A: What is the practical manifestation of Dynamic Range of Digital Cameras in the real-world?
In order to properly answer to this question, we need to decompose the main question to 3 separate, more precise questions:
- what is the dynamic range that you can experience with your eyes?
- what is the dynamic range of the camera you are using, and under what conditions?
- what is the dynamic range of the device that is used to reproduce the photography?
Now I understand women... "I have nothing to wear!". I have nothing to take a picture :( Look at this, two bodies, both of them APS-C, no FF :( And lenses? What is that, 50mm, f/1.8, it's not 1.4 :( Helios for swirly bokeh, what if I want a normal bokeh?! Trioplan for bubble bokeh, what if I want creamy bokeh?! :( 2 kit lenses, what are they for? Tele lens, but not a tele-prime lens! Wait, I forgot I have one, but it's not here now. There is also a strange Leica lens, but it's a projector lens. And the worst thing... I have wide angle Samyang but it's not wide zoom. :( And that Pentacon is also 1.8 :'( I'm desperate!
Absolutely nothing to wear :'( from Pixabay
The definition of Dynamic Range
By the definition, dynamic range is the ratio between the maximum and the minimum intensity of light (luminance, cd/m2) that can be measured.
Now the things are getting more complicated because there are 3 ways how this value can be expressed:
- Contrast ratio, for example, 1:1000 for displays
- Density, which is the log10 for contrast, thus 1:1000 = 3
- f-stops, the most common in photography, and it denotes 2n. In other words: contrast ratio 1:1000 = density value of 3 = 10 f-stops = basically the same as EV that is used by dxomark
Human eyes
Keep in mind that what you "feel that you see" is not what you see in "hardware meaning". While you are looking at the world, your eyes and your brain are making constant adjustments. As the consequence of the adjustments of the pupil and overall feeling, it's estimated that the dynamic range we can "feel" about 24 f-stops.
As you will see, 24 f-stops is an astonishing number!
Dynamic range of display devices and printed material
Most of the times, you will see the adverts for various monitors that state: Contrast 1000:1
In some cases, manufacturers will seriously try to make "the blackest black" and the eye poking brightness to boost the numbers, but keeping in mind that there will be some sort of ambient light, those values will drop to about 500:1 or, at best, 1000:1.
Converted to f-stops or EVs, it will be about 10.
This is the reason why dxomark uses the green line for that value.
In a bit poorer conditions, that value will drop to about 250:1, or 8 EVs.
For printed media, it's even worse, because the dynamic range is somewhere between 10:1 at worse, to about 100:1. Converted to EVs, it's somewhere between 5 and 7.
In the case of dxomark, the orange line is set to 8 EV and the red line is set to 6 EV.
In Practice...
So, let's re-evaluate the case again:
- your eyes can see 24 f-stops
- your camera can capture somewhere between 10 and 14 f-stops
- your display can present only about 10 f-stops
- and the photo from your album has 8 f-stops at the very best
As you can see, it's not the camera's fault, your display is bad.
Even if your camera can capture 14 f-stops for example, it means that you will get more freedom to make "dramatic skies" (by cutting the highlights), to "pull out the shadows" (by adjusting shadow/highlights) or you can create "HDR vomit" by lumping all 14 f-stops from camera to 10 f-stops that can be reproduced.
In conclusion: it's good to have high dynamic range capabilities but it's not crutial.
DxOMark
Due to XIX century laws, I can't put the figure, but I can give you the link with that very same figure.
I took 3 flagship cameras:
- Nikon D850, the best from Nikon world
- Sony a7II, because a7III was not tested yet, but they are similar
- Canon 5d Mark IV the worst camera in the world that should be shot by a cannon (if you hate Canon), or the 3 generations better solution than the absolutely perfect 5d Mark I. I'll take 5d Mark II to show you the consequences
As you can see, at basic ISO:
- Nikon is superb, with 14.5 EV
- Sony managed to score 13.5 EV
- Canon is absolutely the worst, only 12 EV
But keep in mind... After 10 EV... It's all up to display. You will see no differences and tone curve will be much, much more important for what you see.
