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camera with high dynamic range ??



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 12th 06, 01:42 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
minnesotti
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Posts: 104
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.

...

  #2  
Old July 12th 06, 02:12 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Hans-Georg Michna
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Posts: 7
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

On 12 Jul 2006 05:42:27 -0700, minnesotti wrote:

I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.


The theory says that CMOS sensors would be best for you, because
they have an incredibly large contrast range up to 6 orders of
magnitude.

I don't know about consumer cameras with CMOS sensors though.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.
  #3  
Old July 12th 06, 02:52 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Paul Saunders
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Posts: 81
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

minnesotti wrote:

I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
with excellent quality.


No, high sensitivity will just give you lots of noise. For quality stick to
the lowest ISO with a long exposure.

I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has
a good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held
it in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not
really that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it.


Sounds like overly-agressive noise reduction. Avoid it.

Besides, I do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say
Panasonic FZ30 or LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired
qualities should have larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor...
which means the lens should be big, too... and I want a pocketable
camera.

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.


You need a camera that can save in RAW mode. You convert the RAW image into
a 16 bit per channel image then you can lighten the shadows to extract the
details you want.

The LX1 is an excellent choice of camera which is both pocketable and has
RAW mode. It also has a very good lens, but is a little noisier than other
cameras. This is probably due to less aggressive noise reduction - you can
always add your own later, but you can't take it away, so arguably it's a
good thing. One disadvantage is that the RAW files are exceedingly large,
16MB per picture, only 52 per 1GB card.

Still a good choice though, if you buy plenty of memory cards to go with it!

Paul


  #4  
Old July 12th 06, 03:00 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Paul Saunders
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Posts: 81
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

John A. Stovall wrote:

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range.


You'll never get it in a p/s.


Yes, you will, any camera with RAW should do that. I measured 10-11 stops
with my G3 a few years ago. The darkest few stops look a bit nasty, but
they're quite acceptable provided you don't lighten the darkest shadows too
much.

You can always take multiple exposures and layer mask them if you want the
best quality.

Paul


  #5  
Old July 12th 06, 03:14 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
[BnH]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 55
Default camera with high dynamic range ??


"Hans-Georg Michna" wrote in message
...

The theory says that CMOS sensors would be best for you, because
they have an incredibly large contrast range up to 6 orders of
magnitude.


--- any URL to support your comment ? I thought CCD is still the way to go
for getting max DR.


  #6  
Old July 12th 06, 08:06 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Alfred Molon
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Posts: 31
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

In article , Hans-Georg
Michna says...

The theory says that CMOS sensors would be best for you, because
they have an incredibly large contrast range up to 6 orders of
magnitude.


That is true only for the non-integrative type, which has a logarithmic
response, but suffers from high noise levels (because you don't
integrate over time - exposure time is basically 0). All other CMOS
sensors which integrate the light over time don't have such a high
dynamic range.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330 and E500 forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/
  #7  
Old July 12th 06, 08:07 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Alfred Molon
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 31
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

In article , John A. Stovall
says...
On 12 Jul 2006 05:42:27 -0700, "minnesotti"
wrote:

I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.


You'll never get it in a p/s. it's even hard with the full frame
Canons with CMOS sensors.

Check the Canon 5D or if you really want to go there the MF backs like
Phase 0ne and such.


Have you tried carrying that cameras in your pockets?
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330 and E500 forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/
  #8  
Old July 13th 06, 06:18 AM posted to rec.photo.digital
Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,818
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

minnesotti wrote:

I would like to buy a compact or pocketable P&S camera. It should have
a high sensitivity, so that I could shoot the night scenes in the city
with excellent quality. I heard that FujiFilm FinePix F10/F11/F30 has a
good CCD sensor allowing to shoot in dark... however, I never held it
in my hands and I read the reviews that its sensitivity is not really
that high, and the image has a "watercolor" quality in it. Besides, I
do not think that its lens is sharp enough as say Panasonic FZ30 or
LX1. I presume that the camera with the desired qualities should have
larger pixels, and thus a larger sensor... which means the lens should
be big, too... and I want a pocketable camera.

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range. I want to shoot both bright sun-lit sceneces and to resolve
details in shadows, in the same picture. Again... I am not aware of
such a camera. Can you advise any ? Thanks.

..

Dynamic range is controlled by how many photons a pixel
can collect and what the read noise is from that pixel.
See:

Procedures for Evaluating Digital Camera
Sensor Noise, Dynamic Range, and Full Well Capacities;
Canon 1D Mark II Analysis
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/evaluation-1d2

The Nikon D50 is he
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...tion-nikon-d50

To get high dynamic range, you need large pixels, which P&S
cameras generally do not have (typically 3 to 6 times less
photons than DSLRs). See tables 1, 2 and 3 at:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...ignal.to.noise
for some data on other cameras. Unfortunately, there is
not yet much data on P&S cameras compared to DSLRs.

Roger
  #9  
Old July 13th 06, 04:01 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
John McWilliams
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Posts: 6,945
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

On 7/13/06 5:35 AM, John A. Stovall wrote:
On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:00:23 +0100, "Paul Saunders"
wrote:

John A. Stovall wrote:

If there is no such camera, then I want a camera with a high dynamic
range.
You'll never get it in a p/s.

Yes, you will, any camera with RAW should do that. I measured 10-11 stops
with my G3 a few years ago. The darkest few stops look a bit nasty, but
they're quite acceptable provided you don't lighten the darkest shadows too
much.

You can always take multiple exposures and layer mask them if you want the
best quality.


Actually you do better to use HDR for multiple exposures.


HDR is not for everyone, as layer masks give much more control.
Also, it's quite possible to get a nice bump in latitude by layering a
few different developments from one RAW file.

--
John McWilliams

ps JS- you sig delimiter has gone missing.
  #10  
Old July 13th 06, 04:37 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Paul Saunders
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 81
Default camera with high dynamic range ??

John A. Stovall wrote:

You can always take multiple exposures and layer mask them if you
want the best quality.


Actually you do better to use HDR for multiple exposures.


Depends. I've tried it both ways and I find layer masking works better for
some kinds of shots, HDR for others, depends on the type of shot and the end
result you want. For a simple sky/land split I find that layer masking
works better, and quicker. I prefer HDR for shots that have a more complex
mix of shadows and highlights, like sun-dappled foliage for example, or
indoor shots with bright lights.

Paul



 




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