accurately how the camera adjusts settings based on metering

if it has any impact

But it does have one effect on RAW in post processing: when you use your brand's own RAW processing software (like I'm using) then the settings that get automatically applied to RAW when you first open it, are those you set in-camera. Nothing permanent of course, just some settings are adjusted per in-camera setup.

You can always tune them to better or simply turn Off, whatever suits you.

@AJHenderson Right, it could have some input that way, just not really changing the nature of the sensor of a digital system camera :)

AJ, thanks for all this, I'll be afk for a while now..

I've got a nice dynamic range of RAW sample actually too

as shot

that's the power of over 12 EVs of dynamic range

the shadow does pick up a bit of noise on the jacket, but still

@AJHenderson Those were from the same exposure?

Wow :)

@AJHenderson Beautiful :) and a good example of why not to ETTR.. it would have been so easy to blow her forehead away only to get his jacket show up better. Good example of what we just talked about :)