On May 14, 2004, at 3:37 AM, Chris Barker wrote:
> The range of densities recorded on a digital sensor seem to be more
> limited in comparison with film - so the highlights tend to get burned
> out more easily and you have to expose more for them.
Chris, you are right about the highlight problem. The range of
densities is about the same as color slide film and you use a similar
metering technique, but are even more careful with metering. The
digital has the advantage of having more detail in the dark areas. So
if you expose a bit dark to save the highlights you bring up everything
post processing. Some cameras metering systems are set up like that and
people are sometimes disappointed to the image straight out of the
camera until they understand why.
If you miss on the metering though, the highlight blow out is much
uglier on the digital than on film. That is why many cameras show you a
display of blown out highlights before you take your camera home which
coaxes you to reduce exposure and to bring the shadows up later. You
deal with it like you would with transparency film, either with
graduated neutral density filters or exposures for both highlights and
shadows and merging them in Photoshop.
Here is a site by a Nikon guy who has measured the dynamic range for a
number of cameras that use Nikon lenses. He does not show his
calculations here but I have seen more of them in his newsletter. Two
generations ago the D1 was 6+ stops, last generation D100/1X/1H was 7
stops, new generation D2H is 7+, and the innovative Kodak 14N is 8+
stops.
http://www.bythom.com/dslrcomp.htm
>
> I understand that the higher end digital machines do better with the
> range of EIs, but the density range is, as I understand it, still
> limited.
It used to be higher end, but a Canon Digital Rebel or Nikon D70, both
at the bottom of the dslr range, are capable of high ISO settings that
have less noise than the equivalent film has grain, at least if talking
about color film.
Winsor
Long Beach, California
USA
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