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Al Beatty

Dumb Question

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Hi Group,

 

I have a dumb question about dynamic range to ask. I've searched Google and get back info about HDR. I already understand shooting several pics with different exposures to end up with a composite that has no blown out highlights and good shadow detail. My question: "How many f-stops from light to dark does the average CCD (or CMOS) have as compared to the f-stops of slide film?

 

I used to think that the average CCD had about 5 or 6 stops across a single exposure and that slide film had a range of about 7 or 8 stops. In talking with a friend over the weekend he told me the average digital CCD had 9 stops of range from highlight to shadow and didn't know what the range was across slide film. Any ideas? OR do you have any ideas what search words I'd use to find info? Take care & ...

 

Tight Lines - Al Beatty

www.btsflyfishing.com

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Al, you could try "dynamic range sensor transparency" or something like that. In my unscientific and limited experience with digital, high-end sensors seem to have about the same effective range as color slide film, and considerably less than what good old Tri-X or some other B&W films offer. The claim that sensors can capture 8 or 9 stops seems to discount the fact that you'll have to deal with considerable noise in the deep shadows, even with pro-level cameras. It's been my experience that there's not a whole lot of difference between digital capture and color transparency film if it's high-quality images you're after.

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Not sure about the other stuff but with slide film five stops begins to push what the film can handle unless your exposure is right on.

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Bascially what kargen and Peter said.

Some will tell you, you can underexpose by 4 stops and still recover detail in the shadows. Never tried it myself but ya, I can see it maybe being possible. Hence the 8 stop arguements

 

The end result ithough is going to look worse than the puke a rookie cop leaves behind and the gore from his first morotcylce road kill accident scene. As thats what you'll have. A roadkill of an image. Myself I delete anything that misses exposure ( i need to adjust) by more than a 1/3rd, unless its an important "memory" image...Say my kid hitting a HR.

 

Your hisotrgam represents about 5 stops, there are lines or graphs that essentially break it down into zones (stops).

Take a proper exposure that needs 1/100th. Set your body to TV and SS to 1/100th

Take another at 1/50th

Take another at 1/25th

 

Watch the Histogram.

 

After a while you can tell just by looking at the histo and where the recorded data is falling vs the edge ( 0 or 255) if you have room to push it 1/3rd or 1 more stop before clipping starts to occur.

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The end result ithough is going to look worse than the puke a rookie cop leaves behind and the gore from his first morotcylce road kill accident scene.

 

Nice imagery John. You may have missed out on a career as a scriptwriter for Law and Order SVU.

 

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