Ever felt in the minority?

[MAubrey]

Digital is not very forgiving in the hohlights. Not much better in shadows. Alrhiugh very linrar between the cutodfs wjere either no information recorded or where thwee is saturation in the highlights. Unlike film, once digital hits those points you're done since digital will no longer be able to record info.

The dynamic range of a digital sensor and the way bit depth works means that the highlights *can be* forgiving, but only if you can successfully achieve getting the maximum number photons in the pixel wells without clipping. And that means learning your sensor. When you achieve that, and it can take significant testing, then you'll get very lovely highlights. And this is the only way to achieve the best shadow details, too. If you have 14bit RAWS, you'll get:

|-- Black <---> Shadows <---> Midtones -Highlights <---> White --|
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384

Because of the way tones are mapped to bits, you get the most tonality data in the highlights and the least tonality data in the blacks.

The zone system needs to be adapted to this. If you've got a scene with an dynamic range of 12 stops using a a good sensor with 14 stops of dynamic range, you'll want to exposure your middle gray at zone zone 7 instead of zone 5--ideally as high up the dynamic range without clipping the highlights. This will give you the most information on your sensor for when you post-process the image back down withe tones brought back to their appropriate zones along with applying a non-linear tone curve. When this can be achieved you'll get the best shadow detail possible for your camera and a lovely roll off in the highlights.

Also: unfortunately, Canon has been behind inf sensor dynamic range for going on ten years now.

Just my two cents.

I'm a young kid around here, only 34. Most of my friends just think my LF camera is pretty cool, but don't what to say beyond that.

[John Kasaian]

The issue I see is when discussing film with most of the photographers today, they get that deer in the headlights look.
There are many good things about digital photography, but with high school and college Art dept.s scrapping their darkrooms, I understand how traditional photographers might feel jaded.
The solution of course is to take anyone who shows an interest into the field and into the lab and show them.
Then you'll have at least one more person to have intellectual conversations with

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Yes, Canon is behind. I am sure they will catch up ny the time I am reincarnated. The key as you poinyniutnis to not clip highlights the followong scene I shot and exposed to get shadow detail I wanted. I used a 3 stop grad nd. Should have used 5 or 8 stops though. This scene had well iver 10 stops of difference between shadows and brihjtest sky parts. If I had not used grad filter these highlights would have been toast. Shot with Canon 5DMKIII. As I show, I enjoy dugital as well but I also soend more time to compose and meter than many. Also, when looking at this scene prior to post processing, it looked like crap as I expected, butnthatbis to be expected when exposing to get all the information desired. I also compared to an image tjat was more traditionall exposed. What you find is while uou can make them look similar, the shadow details are horrible with color noise etc. Hence exposing for shadows in digital world also has advantages.

[IMG]Grand Canyon North Rim cape Royal by Steven Ruttenberg, on Flickr[/IMG]

[MAubrey]

[IMG]Grand Canyon North Rim cape Royal by Steven Ruttenberg, on Flickr[/IMG]

That's a lovely photograph.

[Tin Can]

Yes very good Grand Canyon!

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Thanks! I hope my film versions come out even better. My goal for the Grand Canyon photos I take is to take ones that are unique and not like the 10 million that are out there. I hope this was not one of the 10 million.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

One thing I always think about is that we hear how digital like Nikon has 14 stops of dynamic range. But that is 14 stops from like Z = 0 to Z = XIV. But as was pointed out earlier on, if you are metering your scene say for Z = V and then adjusting to say Z = III or Z = VII (if you metered highlights) Then you no longer have an actual 14 stops, more like 2-4 at the most towards highlights and maybe the same in reverse. So, in reality a scene when exposed to capture detail in the shadows for example, will only yield about 3 stops to the highlights (depending on camera capability) and maybe that much to the dark side. Film has a much better response in this respect from the few shots I have made. So, the 14 stop dynamic range that is advertised can be mis-leading to the average photo hound. It just means that it can record data from Z = 0 (0 for brightness) up to Z = XIV (255 for brightness) which is interesting since regardless of dynamic range, the brightness values are always 0-255 for 8 bit (to make it simple) But you certainly do not get 14 stops from say middle gray (128) to the bright end of the scale, nor even 7 if you assume that is middle of exposure range.

Why one should test their camera to see just how many stops they truly have from Z = V to the highlight end and to the black end. Obviously same for the film you are using. That knowledge is really helpful. And of course film allows you to do things to squeeze out even more from pre-flashing the film to how it is developed and the use of filters at time of shot. Can't do that with digital!

[Duolab123]

I went to Yellowstone and Tetons this summer, I was the only film shooter. Lots of nice dedicated digital cameras. I wanted the look of our old vacation slides, so no large format. I almost took a Hassleblad to shoot 6x6 slides. Ended up w Nikon F5, 90% used 85 Af-D 1.4. Shot auto bracket, aperture priority.
I love film. Digital is amazing as well. Seems like with digital I take a lot of pictures of my cats.

Favorite is a Fuji 6x9 and an 8 exposure roll of TMY 2, incident light meter. Take a couple contrast filters along.

[pgk]

And that means learning your sensor.

Personally I think that sensor characteristics are very similar to film/processing characteristics in that they need to be learnt and fully appreciated. Different sensors certainly yield different results due no doubt to the manufacturer's interpretation of the sensor output data prior to writing it to the RAW file. Whilst there has been an immense amount written about dynamic range, ETTR and exposure, I still find that with digital sensors it can sometimes be difficult to do anything other than place the mid tone where it should be, even if this is at the expense of highlight/shadow detail because the tonality can shift otherwise and sometimes take a great deal of adjustment and even so still produce an inferior file. This does depend on the camera manufacturer and sensor. FWIW I find the files from a Leica M9 to be surprisingly malleable, more so than those from a Sony A7II at times. This is partly due to the tonality and partly due to the characteristics of its noise which whilst there can be relatively unobjectionable. But this needs learning by experience and adopting a workflow which suits both oneself and the camera.

I absolutely believe that photography is a practical operation and you have to have a good understanding of what is going on, apply it and then learn what works best for you. I consider that this applies to both film and digital and I abhor the snapshot mentality which unfortunately all too often accompanies digital. Being individualistic and thus in a minority suits me fine.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

so true pgk