When we set our cameras to ISO 1600 (manufacturers are not the most honest, it's actually about ISO 1100 :D ), the ranking is much different:
- Nikon, 11.6 EV
- Sony, 11 EV
- Canon, 10.75 EV
Now the differences are much smaller and all of them are still perfectly good.
Breaking point No1, 10 EV:
- Nikon, at ISO 6400
- Sony and Canon, at ISO 3200
As you can see, it's only "1 stop" difference between the old Canon, 1000 Eur worth Sony and 3 times more expensive Nikon. Only "one click" of aperture, or only "one click" of exposure.
Breaking point No2, 8 EV
- Nikon at ISO 25600
- Sony and Canon at ISO 12800
Breaking point No3, 6 EV, Never actually occurs?!
In Conclusion:
Take your camera and Have Fun!
Seriously, it's that simple. Love your gear and love your hobby.
Don't worry that your gear is not the newest one
Even the grandpa, 5d Mark I has 10 EV dynamic range at ISO 1600 (measured 1369).
The Best imaginable, D850 has 10 EV at ISO 6400 (measured 4597).
It's only 2 full stops you can spend on aperture or shutter speed?!
As people from Montenegro would say: "in the hands of the hero, every rifle will be deadly"
What do you think about this topic, and what is your favorite camera?
StemQ Notice: This post was originally submitted on StemQ.io, a Q&A application for STEM subjects powered by the Steem blockchain.
Just imagine if cameras can have 24 EV dynamic range by just pressing your shutter button without HDR and image bracketing. You really made great post about it and, most important, you made it really easy to understand for beginners who are just started doing photography! Well done! :)
It would be fantastic, but it would come with a huge cost in memory. 24 EV = 24 bits + several more to achieve at least double sampling + for different channels, let's be generous, 32-bit.
I'm wondering if the software could make them smarter.
During the last decade, incredible progress was made in microscopy, after 100 years of "nothing special" by introducing some techniques that seem to be simple in theory but in practice... Super-resolution by moving the sample for several nm, doughnut-shaped laser pulses, incredibly thin apertures.
To begin, we got 3 new mounts this year. There will be many crazy things in the next 10 years
Great read @alexs1320
In normal daylight photography, the capability to capture high dynamic ranges is a nice to have feature. But there are many more factors that impact the image quality. The part of the camera that has also a very big effect on the quality is the lens.
The dynamic range plays a role if you get in special areas of photography. For me this range is astrophotography. And the dynamic range is very important. The bright stars and the faint nebulas are something that is really hard to handle for a sensor. An also important thing in this dynamic range discussion the way how the data gets digitalized. Beginner cameras offers in most cases only 12 bit sensor read out. The signal can have 4096 different vaues, which is not very much and won't be enough to map the dynamic range, even of this sensors. Most mid-priced and high-priced DSLRs will digitalize with 14bit, if this is set in the settings. So there are 16384 different values possible. The dynamic resolution is 4-times higher than with 12bit. Better are 16 bits, which will only be available in very high-priced cameras and cameras for special use cases.
But long story short... Very much people are shooting in jpeg and are not using the capability of 12 it or 14 bit raw files for postprocessing. In jpeg mode the overall dynamic range of the whole picture is mapped in values between 0 and 255. So for normal user that only want to make snapshots, the dynamic range doesn't matter very much. But it comes into play when you will photograph more professional, in a special field or if you want to get the maximum out of your picture with postprocessing. Then, the more dynamic range the sensor can capture, the better. But always turn on RAW mode with 14 bit and no compression.
Well, that could be the next Q and A :D (astrophotography, 8 vs 12 vs 14 bits, IR photography...)
This is why I really like the idea behind stemQ, it gives people some inspiration and fosters interactions between users
:-)
I’ve never used stemQ before. I just saw your post in steemit. I think I should take a closer look to stemQ tomorrow.
It's about 1 week old
The human eye is an amazing feat of biological engineering.
Having said that, digital cameras have made amazing progress in the last few years.
I remember taking photographs with my first digital camera (Nikon D100) was a real source of frustration.
Now even smartphone cameras are capable of outstanding results under the right conditions.
Thanks for a great article!
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Thank you for a very good answer.
Hi @alexs1320!
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