Dynamic range of digital and film: new data

Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2

The figure on the pages shows the transfer function of a digital camera
(a Canon 1D Mark II) compared to print file (Kodak Gold 200), slide
film (Fujichrome Velvia), and the relative response of the
Human eye (note the human eye has a much greater dynamic range).
What this plot shows is that the digital camera response function
is similar to print film, but even lower in contrast. The
response of both the digital camera and print film shows lower
contrast than apparent to the human eye (the steeper the rise,
the slope, the greater the contrast). Fujichrome Velvia has
the highest contrast of the 4 systems shown. But also of interest
is the noise. Note that the digital camera points follow a nice
smooth line. The Fujichrome Velvia points follow a trend with
scatter of individual points several times larger than the digital
camera. The print film shows the widest scatter and therefore
has the highest noise. Also of interest is where each curve
flattens out in the lower left corner. Note the Fujichrome
Velvia slide film begins to flatten at about 3000 DN on the
Scene Intensity, and really flattens out just above 1000 DN.
The print film flattens out (and also becomes excessively noisy)
below about 900 DN. But the digital camera keeps going to the
bottom end of the data at 300 DN. To be added: lower values:
the digital camera continues providing good data down to a
few DN! This shows the Canon 1D Mark II has a much higher
dynamic range than either Fujichrome Velvia slide film and
Kodak Gold 200 print film. Kodak Gold 200, in this test,
showed 7 stops of information, Fujichrome Velvia 5 stops,
and the Canon 1D Mark II, over 11 stops of information!

Roger

"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" wrote:

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2

Flipping excellent work! Really lovely.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark)" wrote:

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2

Flipping excellent work! Really lovely.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2

Roger,

This is looking very interesting, and I await the results of the rest of
the work. Could I suggest, though, that the plots be on a log-log rather
than a linear-log basis? I guess that this would make the eye a
straight-line plot., and probably emphasise the dark-region noise of the
Kodak 200 rather. Different contrasts would simply be different slopes of
line rather than forcing you to guess curve shapes...

What do you think?

Cheers,
David

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2

Roger,

This is looking very interesting, and I await the results of the rest of
the work. Could I suggest, though, that the plots be on a log-log rather
than a linear-log basis? I guess that this would make the eye a
straight-line plot., and probably emphasise the dark-region noise of the
Kodak 200 rather. Different contrasts would simply be different slopes of
line rather than forcing you to guess curve shapes...

What do you think?

Cheers,
David

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2

Roger,

This is looking very interesting, and I await the results of the rest of
the work. Could I suggest, though, that the plots be on a log-log rather
than a linear-log basis? I guess that this would make the eye a
straight-line plot., and probably emphasise the dark-region noise of the
Kodak 200 rather. Different contrasts would simply be different slopes of
line rather than forcing you to guess curve shapes...

What do you think?

Cheers,
David

David J Taylor wrote:

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2


Roger,

This is looking very interesting, and I await the results of the rest of
the work. Could I suggest, though, that the plots be on a log-log rather
than a linear-log basis? I guess that this would make the eye a
straight-line plot., and probably emphasise the dark-region noise of the
Kodak 200 rather. Different contrasts would simply be different slopes of
line rather than forcing you to guess curve shapes...

What do you think?

Yes, I'll include log-log. Both plots are useful and separate the
curves in different regions.

Roger

David J Taylor wrote:

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2


Roger,

This is looking very interesting, and I await the results of the rest of
the work. Could I suggest, though, that the plots be on a log-log rather
than a linear-log basis? I guess that this would make the eye a
straight-line plot., and probably emphasise the dark-region noise of the
Kodak 200 rather. Different contrasts would simply be different slopes of
line rather than forcing you to guess curve shapes...

What do you think?

Yes, I'll include log-log. Both plots are useful and separate the
curves in different regions.

Roger

David J Taylor wrote:

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

Hi.

I've been running tests and have some interesting new plots
of film and digital dynamic range. This is the first of about
10 graphs on this page, but I though I would share it for comments
while I built the rest of the page. See:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/dynamicrange2


Roger,

This is looking very interesting, and I await the results of the rest of
the work. Could I suggest, though, that the plots be on a log-log rather
than a linear-log basis? I guess that this would make the eye a
straight-line plot., and probably emphasise the dark-region noise of the
Kodak 200 rather. Different contrasts would simply be different slopes of
line rather than forcing you to guess curve shapes...

What do you think?

Yes, I'll include log-log. Both plots are useful and separate the
curves in different regions.

Roger

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
[]
Yes, I'll include log-log. Both plots are useful and separate the
curves in different regions.

Roger

Thanks, Roger. David